Minnesota state commission to design a new state flag due to Native American concernsBy Associated Press
Published Sep. 5, 2023
A state commission went to work Tuesday on designing a new state flag and seal for Minnesota to replace a current emblem in both that’s considered offensive to Native Americans.
One of the main elements of Minnesota’s state flag includes a prominent state seal against a blue background. The seal depicts a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with his rifle leaning on a nearby stump. The imagery suggests to many that the Indigenous people were defeated and going away, while whites won and were staying.
Not only do the state’s Dakota and Ojibwe tribes consider that offensive, but experts in the scientific and scholarly study of flags — known as vexillology — say it’s an overly complicated design.
Guidelines from the North American Vexillological Association say flags should be simple but meaningful, with just a few colors, easily recognizable from a distance, and without seals or lettering. The association ranks Minnesota in 67th place out of 72 U.S. and Canadian state and provincial flags. Minnesota’s design dates from 1957, an evolution from the 1893 original.
Minnesota is joining several other states in redesigning flags that haven’t withstood the test of time. The Utah Legislature last winter approved a simplified flag design that still includes a beehive, a symbol of the prosperity and the industriousness of the Mormon pioneers who settled the state. Mississippi voters in 2020 chose a new state flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust” to replace a Confederate-themed flag that had been used by Ku Klux Klan groups and was widely condemned as racist.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/09/05/commission-begins-work-on-new-minnesota-state-flag/
