Nike yanks U.S. flag shoe but toes Communist Party line

Just in time for the Fourth of July, Nike was going to release a sneaker featuring the 13-starred flag flown during the American Revolution.

Then it decided a better way to honor America would be to replace the U.S. flag with the flag of the People’s Republic of China.

“Betsy Ross created a symbol of racial oppression,” a Nike spokesperson said. “In order to form a more perfect union we should emulate the Chinese.”

I’m making that quote up, though it’s not far from the truth.

Nike was ready to release the patriotic version of its Air Max 1 shoe this week. Then Colin Kaepernick, who apparently has been promoted from Nike endorser to Nike marketing director, raised a fist in objection.

“Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery,” the Wall Street Journal reported

That triggered the predictable explosion. Rush Limbaugh ranted, Sen. Ted Cruz said he’s stopped wearing Nikes, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey canceled financial incentives the state was offering Nike if it built a plant there.

The fireworks were fine by Nike. Critics pounced last year when the company signed Kaepernick, but profits soared. Nike’s brand has been built on rebelliousness. In Kaepernick, Nike found a perfect buzz-maker.

The right thinks he’s a washed-up quarterback turned radical who hates motherhood and apple pie. The left thinks he’s Frederick Douglass.

I think anyone who’s offended by the Betsy Ross flag must also be offended by the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty Bell and the very founding of our nation.

I think that’s ridiculous. But I am a recipient of white privilege and therefore incapable of seeing the direct line from an 18th century seamstress to David Duke.

Nike said its decision was “based on concerns that it could unintentionally offend and distract from the nation’s patriotic holiday.”

Unlike the father of our country (pending someone being unintentionally offended by that term), Nike can tell a lie.

Rebelling against America’s original rebels was shrewd marketing. The distraction created a buzz.

Buzz means attention. Attention means profits, since buzz-conscious youth will buy more Swoosh gear to prove their rebel bona fides. Nike values that demographic far more than it does geezers who can recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

It’s all very capitalistic, which is very American. But you know what else is very American?

Believing in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the battle between those principles and profit, Nike has sold its soul. Or maybe its soul is more aligned with Mao Zedong than George Washington.

Hong Kong is engulfed in protests over a bill that would allow criminal suspects to be extradited to China, which, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “has a far more opaque legal system.”

That means charges are concocted, verdicts are predetermined and penalties are brutal — assuming there’s even a trial. For some reason the people of Hong Kong don’t want to be turned over to a murderous thugocracy.

Nike has a partnership with Japanese sportswear brand Undercover. Last week, Undercover’s principal designer, Jun Takahashi, posted a photo of protesters with the caption “No extradition. Go Hong Kong!”

Chairman Mao would not approve. Nike abruptly canceled its Undercover sneaker release in China, not wanting to risk its good standing in that massive consumer market. Forget that China is also the world’s biggest market for human rights abuses.

It’s a daily Blue Plate Special featuring everything from religious persecution to social media surveillance to forced abortions to torture. China’s current pet project is putting at least 1 million Muslims in internment camps designed to erase religious and ethnic identities.

Prisoners are reportedly awakened daily at 5 a.m. and forced to run for 45 minutes while shouting “The Communist Party is good!”

As long as they are wearing Nikes, that’s cool by Swoosh Inc.

It can hop in bed with a country that’s enslaving millions of innocent people. It cannot abide one where a 240-year-old flag could unintentionally remind someone of slavery.

I was joking when I said Nike will replace the Betsy Ross flag shoe with a Chinese version. But the way things are going, I’m not sure we won’t soon be seeing the five-starred red flag of the People’s Republic on a shelf near you.

Something tells me Nike’s new marketing chief would not be offended in the least.