Canadian Politics Today

The Betsy Ross flag is the first national flag of the United States. National flags belong to the country and its people, not to groups. Rather than push back against those groups who want to claim it as their own, a PC, don't want to offend anyone society is willing to just let them have it. It's rather pathetic.

I don't think anyone is denying the existence of that flag or it's place in past history. I guess some people just don't wish to honor that flag these days due to it's connection with some of the nasty realities of that history.

Name me one flag that doesn't have some nasty historical realities.

You are free to stitch whichever flag you choose to your running shoes.

To me this isn't about Nike but today's selective history mentality and morality.

As the thread title suggests, it all comes down to the slavery issue.

Exactly, pick a single issue, ignore everything else and you can find a reason to reject just about anything.

Selective history is practiced just as much by those who would suppress such as the Betsy Ross flag’s use, as by those far right groups who would try and make it a symbol of white supremacy.

I completely agree.  Slavery is a part of the Betsy Ross flag, so is colonial exploitation of aboriginals, but it doesn't define it, it's far more complex than that.  Slavery and crapping on aboriginals were very common at that time.  Canada i'm sure would have participated in the same kind of mass slavery had they the same kind of plantation crops the southern US did.  We're not holier than thou, nobody is, including African Americans whose African brethren enslaved and sold them to the European slavers in the first place.  We're all human & all in a historical process of progress and human rights.  The American Revolution/13 colonies were a very key component of that.

Who really cares what Nike does but this episode is an example of a disturbing trend in our society.

I agree.  We have a choice to be ashamed of our past, or be proud of it (if there's things to be proud).  I would rather be proud of it while recognizing our flaws, and proud of the fact that we've progressed as a society beyond the many stupid things we've done in the past that were often the standard of those times. 

Montreal was built on the fur trade.

Adidas has a terrible track record of paying poverty wages in third world sweatshops.

If you bother researching this issue, Nike is much worse.