http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/feature/sweatshops/pieces.html
Third Force
July/August 1997
Missing Pieces:
How the Nike Campaign Fails to Engage African-Americans
by Nick Alexander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In the summer of 1996 Kathie Lee Gifford learned something
that it made her cry on national television. The talk show
celebrity discovered that while she was busy worrying about
the health and well-being of children in Latin America, her
own line of clothing was being sewn under sweatshop
conditions just a few blocks from her studio. Children were
playing in her dusty, dimly lit factories while their
parents worked all day for less than the minimum wage.
Advocates for better working conditions suggested publicly
that if Gifford was so worried about children she might want
to pay her workers enough to live on. Embarrassed and
ashamed, Gifford sent her husband rushing over to the
factory with his pockets full of cash to hand out to
workers, and promised to pay better attention to how she
made her money. "I had no idea," she sobbed. "How could
anyone think that I don't care about kids?"
Companies that produce clothing and other products under
sweashop conditions are buckling under public scrutiny as
never before. The Gap clothing conglomerate has been the
target of a successful campaign to allow independent
monitoring of conditions in its subcontractors' factories in
El Salvador; labor activists are going after Walt Disney Co.
for the meager wages it pays Haitian workers making
Pocahontas pajamas; and Asian American activists have forced
millionare fashion designer Jessica McClintock to accept
some responsibility for subcontracted workers sewing
McClintock's frilly dresses.
It's not all victories for anti-sweatshop activists,
however. Nobody has figured out how to make Nike break down
and cry. And the reason is that nobody has engaged African
Americans in the fight.
Won't You Take Me To Niketown?
Pat the cable-car turnaround, up the street where the
sellers of incense and religion hawk their products, down
the block from the open-air sidewalk chess game challenges,
several thousand people wait in line under the weak morning
sun. It's the grand opening of Niketown San Francisco, a
two-floor footwear extravaganza. Nike employees work the
line, handing out Nike dog tags and postcards, exhorting the
crowd to spend big when they get inside. Most of the
employees, like most of the people waiting impatiently in
line, are people of color. The white folks are a few yards
away, standing behind the police barricades. They are here
to protest Nike's labor practices in Vietnam and Indonesia.
As the doors open, the protestors begin to shout "Don't
support wage slavery!" and "Michael Jordan is a whore!"
It all makes for great TV, and the demonstrators (organized
by human rights group Global Exchange) are pleased that they
are able to publicly shame Nike by getting media coverage of
their demonstration. "The number-one problem is that [Nike]
is paying its workers too little," says Global Exchange
director Medea Benjamin.
Send the Money to the Workers
On the other hand, the protesters were less successful at
convincing Nike customers not to patronize the store. Of the
estimated 10,000 people who visited Niketown on the opening
day, only a family of three was reportedly convinced not to
go in. Although in interviews many shoppers expressed the
opinion that Nike is wrong to use sweatshop labor to make
its sneakers, most felt the demonstration was not the right
way to go about making the point.
African American student Ben Mulholland told Third Force
that foreign governments should take responsibility for
labor and human rights abuses within their borders, and that
Nike was just one of many corporations taking advantage of
cheap foreign labor. "I know it's wrong, but it doesn't make
sense [for demonstrators] to come here and yell at
customers." Another Nike customer, A. Lopez, said "I think
there are better things the protesters could be doing" -
like sending workers money.
Like Mulholland and Lopez, many African American activists
believe that a successful campaign against Nike is going to
require a strategy different from the ones used on other
corporations because Nike's public image is closely
identified with the African American community. Superstar
athletes and entertainers like Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey
Jr., Spike Lee Tiger Woods promote Nike products, and
Nike-wearing Black youth set the style for their generation.
Says Bay Area activist Jay George, 24, member of the Rising
Youth for Social Equality, a direct-action organization
active in communities of color: "Since the mid-'80s Nike has
been right behind the cutting edge of African American
street culture, pulling it in and wrapping itself in it."
George, who is also the co-founder of The Underground
Railroad, a youth-oriented cultural production company,
contends that Nike's "Just Do It" slogan is a street
concept. "Just do that shi. Fuck it, don't even think about
it - just be about it. They took that street concept and...
said this is what we are all about. All of the mass media
has done this at some level, but Nike was out in front," he
says.
