I wrote this a couple years ago. At the time, Colin Kaepernick had convinced Nike to cancel a shoe featuring the “Betsy Ross” flag. That was 2019. Surely you’d thin that Kaepernick smartened up, but he doubled down in 2020 calling July 4th a celebration of White Supremacy. Outrageous. So outrageous it requires our attention and the popping off a few fireworks to drown out the noise of those who seek only to tear down our nation and its values.
July Fourth — Independence Day — is a day when we can celebrate everything great about our country. We can put aside our differences and revel in the fact that, despite any troubles, ours is the best country on earth. We can celebrate the success of our national experiment with, as John Adams suggested, “Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations.”
This year, Colin Kaepernick and Nike, decided to ruin the party. Nike’s plan to release a shoe with the “Betsy Ross” flag — the one with a circle of stars considered our country’s first — was nixed by their controversial spokesman because he thinks that it represents racism.
After a couple days letting that outrageous sentiment stew, liberals like Julian Castro and Beto O’Rourke — presidential candidates desperately seeking to claw their way up to mid-single digits in national polls — came to the rescue of Nike and Kaepernick by pointing out that white nationalist groups have used the flag meaning to harken back to a time when slavery was legal in America.
What a stunning and disappointing development. Two presidential candidates, a massive corporation and a failed NFL quarterback are leading their significant number of followers to defeat.
The power they bestow upon white nationalists leaves no other alternative.
If white nationalists can use a flag and render it racist, why not use the current, 50-star version?
Why not wave a flag of Kaepernick’s former team, the San Francisco 49ers rendering their logo as a device of hatred?
Why not appropriate the Democratic “donkey” logo and force Julian and Beto to spend their time and resources in order to rally under a new, non-racist symbol?
Why not make Nike the official uniform sponsor of their organization, “swooshing” themselves from head to toe?
Could white nationalists do for American consumers what terrible child labor conditions couldn’t, freeing us from our dependence on Nike branded sneakers and apparel? Probably not. My guess is that Nike would be more ambivalent about the influence of white nationalists if it is the swoosh that they appropriate.
In fact, Nike would likely respond absolutely correctly to such a situation. There are, really, just two proper ways to respond if we think that white nationalists have appropriated a symbol. We can ignore it, extinguishing their hate by not giving it the oxygen of our attention. We can also appropriate the symbol in reverse. I might suggest putting it on a shoe that freedom-loving, diversity-cherishing consumers will buy and wear with pride. That will show them.
We need to go deeper than the 13-star flag, though. This incident with Nike and Kaepernick needs to be a wake-up call that the historical culture war cannot be won. We started by tearing down the confederate battle flag, but the statues were still up supposedly inciting racists. Then statues came down, building names changed, the Democrats stopped hosting Jefferson-Jackson dinners. But still the racists persisted. Now, the 13-star flag is irreparably damaged, but the white nationalists still stand.
The symbols are not the problem. Being ignorant about history and trying to erase images that make anyone feel uncomfortable is the problem — because it’s an unwinnable fight.
Slavery was untenable from the moment of our nation’s founding and the leaders of our country wrestled with it nearly from the start. Over the course of 90 years the battle waged in court, in Congress, and among the states ending with a four year war to settle the question once and for all. More recent generations have grappled with leveling the playing field which for so long tilted against people of color. The Jim Crow era was ghastly. And white nationalists today are bad characters who deserve our ire.
But our country isn’t racist. The founders did a stunning job birthing a new country imbued with independence in the name of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution is the greatest governing document in human history. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died to end slavery. Our country has a proud tradition of upward trajectory — from economics to civil rights. We elected an African American president. When white nationalists recently sought to protest in Dayton, Ohio, they were outnumbered by anti-white nationalist protestors. As it should be.
Our shared American story is nuanced, and there’s no way to erase the bad. We should learn from the bad. We should commit to continued cultural evolution. We should try each day to get closer to living the ideals of our nation. As for the good — we should celebrate it. Whether with Adams’ suggested “shews” or, even, shoes — and put the divisiveness aside.
Just do it.
