It used the old Betsy Ross flag, which, in addition to being an artifact of a country run on slavery, has recently become associated with assorted racist groups.
Timex
4848
Eh, that seems kind of silly to me. The old colonial flag isn’t like the Confederate flag.
Nike can do whatever they want, and I’m not going to stop buying their shoes, or really even care about this at all… But the original American flag doesn’t seem like an offensive thing to me.
Nesrie
4849
It’s not about what it is like. It’s about these groups taking over things and making it “theirs”. Pepe wasn’t a symbol for racism until they made it either.
nKoan
4850
Yeah, it’s something that flew over my head, but it appears on KKK stuff as well as been showing up at a lot of White Nationalists rallies.
But, because it was Kaepernick that brought it up to Nike, Fox News and conservative twitter is going into a fit.
CraigM
4851
I wonder if, legally speaking, there is a difference between the old original flag and the modern one.
Because the modern flag is not supposed to be used as clothing, in advertising, and a host of other ways that we trivially accept that go against the spirit of the flag code.
nKoan
4852
The flag code hasn’t stopped Nike in the past. They’ve released lots of shoes, shirts and clothing in the past with the current 50 star logo.
Nesrie
4853
The flag code doesn’t stop anyone. The person who screams about patriotism and flags will just sit on a flag decorated towel at the beach. It’s purely politics and that specific flag is just not equated with much other than, apparently, the racists and nationalist trying to claim yet another symbol for their disgusting causes.
Kaepernick is the ultimate red meat for Fox…any news on him angers their viewers because he makes them unable to enjoy their footbaw stories, and because they think he’s constantly shitting on the flag.
(if they want to know who’s really shitting on their precious flag, they need look no further than their bloated cult leader)
CraigM
4855
Oh sure, I know it doesn’t and hasn’t stopped people in the past.
Pure idle curiosity if, technically speaking, the older flag designs are due the same legal courtesy.
Edit: it appears that the flag is legally defined in Title 4 Chapter 1 as 13 stripes and 48 stars, with an addendum that one star is added whenever a state is added. So it does not appear the older designs are included. Including the 48 stars at the time of passage!
http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html
nah, he just likes to grope it now and again
I don’t know why anyone has a problem with wearing the flag. What could possibly be more American than using a public domain symbol to slap onto tshirts, shorts, and shoes to make a quick buck off of?
Scuzz
4858
This is one of those things that 99.9% of the American public probably has no idea about nor do they care about. Personally I don’t give a shit what Nike does or doesn’t do, but I do think it is possible to over think these things. Being an “old white guy” who doesn’t read up on racist symbols I had no idea any group had adopted the Betsy Ross flag, and I am probably way more knowledgable that most people because of my membership in forums like this.
Nike ought to put the Union flag from the Civil War on there instead!
CraigM
4860
Same. I’m generally at least broadly aware, even if not fully knowledgeable, of such symbols.
But I’d literally never heard of that.
@HighPlainsDrifter nice 👍
rowe33
4862
That’s awesome, yet completely expected. The GOP, ladies & gentlemen.
Roma scare mongering? Really? Is Tucker just trolling the Godwinners at this point, or what?
It’s from 2017, but he does seem to be a bit of copypasta fascist, doesn’t he?
Chuck
4866
Fox “News” website is calling Epstein, “Clinton-linked sex offender.”