So when protesters challenge Nike, they have to be careful
not to come off as challenging African Americans who
identify with their company. Phil Hutchings, a leader of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, says
that anti-Nike activists are making a big mistake when they
ignore racial dynamics. "Protestors can't just show up at a
store and yell at people. They have to take into account
that some people are less concerned about the Third World
tahn they are with what is happening in the U.S."
According the the Rev. Robert Jeffrey of the Seattle-based
Black Dollars Day Task Force, a group that combines direct
action tactics with economic development strategies: "If
solidarity activists were to go after the African American
community and see it as the main constituent of their
campaign, they would have to explicitly link the community's
concerns with those of workers in Asia. [African Americans]
are outraged by foreign sweatshops, but the issue of
economic injustice is so overwhelmingly pressing that the
struggle for African American economic inclusion has to be
inlcuded in any work we do."
"It's very difficult to ask African Americans in this day
and age, especially poor young people who are struggling for
survival, to kick back and have this global perspective,
just because it is morally or politically right," says
George. "People who are fighting to keep food, shelter and
clothing a constant in their lives are not going to want to
hear about organizing for some other people because it is
the right thing to do. It has to be like `How is this going
to help me get my needs met?'"
Linking Struggles, Mobilizing Youth
A successful campaign would have "to ideologically and
practically link up with the African American struggle for
economic, social and political self-determination in this
country," George says. African American attitudes toward
Nike are the company's Achilles' heel, he adds. If Blacks -
especially youth - were effectively mobilized to pressure
Nike, the results could be significant.
George argues that the campaign needs to go after African
American athletes and entertainers because what affects
Black youth is not the tennis shoes, but who they see
wearing those shoes. "They represent kids who went from
nothing to [superstar status]. Jordan's making $20 million a
year from Nike. He's superballing. What he does is all
right. The new [Air] Jordans are ugly as sin, but it doesn't
matter because they are Jordans. They got that little dunk
man on them, and they got the Nike logo. That's ghetto chic.
Everybody wants to be like Mike. Everybody wants to be like
Shaquille O'Neal. Everybody wants to be like that because
this is a completely materialistic society. When you see
people having that much pull economically it's like `If I
could just get his shoes, if I can approach that, maybe some
of that will rub off on me.'"
Nike knows this very, very well. The company's ads play on
themes of racial equailty. They invoke Martin Luther King
Jr., Jackie Robinson and Nelson Mandela. Nike's latest
commercial, featuring its newest poster child, Tiger Woods,
comes out against segregated country clubs. And after public
criticism of its labor practices early this year, the
company eagerly fired off a news release in February
announcing that Andrew Young, the former crusading U.N.
ambassador and outspoken civil rights leader, would review
the company's recently updated international labor code of
conduct. When Michael Jordan was asked about accusations
that Nike expoits workers in Southeast Asia, Jordan replied
that he wasn't aware of the issue. "My job is to endorse the
product," he said. "Nike's job is to be up on that."
Can Organizing Beat Advertising?
Is a mobilization in the Black community against Nike too
much to hope for, given the tremendous power of advertising
targeting youth? Some observers say that protesters like
those outside Niketown underestimated the loyalty African
American communities have toward Nike and its poster stars.
Political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of The
Assasination of the Black Male Image, argues that "there's a
sense of pride, of belonging, of self-esteem, of recognition
by peers that goes into the direct marketing of these
products.
"Let's face it," he told Third Force, "young African
American males are so marginalized, so demeaned, and so
devalued, and here you've got a corporation that's saying,
`Hey, we not only value your dollar, but we also value you
as a person.' That is going to have a psychic appeal. Nike's
been clever enough about doing that."
Adolf Reed, a columnist for The Progressive, is even more
pessimistic about turning the Black community against Nike.
"We have a youth movement that collapses so completely into
adolescent consumption that the movement's adherents ofen
seem incapable of recognizing any other notion of politics,"
he wrote.
Wearing symbols of status and affluence is important for
low-income and disenfranchised people, says Underground
Railroad activist Tina Bartolome. "You won't have trouble
reaching people who recognize the government is messed up,
but when it comes to what you wear - and Nike especially -
people draw the line. They say, "We really can't give that
up. It's my individuality. I need to wear this gear because
it's fresh."
