I will never
buy Nike anything for the rest of my life.
I wish more
would join me. But sadly, the shoe company is doing better business since
hiring Colin Kaepernick, the former football player who was one of the first to
take a knee during the national anthem. Remarkably, Nike hired him as the face
of an advertising campaign.
This week
Kaepernick told his boss their new shoe design, which displays the US flag with
13 white stars on it, was offensive and symbolized an era of slavery. It’s also
known as the Betsy Ross flag, named after its creator. Nike promptly pulled
thousands of shoes set for delivery on July 4th.
Others have
balked at the first American flag. A few years ago a Michigan school
superintendent apologized when the Betsy Ross flag appeared at a local football
game. He said it was a symbol of white supremacy.
I think both
Kaepernick and the superintendent have lots of time to look under every rock
for something that offends them.
For me the
flag is deeply personal. My family fled Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th
century so future generations could experience freedom. I owe my
great-grandfather for the privilege of being an American. Others obviously do
not feel that pride. You can put companies like Nike in that category.
A side note: Almost all Nike shoes are
manufactured outside of the United States.
Here’s an
idea…Maybe Colin Kaepernick can become the supervisor of on-site production.
It's almost like your ancestors and African Americans ancestors were given a much different version of "freedom" when they got here?
ReplyDeleteWell, it makes sense. The Founding Father's were cowards who only wanted freedom for the white land owner. They had many opportunities to change this but ultimately, their cowardice reigned supreme. We should not be promoting that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteGood job trying to be divisive again!
It seems that some people want to ban all historic symbols because of some injustice that was occurring at the time. No, America has not always been perfect, but compared to the rest of the world, it has always been superior. What ever time period you look at. If you look at the rest of the world in 1776, what would you find?
ReplyDeleteWhat does it accomplish to erase all symbols of our history? Does that make the bad stuff disappear? No, it just makes some snowflake feel better.
There is an old saying that goes something like this...
Those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it.