Colin Kaepernick and Nike came under fire last week after the Nike Air Max 1 "4th of July" was discontinued. Kaepernick took issue with the shoe thanks to the presence of the Betsy Ross flag which features the 13 stars of the original 13 colonies. It is believed that there are racial connotations with this flag since it was created during a time when slavery was still prevalent in society. The biggest group to be outraged by Kaepernick's assertions is Republicans, who used the former NFLer's image in a recent e-mail campaign.
The National Republican Congressional Committee recently sent out a fundraiser campaign e-mail and explained how Kaepernick is an enemy to all members of the GOP and that his politics are anti-American. In a report from Yahoo! News, it was revealed that there was an image alongside the e-mail which appears to show Kaepernick with darkened skin. As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir with many calling our Republicans for racism.
According to Yahoo's report, one Democratic operative was disgusted by the image and had quite a bit to say on the matter.
“House Republicans are running on racism, plain and simple. It’s disgusting, it’s offensive and it should be fireable, but there’s no accountability in the Republican Party,” the operative explained.
It's clear that Kaepernick's politics remain polarizing for those who fall on the opposite end of the spectrum, although its disheartening to see him continuously attacked.