She argues that buying labels like Nike numbs the pain of
racism and oppression, and short-circuits the search for
identity. "Living in this country, you are told that...
[material goods] will give you whatever self-worth or image
that you don't have because it was either stolen from you or
denied you through your education. It's almost like you have
an empty soul. That's what's plaguing youth today and
[preventing them] from mobilizing. It's almost like an
addiction."
Bartolome is also incensed with ads aimed at winning the
loyalty of women. Nike's "If You Let Me Play" ad shows the
cheerless girls speaking in monotone, urging the viewer to
let them play sports. If the answer is yes, they say, they
will be less likely to get depressed, be abused or have an
unwanted pregnancy. "It's like [Nike] is trying to
capitalize on our internalized oppression," she says,
pointing out the hypocrisy of Nike advocating for women's
rights in the United States while exploiting women workers
in Indonesia.
Finding the Right Approach
Putting aside the issue of how advertising affects youth
attitudes, some organizers argue that, with the right
approach and leadership, a campaign to force Nike to improve
its labor practices and invest in low-income communities of
color holds promise. Among other things, says Phil
Hutchings, activists need to talk with African Americans
about how companies' setting up factories overseas is linked
to people being stripped of their employment opportunities
in the United States.
"We need to show how Nike pulls money out of Asian workers
and the Black community and uses it to benefit the rich
white people at the top," Jeffrey says. In fact, at least
one Nike celebrity salesperson has come out and done just
that. Protestors at the San Francisco demonstration carried
a sign with a picture of Washington Bullets forward Chris
Webber with a quote saying he was severing ties with Nike.
Demonstrators failed, however, to highlight why he was not
negotiating a new contract with the company.
In fact, Webber disagrees with Nike's strategy of targeting
inner-city youths. Echoing sentiments that resonate strongly
among parents and grandparents in communities of color,
Webber has said that he does not like the idea that the
shoes could create violence between the kids who had them
and the kids who could not afford them. Webber complained
that Nike was charging a whopping $140 for a pair of "CWebb"
sneakers while the shoes cost less than $5 a pair to make
overseas.
Meanwhile, activists with Global Exchange admit they are
concerned with the way their demonstration was received.
That concern has led to efforts to create a new position
within the organization to work on anticorporate campaigns.
That person would be charged with doing outreach to various
communities, including training young people to educate and
recruit at inner-city schools.
"As a 45-year-old white woman, I'm obviously not going to
have the same effect as a young person of color who can
speak to their peers as a colleague," says Global Exchange's
Medea Benjamin. She admits that some of the protesters -
although not those from Global Exchange - seemed more
interested in blasting consumers than targeting Nike.
George adds that for the campaign to get off the ground,
youth of color must share power equally with older
activists. "You can't just come to young people with the
campaign laid out and say, `We want you to be on board.'
Young people have to be part of defining the campaign from
the beginning."
PUSH Has No Pull
Activists eager to take on Nike shouldn't expect much help
from the civil rights establishment, George says. He
contends that the big civil rights groups are suffering from
a generation gap that has left them with few connections to
the Black community and African American youth in
particular. During the Reagan years, "These larger
established community institutions were on their own shit,
and youth have been left to their own devices ever since,"
George says. "Out of this you have the expansion of
inner-city gangs because it's like `we got to do it for
ourselves `cause nobody else is there to do for us.' There
are few institutions at this point who have any sort of
pull, especially with the young cats.
"If you are talking about getting Farrakhan involved, then
you can move a lot of [young] Black people. If you are
talking about getting the NAACP involved, then you might be
able to get some older, middle-class African Americans, but
if you are taking about the real grassroots - poor,
working-class kids - I don't think [the civil rights
establishment] can do it."
Although Operation PUSH, founded be Jesse Jackson in the
1970s following his split from the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, did at one time target Nike, the
demand was for integration, not investment in Black
communities or better working conditions for manufacturing
employees. PUSH convinced the corporation to set the goals
of naming a person of color to the board of directors and
bringing one to the rank of vice president. Nike suddenly
saw the need to establish interships in conjunction with the
United Negro College Fund and to name a full-time director
of "minority" recruiting. these moves helped quash a
threatened boycott.
