Just in case you were under a rock over the July 4th holiday and didn’t see where Nike recalled the release of it’s Air Max 1 USAs and its use of the Betsy Ross flag, well they did. Initially, the shoe giant was set to release the shoe with the slavery era American Flag on Independence Day. However, former NFL quarterback and Nike sponsored athlete, Colin Kaepernick, pulled their coattail on it by explaining to them that it would be offensive to black folks in America if they did release the shoe. Nike listened and eventually pulled it.
However, there were a lot of folks upset that Nike pulled it and one of the groups of idiots was a Chicago Cubs minor league team the Double-A Tennessee Smokies. They had the audacity to draw the slavery era flag on their infield with the 13 stars representing the 13 colonies, took a picture of it and tweeted it out with this caption, “Hey @Kaepernick7 after a lot of thought, we have decided it’s best to just do it. #America.”
They’ve since deleted the tweet but the damage is done. Connor Pearce, marketing and community relations manager for the Smokies, told the AP on Wednesday evening that “it was just a lighthearted take on a current situation.”
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! It’s only a lighthearted situation because you and your family’s ancestors never had to endure being enslaved in America. His family wasn’t stolen from their native land, held in shackles and chains, stuffed into the bottoms of slave ships for more than a month with human feces etc. where millions died during the middle passage. Those that survived the voyage were then sold at auction and held against their will. The women were raped and people beaten, tortored and killed for not working hard enough and refusing to comply. It was a death sentence to learn to read and write. Their children were sold away from their parents with families torn apart and this foolishness went on for the next 240 years building this country’s wealth. Most of our fortune 500 companies got their start off of the back of African slaves. It ain’t funny!!!
There’s nothing lighthearted about any of that and to think that it made sense for a professional sports organization to make a joke out of it is asinine. Like him or not folks, Colin Kaepernick has the ear of Nike and it was a great decision for them not to release the shoe. It would have been even better had they consulted with some conscious black folks before making the stupid shoe in the first place.
Just because your family hasn’t experienced this type of injustice in America doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and it darn sure isn’t something to laugh about. Stop just thinking of yourself and think of others too. Stop me when I start lyin’!
