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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1990)
September 12, 1990 The Portland O bserver- Page 5 OPINION 999 Learning to L ove W ith o u t C o n d itio n s GUEST COLUMN - THE NIKE CONTROVERSY CONTINUES is Pushing Progress for Minorities BY PHILIP KNIGHT GUEST COLUMNIST________ BEAVERTON, OR.-The company that became Nike started 25 years ago as a pertnership be tween my track coach and myself. We each put in $500 in capital, and my mother’s laundry room was our first warehouse. Philip Knight is In 25 years chairman/ we have made a ton president o f of mistakes, but Nike Inc. overall, we are enormously proud of what has been accomplished. This in cludes the area of minority relations. Each year for the past four years, every manager at Nike has received a letter from me outlining our affirmative action programs and our corporate commitment to cultural diversity. In 1987-88, we made slow but steady prog ress. Slow, because we were laying off employees, not hiring. Steady, because our employees share the goal of sustain ing Nike’s open, untraditional environ ment. In the past two years, our business has grown substantially and so has our minority recruiting and hiring. Since January of this year, Nike has hired more than 1,039 new employees, 21% of them minorities. In total, our domestic workforce is 14.4% minority. In Port land, where most of our employees live, we have a 7% available minority workforce and we employ 10% minor ity- The two highest-paid people at Nike are not its white chairman and president, but black endorsees named Michael and Bo. They earned that rank ing. Three-qurters of our $10 million philanthropic donations go to minority organizations. What are we going to do next? Last week we announced: •Within one year, we will have a mi nority member on the board of directors. •Within 24 months, we will have a minority vice president. •We will have a 10% increase in mi nority department heads. •We will hold at least the 21% mi nority level in the next 1,000 employees we hire. •Our progress will be monitored by an independent board of three minori- tiesto be named before the middle of September and to report to us on a six- month basis. We have not announced any goals for black-owned banks, law firms or insurance firms. All are welcome if they earn the business. Every 1% of market share in this industry is worth $50 million in revenue. Balancing an aggressive affirmative ac tion program with the daily competitive needs of an industry that changes with enormous speed is a real challenge. It is, however, what 1 am paid to do. I believe we have made real prog ress in the past few years, out we can do better. And we will. NIKE’s Minority Hiring Practices To Be Debated Next Sunday On August eleventh, Operation PUSH ambushed NIKE with a barrage of charges: not hiring enough blacks; too few blacks in management and board positions; too much overseas production; not contracting with enough black businesses. NIKE reacted by challenging PUSH’S motives,citing $6000 in advertising purchased by NIKEcompctitorREEBOKinPUSH’s magazine. NIKE also defended its minority hiring practices and civic involvement-and promised to do m ore-but refused to release actual employment data. The debate raises larger issues that affect all businesses: What responsibility do companies have to hire minorities? Do they have a GREATER duty if more of their customers arc minorities? Arc there different standards for companies based in areas with small minority populations? Are people who buy a company s products investors , as PUSH labels NIKE buyers, or merely “ customers” ? Do companies owe more to the community or their bottom line? White males hold 95% of the top management jobs in the U.S.,and the percent of minorities in those jobs has changed little in the last decade. Why are so few minorities in upper management positions at major companies? How do NIKE’s hiring practices compare with other local companies? Is a boycott an appropriate solution to the problem ol minority hiring and ad vancement? What do YOU think? Join host Jack Faust, PUSH director Tyrone Crider and other guests for this timely debate on Sunday, September sixteenth from 6-7 p.m. LOOKING FOR THE BEST HOMEBUYING VALUE? loving the person must the same, but the reality is that the situation is dead-end. People damage themselves emotionally by cutting off this love, rather abruptly in some cases, when it is the very thing that brings them great jo y . People only create greater pain for themselves when they shut down their feelings and this alone can make a person cold, aloof, and cut them off from future opportunities. Do not make the mistake of building a wall around your heart. Remember the rela tionship for what was. It is important to note that before a human being can give unconditional love, they must love and care for themselves unconditionally. Loving ones self can only enhance another persons love for you. In many cases, human beings are products of the mixed-up conditions that their parents placed