Ex-NFL player: Nike's 'Betsy Ross flag' shoe wouldn't offend me, but I wouldn't wear it
Nike yanked its “Betsy Ross Flag” sneaker this week after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick said it was offensive. Former NFL safety Jack Brewer told FOX Business that Nike made a good move, and while it wouldn't offend him if others wore the show, he wouldn't.
“This is America. These are the conversations we need to finally have. The reason why Colin Kaepernick stands against a flag like that is the same reason why I would not wear that flag on my feet. I wouldn't wear a Confederate flag,” he told Dagen McDowell on “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday.
Nike put a U.S. flag featuring 13 stars in a circle on the heel of the Independence Day themed shoe to represent America’s original 13 colonies that declared their independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. The sneakers were shipped to retailers but called back after Kaepernick and others expressed concerns to the company over the perceived connection to slavery, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In Brewer’s opinion the symbol represents a “bad part of America for a lot of people." Although he said he would have “handled the situation much differently,” he agrees with Kaepernick in this situation.
“You have to understand that the American flag does not have [13] stars around it,” he said. “If you ... if you listen to the Star Spangled Banner that was written at the time that this flag was made, right, it talked about protecting everybody except for the slaves that were running away… if I was Nike I would put a modern day flag where all Americans have rights and everyone can stand up.”
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McDowell asked Brewer, “If all people don't feel that way ... Is this really that risky a move for Nike to put this shoe out?”
Brewer responded: “Dagen, if you wore the shoe, all right ... or Jared Max wore the shoe it wouldn’t offend me—I’m not wearing the shoe.”
“Would you feel like I was a bigot or racist?” McDowell followed.
“Not at all,” he said. "Because it didn't represent that to you just the same way that we had to debate about the American flag, the American flag represents the American soldiers people over there fighting that's a totally different conversation… I think [Nike] made the right move.”