Principled Perspectives: Nike Shamefully Turns it’s Back on Americanism

Sunday, July 7, 2019

Nike Shamefully Turns it’s Back on Americanism

Just prior to the Fourth of July, the national holiday was marred by the actions of a great American company, Nike. With a chance to defend America’s core principles, Nike caved to pressure to remove its sneaker line celebrating America’s Founding era because it featured America’s original flag. The Betsy Ross Flag features the 13 red and white stripes representing the original 13 colonies that collectively declared independence from England, and 13 stars organized in a circle, one for each state that then existed. Nike’s pulling of its Independence Day sneaker line is an act of corporate ignorance and cowardice.

According to Bloomberg, the flag symbol offended some people, including Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick:

The design recently has taken another meaning for some Americans as far-right groups have claimed it as a symbol of their cause. It has also been criticized as evocative of an era when slavery was still predominant in the U.S.

And Newsweek reported:

Kaepernick reportedly told Nike he and others found the symbol offensive due to its connection to the United States' slavery era, according to The Wall Street Journal, who first reported the story Tuesday.

Really? The Abolitionist movement is also connected to the slavery era. Should we repudiate all of the brave people who fought--ultimately successfully--to end slavery, including Abolitionist leaders like Frederick Douglass?

The Ross Flag symbolizes the new American nation after their successful fight for Independence and the formation of a governing Constitution. That fight officially started with the signing and ratification of the Declaration of Independence, which represented the official beginning and philosophical blueprint of the United States of America. It’s declaration of political equality and inalienable individual rights of all people inspired pro-freedom movements like the Abolition and Women’s Suffrage, and the fight for emancipation of oppressed minority groups. It was cited by Emancipationist President Abraham Lincoln, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King and Gay Rights leader Harvey Milk.

In declaring that every individual has the inalienable right to live free for his own sake, with her own happiness as the primary purpose of her own life, The Declaration of Independence is the greatest anti-slavery, anti-oppression political document ever written. This is not like the Confederate monuments, which should be removed from all government property. The Confederate monuments symbolize the repudiation of America’s Founding principles in defense of slavery and minority group oppression. The compromises that kept many people from enjoying the benefits of its ideals notwithstanding, the Betsy Ross flag symbolizes the individualist core of Americanism, the exact antipode to slavery and oppression.

I like to think that this episode is a result of misinformed people. That's probably true for some. But for others, there likely is a more sinister purpose to the reaction against this symbol of Americanism. The Declaration of Independence is not just an anti-slavery document. In the same way and for the same reasons, it is an anti-socialist document. Given the rise of the treasonous (philosophically speaking) socialist wing of the Democratic Party, it’s important to recognize that you can’t build a socialist America on a foundation of individual sovereignty and freedom. You just can’t. So the socialists must obliterate that foundation.

As to the objection that “far-right groups have claimed it as a symbol of their cause,” that is not even worth commenting on. In any event, shame on Nike for caving to the reactionaries. As Harvey Milk, one of the early leaders in the “Gay Pride” fight for equal rights for gays, said at a 1978 speech,

In the Declaration of Independence it is written 'All men are created equal and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights . . . .' That’s what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence.

Yes. That’s what America is. That’s what the Betsy Ross Flag symbolizes, in my view. As an American, I am deeply offended by Nike’s cowardice.