on love. Be it con scious or not, most parents place condi tions on love and this ultimately affect peoples attitude toward love in the fu ture. Parents should not use love as a technique to control a child’s behavior because they internalize it. For example, I love you when you’re good and not when you’re bad. In my opinion, this teaches children, who then become adults, to love themselves conditionally. People must realize that they do not have to live up to a certain standard to be considered good because it is human nature. We all have good hearts, but the emotional scars and past baggage get in the way. Unconditional love is naturally available to everyone, especially during the early periods of a relationship. If people can cope with the everyday drama associated with life like family, work responsibilities, racism, and still com municate enough to meet each others needs-then I say that there is a great chance for unconditional love. Outside factors have a negative way of eroding the communications process. It is tough to do during pain, doubt, and dark mo ments, but people need to stay focused. Remember, unconditional love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two people to produce together har mony in which each can be, spontane ously express his/her real self; to pro duce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far superior to what could be achieved alone... love and the other side is afraid. Whether people accept it or not, the heart functions unconditionally when it ntimate relationships offer comes to love. The heart can reach out, I a promise of healing, for touch, understand, share, and let others they have potential to free get close. The heart can also be moved ___ up the flow of unconditional by individual acts of kindness and the love to those parts of us that heart knows the type of human being that are wounded, cutoff, or deprived of car makes it feel good. Despite our desire to ing...” maintain a safe distance or play it cool, John Welwood, “ Challenge of the ______ ______ the heart has a way Heart’ ’ _ — __________ of exposing a per Deep down son’s coolness or There are hundreds of inside of everyone, desire to not get there is a very strong elements that can pre overly involved. It need to be loved by vent someone from lov is my belief that someone without ing unconditionally and once you allow a conditions or emo each individual needs to person to crack the tional restriction barriers or walls despite our fears. check his or her reasons around your heart, There is no greater for holding back this you will be for feeling in the world love. If a person never ever affected by than moving beyond progresses beyond lov that individual personal judgements even if the rela ing someone without and opening ones tionship is no heart to another conditions, then they will more. Love has human being. Un never know the full ex reasons we have conditional love has tent to which someone yet to discover as the power to knock can love them, support lovers, psycholo down the strongest gist, or scholars. their goals and aspira walls and greatest It (love) is beyond barriers. There are tions, or grow together. logic and reason. places inside the ______________ ™ It simply is. I’m heart that love can melt like a glacier on a warm spring day most confident that each of us can name if people allowed themselves to feel. a few “ unconditional loves” that got Can you recall the feeling you had when away and still affect our lives in a posi someone in our family gave birth and tive way. I can. Now, why is it that human beings you saw the child for the first time? That’s unconditional love. You, more have conditions or restrictions as to how than likely, melted when you saw the much they can love somebody? Condi child and you felt warm all over. Yet in tions evolve because of values, morals, relationships, people have a tendency to lifestyles, attitudes, needs, sexual orien emotionally withdraw or restricted the tation, emotional/psychological needs, flow of these feelings or positive vibra fears, beliefs, and dislikes. There are tions they might receive from another hundreds of elements that can prevent person. People start to question their someone from loving unconditionally feelings, re-live pst pains, hurt, and and each individual needs to check his or unpleasant memories from old relation her reasons for holding back this love. If ships. Will he or she hurt me?: Is he or a person never progresses beyond loving she for real? Can I trust him or her? Will someone without conditions, then they we fulfill each others needs or meet each will never know the full extent to which others expectations? There are all types someone can love them, support their of little questions that pop into the hu goals and aspirations, or grow together. man mind when they progress to the On the other hand, people shouldn ’ t give edge of intimacy or loving without con unconditional love when nothing is there ditions. The “ tug of war” between lov in return. 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