Says Phil Hutchings, formerly of SNCC: "Nike can always say
to those organizations, `Hey, we will hire more Black people
in our stores. We will even create more franchises.' That's
usually what Jesse Jackson and Operation PUSH [and others]
have demanded: We want more Black managers and Black
employees in your corporations."
Making the Connection
This campaign made a lot of sense in an era in which
integration was a radical. But in the 1990s, say many
activists, more sophisticated campaigns with a sharper focus
on class issues are required. Despite significant advances
by people of color into management, corporate withdrawal
from central cities and job flight to low-wage areas of the
world have left many communities of color in terrible
economic shape.
To garner significant support from communities of color,
corporate campaigns need to make connections between Nike's
overseas operations and conditions here at home. "You make
an internation connection with something that has to be
domestically formulated," says Hutchings. "You lead with a
domestic focus based on the problems of your constituency
that Nike has a lock on here at home, which is youth."
Jeffrey, meanwhile, feels that the activist demands should
be broadened to include a "domestic monitoring agreement"
designed to force Nike to guarantee a living wage for
overseas workers and to return some of its profits to
low-income communities of color in the United States.
Despite all the basketball tournaments and sumer camps Nike
sponsors, wht it actually gives to the community is a
pittance of its $2.5 billion annual income. "It's all in the
percentages," Jeffrey says.
---
Third Force
September/October 1997
Letter to the Editor of Third Force
I am the organizer who was hired for the Nike campaign at
Global Exchange and would like to respond to Nick
Alexander's analysis in "Missing Pieces: How the Nike
Campaign fails to engate African Americans."
Alexander is right - social justice campaingns are
marginalized unless they are inclusive of people of color.
However, Nike's annual 600 million advertising budget
targets two main groups: inner-city youth and women of all
races, not just African Americans. Therefore, the key to a
successful campaign is educating all communities impacted by
Nike.
The value of one's "image" is created by our consumer
culture but tweaked by Nike's manipulative rhetoric. L.A.
Times reported in Crenshaw (7/26/97), a billboard went up in
the community saying, "To Hell with Moral Victories." The
slogan shoed a black fist with sports victory rings on,
insinuating that athletic battles are the only ones worth
fighting. The message is clear - combating racism, fighting
for community economic development and supporting the rights
and dignity of workers abroad has no place in Nike's world.
Not to mention, these are battles that affect all people of
color.
Globalization now threatens the livelihood of working people
around the world. Corporations now have more money and more
influence on foreign policy than most of the countries in
the southern hemisphere in the world. the labor force
supporting these types of corporations are primarily women
who come from Haiti, El Salvador, Mexico, Indonesia, China,
Vietnam, etc. - countries whose descendants make up the
diverse communities of our American cities.
We need to educate young people about the detrimental
effects of corporate greed on the environment, wages,
working conditions in third world countries. As consumers
and future workers, young people (who consume the swoosh
regularly) have the power to pressure Nike to abide by
humane labor practices.
The success of the campaign comes from asking the question:
should Nike be allowed to lower human rights standards for
the sole purpose of maximizing profits?
This question has already been answered by a myriad of
people: UC Irvine's Vietnamese American Coalition unleashed
a year of Nike awareness activities; USSA, the United States
Student Association, passed a resolution condemning Nike
(thanks to the lobbying efforts of the National People of
Color Student Caucus); NOW, the National Organization of
Women, passed a conference resolution condemning Nike last
year; Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip highlights
Nike's abuses in over 1,200 newspapers across the country;
Nike shareholders have repeatedly tried to pass a resolution
that would institute independent monitoring and a livable
wage for factory workers overseas; and finally there are
hundreds of concerned individuals like Ceirin Connolly (age
12) from Gloria Davis Middle School in Bayview, who came up
with the idea of doing a letter-writing campaign to Michael
Jordan, asking him to do the right thing.
People are taking a stand, and I welcome anyone who wants to
help make presentations in schools or wants to protest on
October 18th for International Nike Awareness Day. For
information, call me at 415-255-7296 or e-mail at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sincereley,
Kimberly Miyoshi
Corporate Accountability Organizer - Global Exchange
---
This feature produced by Corporate Watch and Sweatshop Watch.
-30-
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