persona non grata pər-ˈsō-nə-ˌnän-ˈgra-tə , -ˈgrä- noun
1. a person who for some reason is not wanted or welcome
2. a diplomat who is unacceptable to the government where assigned
_________
The term persona non grata has appeared in 30 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 26 in “Nike Nearly Dropped Colin Kaepernick Before Embracing Him” by Julie Creswell, Kevin Draper and Sapna Maheshwari:
Kaepernick ignited a national discourse in 2016 when he began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before games to protest racism, social inequality and police brutality. He left the 49ers after the 2016 season and became a free agent, but executives throughout the N.F.L. considered him radioactive because of his on-field protests, which drew vocal criticism from President Trump, and no team signed him.
That left Nike’s sports marketing group flummoxed. There seemed to be little they could do with a lightning-rod professional football player who was not playing football.
… So when Wieden & Kennedy, Nike’s ad agency for more than three decades, urged the company earlier this year to make the N.F.L.’s ultimate persona non grata the face of its “Just Do It” 30th anniversary campaign, Nike had to weigh the potential repercussions.
_________
