Commentary For several years now, the American flag has been highly debated as several high-profile leftists began promulgating the idea that it was a symbol of racism due to the fact that America had slavery in an earlier stage of her history. Failed football player-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick, for example, forced Nike to pull a Fourth of July themed pair of sneakers because they featured an American flag. One college professor at Georgetown went so far as to compare the colonial flag (sometimes referred to as the Betsy Ross flag) to the Nazi Swastika and the burning crosses of the KKK. But what is the truth? Are the stars and stripes a sign of oppression, or is there a more historically informed perspective? Supporters of the racist-flag hypothesis will sometimes point to a notable pre-Civil War speech from Frederick Douglass, where he states: “While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures, every …