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Betsy Ross Flag vs Colin Kaepernick (controversial)
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Colin%20Kaepernick%22&src=tren&data_id=tweet%3A1145909205410304001
Controversy ensues
Was this the right move on the part of Nike?
There seems to be 2 sides:
1. America's history "is what it is", you can't change it, and there's no problem if people have pride in it
2. Aspects of America's history are very offensive to disaffected groups who were either slaves or natives
Which side are you? Does it matter?
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- Vaziel_Sorel
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Americans need to stop living in the past and look forward. Our past is full of terrible and outrageous events and its best for us to take these events into account and make sure it never happens again.
We can't change the past, but we can shape the future.
It looks like I am on side 1.
Edit: This Betsy Ross Flag vs Colin Kaepernick controversy will cause the extreme sided people to either fly the old flag in protest and others to fly some disgraced version to protest the protesters...
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Although a lot of people seem to take the position that opposition to certain symbols and monuments means that people who are offended want to rewrite history. This isn't true. We know what happened all too well. We're haunted by it. We still feel the effects of it. And there is still a legacy that exists, of hatred and animosity that fuels racist attitudes, division, segregation, gentrification, racial bias and excessive force in policing, discrimination in jobs and housing and much more. So as much as certain things are in the past, that past also informs people in the present. It may not inform you or your family and maybe not your friends. Maybe you (not speaking of any specific person but rather in general who fits this stated description) grew up in an area that either had very few black people and no one really talked about them or an area where minorities were common place and accepted. There isn't just one America defined by just your (or my) experience.
When creating a present day product or statue you're bringing that thing or person, into the present. A "memorial" is just that. It helps to keep something in our memory which includes the people who don't like that thing. One certainly wouldn't build a statue of Hitler in the middle of a Jewish community. But we all perfectly understand that. However, when it comes to American figures a lot of us seem to want to give them a pass. Perhaps outside of Hitler's hatred of the Jews he was a great guy who was a good leader and family man. But so what? I don't have to overlook the elephant in the room-his hatred of the Jews which drove him to seek to exterminate them. There were and are people who feel the same way about black people just like they did about native Americans.
If we don't want to sing along with....
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
we risk sounding unpatriotic just because we can actually hear the lyrics. But again, you'd never ask or judge the patriotism of a Jewish person based on them not singing a song about burning people in gas chambers. You would instead be like "why is there a song about burning people in gas chambers and why is it our national anthem?"
If South Africa's anthem talked about freedom but explicitly talked about whites using the term "white devil" that happened to be used throughout world native populations being confronted by aggressive European explorers that would be criticized by the world even if, in that case, there were supporters of the song that felt like it was an accurate telling of their history. Why? Because it would be racist and would affect white South Africans who still have a right to live there without being treated as second class citizens based on history. And in Africa reverse racism CAN exist because the power structure has significantly changed.
https://www.gov.za/about-government/leaders
"Every body wants a new Confederate flag," Bagby wrote. "The present one is universally hated. It resembles the Yankee flag and that is enough to make it unutterably detestable."
So we wouldn't overlook the whole "white devil" content and say "but the song talks about freedom though". So for me it kind of boils down to, yes there are good and bad parts of everyone's history. Everyone. Every race and culture has done things they really shouldn't be proud of if they are. How do you detangle that history? Or how much do you seem to tout every bit of it as being all the same?
One thing that's not spoken about very much by the people attacking Nike is how this flag is being used presently. It is a historical flag much like the Confederate Battle Flag
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America
The flag is also known as the Stainless Banner, and the matter of the person behind its design remains a point of contention. On April 23, 1863, the Savannah Morning News editor William Tappan Thompson, with assistance from William Ross Postell, a Confederate blockade runner, published an editorial championing a design featuring the battle flag on a white background he referred to later as "The White Man's Flag."[6] In explaining the white background, Thompson wrote, "As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause."
Rogers lobbied successfully to have this alteration introduced in the Confederate Senate. He defended his redesign as having "as little as possible of the Yankee blue", and described it as symbolizing the primary origins of the people of the Confederacy, with the saltire of the Scottish flag and the red bar from the flag of France.[13]
The full debate over flags shows how important they were as symbols. People wanted to fight for a flag that represented them and their interests. And back then a lot of people weren't shy about their racism. And with that same attitude they wanted memorials and monuments for their heroes which forced people who fought against and defeated those "heroes" to still live with their memorialized statues and symbols. The South lost. It lost. That's also history. But a lot of people would seem to like to revise THAT history, selectively holding onto these flags (but not any flags representing some earlier time period under English rule) and seemingly giving them new life and meaning.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/07/02/after-colin-kaepernick-complaint-nike-reportedly-pulls-shoe-with-betsy-ross-flag-design/?utm_term=.356cc225f203
That version of the flag has reportedly been adopted by some white nationalists and other groups that object to America’s growing racial diversity.
It definitely wouldn't be smart for a major corporation (especially one that makes much of its profits from African Americans) to create a product with a symbol used by white nationalist and other groups that are against America's racial diversity.
The fact that this symbol has been appropriated... where was the outrage over the appropriation? They didn't care. But now that Nike is "NOT" doing something for the sake of political correctness (which isn't automatically a bad thing) now people want to speak out, not against the white nationalist groups using the symbol, but against Nike for NOT using it. And so a decision that shouldn't have been controversial... became controversial.
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- Vaziel_Sorel
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ZealotX wrote: Nike pulls a new 4th of July sneaker featuring the Betsy Ross flag.
There seems to be 2 sides:
1. America's history "is what it is", you can't change it, and there's no problem if people have pride in it
2. Aspects of America's history are very offensive to disaffected groups who were either slaves or natives
Which side are you? Does it matter?
Did I misinterpret this?
I think I am a mix of both then.
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Vaziel_Sorel wrote:
Did I misinterpret this?
I think I am a mix of both then.
When I read what you said it sounded like #2. Keep in mind, #2 isn't saying history didn't happen. It's okay to care that it happened and if people want to have personal pride in whatever part of history that's fine. I don't agree with all of it but I don't have to. I don't have to agree with them that slavery was awesome because it wasn't for me. I mean... obviously. So if they want to make their own shoes with confederate flags and swastikas they should be able to. It's a free country.
But corporate and state sponsored? If a corporation like Papa John's wants to promote racism I just wont buy their pizza. So if the CEO was racist and the board was able to control his twitter account I'd be fine. I'd still buy their pizza. It's actually good. But I have a right to be offended as much as he has the right to say ignorant stuff that offends me. I don't have to be mad or upset to be offended. I can be calmly offended and just not financially support his brand.
What you said was true. We can't change the past. And we shouldn't live in it. But we have to learn from the past so that the future can be better and I think because not everyone sees mistakes of the past as actual mistakes they simply refuse to learn and history ends up repeating itself for far too many minorities.
When a group is together (like a cult or like the KKK) they simply reinforce each other's beliefs. It's not about truth or facts, but rather feelings. And I wish I knew how to insert facts and morality into that equation but I don't know how that is possible when we try so hard not to have those conversations at all because they're uncomfortable and we (as a society) don't like confrontation because we're scared of each other.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion
That is all I've got, as I'd never heard of the Betty Ross flag till this thread

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Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
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- Carlos.Martinez3
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Pastor of Temple of the Jedi Order
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Build, not tear down.
Nosce te ipsum / Cerca trova
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Was this the right move on the part of Nike?
You're talking about Nike.
So...yes. Yes it was.
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