Ah, July 4th — what a day, a day celebrating our forefathers standing up and telling Britain that we were independent of them, that we had unalienable rights, that they included life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. On that holiday we said thank you, dear founders, we looked at what we have achieved since the Revolutionary War, and we pursued happiness with fireworks, hot dogs and family fun.
But not Colin Kaepernick. This activist doesn’t see America as exceptional or even particularly good. He doesn’t get it that our precious ideals have been conquering our deepest faults, as in Martin Luther King preaching that the United States had to live up to its precious, beloved standards by ending discrimination. Perfection did not then occur, but many hearts were open and there were advances beyond imagining.
Instead of seeing any good anywhere, this former NFL quarterback would kneel at football games during the playing of the national anthem, not just an insult to the military, as some say, but to a brilliantly formed republic, the country’s remarkable history, its amazing people, its energy and unity. Kaepernick did more to divide than step forward and more to insult than to enlarge understandings as he pointed symbolically to inequities and tragedies.
And he just struck again. He works with Nike and said that he found small colorful Betsy Ross flags on the back of special July 4 shoes offensive. While this was an early American flag, waved high in encounters with redcoats, Kaepernick saw it as vile because it was created during the end of a colonial era with large numbers of slaves. It shouldn’t be shown. Are we now going to ban any representation of the colonies? Are there thousands of people honestly wounded by Betsy Ross’ depiction of these remarkable entities?
