I don’t blame Nike and I am in no position to criticize Kaepernick for feeling the way he does but the parallels between this and Macdonald are clear.
In the case of Macdonald, he was largely responsible for the residential school system but he was also more responsible for this country’s present shape than any other person. But for him, BC would be part of the US, Canada wouldn’t have a West Coast and there would be no discussions of pipelines to tidewater.
In the case of America’s first national flag, instead of it being about the birth of a country with all its greatness and warts, it has become just about racism and slavery.
One might say we should take a more balanced view of both and recognize both the good and bad but that isn’t what happens, there always has to be a winner and loser when it comes to ideology. In the case of Macdonald, it is all about residential schools so his memory must be erased, Canada suppresses a big piece of it’s history to be replaced with an alternate truth. Canada loses. In the case of the Betsy Ross flag, it is the first Stars and Stripes. America is voluntarily giving its first national flag to a bunch of white supremacists. White supremacists win.
The Gadsden flag was a revolutionary flag but it was never a national flag.