Nike and Colin Kaepernick are the grinches who divided the Fourth of July.

Rather than enjoy 24 hours of unfettered national unity, Americans can thank a shoemongering corporate behemoth and a washed-up, undistinguished footballer for giving all of us one more reason to fight among ourselves.

CRUZ ADDS 'CONTEXT' AFTER KAEPERNICK QUOTES FROM FREDERICK DOUGLASS 'FOURTH OF JULY' SPEECH

After the grievance-driven Kaepernick whined that a new, patriotic set of sneakers gave him nightmares about slavery, Nike did not tell him to get help. Instead, they accepted his bizarre theory that Betsy Ross’s revolutionary flag is a symbol of racism. The (naturally) Portland, Oregon-based giga-company caved in like a Florida sinkhole and canceled the commercial release of these shoes.

This ignited a brand-new national controversy, which is just what every American craved at the start of a holiday week. Far-left Democrat presidential contenders rushed to the microphones to applaud Nike and Kaepernick and slam Ross’s flag as a banner with nearly the pain-inducing potential of the Confederate Stars and Bars.

Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson compared Ross’s creation to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi logo. “Words matter. Symbols matter, too,” Dyson said. “Why don’t we wear a swastika for July Fourth?”

I never have been more embarrassed for my alma mater.

All of this is head-spinningly baffling.

Betsy Ross’s flag — which appeared on the heel of Nike’s scrapped sneaker— was a symbol of unity in America's war for independence from the tyranny of Great Britain and King George III. That’s why we celebrate Independence Day.

In Emanuel Leutze's famous painting, Ross’s flag is right at the center of the Durham boat that George Washington and his men used to cross the Delaware River as they prepared to attack pro-British Hessian troops at Trenton, New Jersey on December 25, 1776. The Continental Army was on the verge of unraveling. This victory reinvigorated Washington and his men, rallied the infant nation, and paved the path that ultimately brought all of us Americans to where we are today, 243 years later.

In Leutze’s painting, the gentleman third from the left (holding an oar) is thought to be named Prince Whipple. He was a slave but was emancipated in the early 1780s. He was not the only black man who fought for independence. Between 5,000 and 8,000 blacks battled the British. Some were slaves. Others soldiered in exchange for their freedom. Still more were born free and struggled, as whites did, to pry the yoke of monarchy from their necks.

According to Edward Ayres of the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown: “Rhode Island’s Black Battalion was established in 1778 when that state was unable to meet its quota for the Continental Army. The legislature agreed to set free slaves who volunteered for the duration of the war, and compensated their owners for their value. This regiment performed bravely throughout the war and was present at Yorktown where an observer noted it was ‘the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.’”

When General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown in October 1781, Betsy Ross’s flag fluttered triumphantly overhead. How ghastly that Nike, Kaepernick, and potential Democrat presidents of the United States now snarl at this hallowed cloth.

Just six years ago, Ross’s flag enjoyed a place of unsurpassed honor. Two of them, in fact, adorned Obama’s second inauguration on January 20, 2013 — just as they did at his first swearing in. Was this an effort by America’s first black president to send reassuring dog whistles to nervous white nationalists? (“Let me be clear: You will love me.”) This notion is almost as witheringly laughable as the entire Nike/Kaepernick premise.

One argument offered in defense of this anti-American company and this America-loathing failed athlete is that white supremacists have kidnapped the Betsy Ross flag and are using it as their own. Really? I doubt that more than a few grumpy race-obsessives ever have heard this claim.

The Anti-Defamation League does not have the particular flag in its database of hate symbols, Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow for the group’s Center on Extremism, told the Associated Press. He said extremist groups have occasionally used the flag, but it’s most commonly used by people for patriotic purposes.

“We view it as essentially an innocuous historical flag,” Pitcavage told the Associated Press. “It’s not a thing in the white supremacist movement.”

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Even if this debunked concept were true, should the other 328.99999 million of us non-white-nationalist Americans let the David Duke crowd keep the Betsy Ross flag kidnapped, or should we organize a rescue party? If the Aryan Nation began to use the Liberty Bell on its website, stationery, and Christmas cards, must the rest of us kiss the Liberty Bell goodbye? Indeed, the Ku Klux Klan’s signature activity has been to burn crosses. Would Nike and Kaepernick urge Christians to abandon the cross, remove it from atop churches, stop wearing it around their necks, and just let the KKK keep the cross as their own?

To spell it out, this is I-N-S-A-N-E!

Finally, America has many Founding Fathers, but far fewer Founding Mothers. Betsy Ross was, arguably, the most prominent female figure in the American Revolution. Thanks to boneheaded Nike, and far-past-his-shelf-life Kaepernick, this Founding Mother has had her name dragged through the mud, atop the rest of their totally unnecessary damage on America’s birthday.

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