At this point, Kaep is Captain America.
Days before this country celebrates its birthday, Colin Kaepernick is once again doing everything he can to save America from itself.
Kaepernick stepped in to shut down Nike’s idea of releasing the Air Max 1 USA this week to commemorate the Fourth of July, as the heel of the shoe featured the Betsy Ross flag.
And given that the flag has been adopted by a number of white nationalist groups, and symbolizes an era in our history, the 1770s, when American was being “made great” by the work of slaves, this idea was a bad one from its inception.
“Nike has chosen not to release the Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July as it featured the old version of the American flag,” a Nike spokeswoman was quoted as saying.
The Betsy Ross Flag only includes the 13 original colonies and was one of the many early versions of the flag before the stars and stripes were added to represent all 50 states.
In 2016, the NAACP had to comment on a situation that took place in Grand Rapids, Michigan when the superintendent of the school district had to apologize for students who had the Betsey Ross flag, along with a Donald Trump “Make American Great Again” Flag, at a high school football game.
“From Pennsylvania to Missouri, and other states and parts of Michigan, the ‘Field of Play’ activities that should be the home of sportsmanship have become home to racial taunts such as blackface, displays of nooses and now supposedly covert actions,” said NAACP Greater Grand Rapids Branch President Cle J. Jackson at the time in a statement.
“Celebrating flags co-opted by exclusionary movements, held next to political banners of a presidential candidate who has offended people of color and immigrants, and accompanied by chants of ‘Go home’ by some students at a majority White school to players at a predominantly African-American school are not coincidences by unaware students. They are intentional actions of intimidation and rooted in no agenda other than to insult, to injure, and to incite.”
“In the current sociopolitical environment, we are not surprised by such activities,” Jackson continued. “At the same time, in keeping with our mission, we are not silent in the face of intimidation whether at the ballot box or the ballgame. We applaud our community, especially our young people — of all races — who did not react in any way expected. As we’ve always done, we stood our ground, and played our own game.”
Given that Kaepernick is under contract with Nike and was the face of the company’s 30thanniversary “Just Dot It” campaign, which reportedly led to higher sales worth $6 billion, you can understand how he has attained the power to tell a company on the level of Nike’s to “chill.”
However, that’s not what Nike is paying him for.
But once again, Colin Kaepernick has done something he didn’t have to for the sake of others. Proving once again, that he’s one of the reasons, and people, we should be celebrating during this week of independence.
