In 2023, DFLers in the Minnesota Legislature passed a staggering amount of significant policies to help parents, children, students, women, people of color, seniors, taxpayers, voters, and workers. In 2024, it's time for Republicans to show what they've got. Up until now, they haven't had much of a policy agenda, other than opposing all of the aforementioned DFL improvements and trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest seniors.
But buckle up, because Minnesota Republicans got a hot new issue to promote. State flag preservation, baby!
Minnesota Republicans are promising to fight like hell to preserve the current Minnesota state flag. You know, the one with the jumbled seal that looks like several other state flags, is impossible to discern at a distance, and has long been seen by indigenous people as celebrating their subjugation and genocide.
The University of Minnesota's Bill Lendeke explains the troubling origin story of the current flag, which features a picture of a white pioneer plowing a field with a rile next to him while a Native American rides away with the sun setting:
The (state flag) designer's wife, Mary Eastman, even penned a short poem to explain what was on the seal:
Give way, give way, young warrior,
Thou and thy steed give way;
Rest not, though lingers on the hills
The red sun's parting ray.
The rock bluff and prairie land
The white man claims them now
Eastman's rhyme has the benefit of honestly reflecting the dominant feelings of white Minnesotans at the time, most of whom wanted to eradicate Native Americans from their homeland. As such, the seal and flag represent sentiments that led directly to the genocide of Dakota people, and is one that Minnesotans should not celebrate in any way.
Despite this history, Republicans seem to see themselves as fighting to preserve that a righteous, not unlike the brave World War II soldiers in Joe Rosenthal's iconic photo at Iwa Jima. In fact, the state Republican Party even created a Save The Flag website to hock sweet t-shirts suitable for MAGA rallies.
Republicans look nearly as ugly in this fight as when they fight to preserve statues celebrating white supremacist such as Nathan Bedford Forest, Robert E. Lee, and John C. Calhoun.
To be clear, no flag redesign was ever going to be universally loved. When it comes to matters of design, everyone has different tastes and biases. And plenty of folks who preferred one of the other more than 2,600 designs considered by the State Emblems Redesign Commission are understandably still feeling tender. But most of us who didn't get our top choices respect the process and don't throw a hissy fit over it
Given that we're never going to have a unanimous opinion of flags, we have to look at the big picture: The current flag celebrates race-based dominance, and that's just not ok. Beyond that, flag design experts have long said that Minnesota has one of the very worst state flag designs.
The Commission's recommended design fixes both of those problems:
Ted Kaye, who wrote the 2006 guidebook "'Good' Flag, 'Bad' Flag," gave Minnesota's new design an "A" and called it excellent.
"You can't make everybody happy, but Minnesota will come to be extremely proud of this flag," said Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). "The state has seized a wonderful opportunity to improve its symbolism."
He said he believes it would rank in the top 10 among the states and provinces of the United States and Canada were NAVA members and the public to be surveyed.
Ted Kaye, who wrote the 2006 guidebook "'Good' Flag, 'Bad' Flag," gave Minnesota's new design an "A" and called it excellent.
"You can't make everybody happy, but Minnesota will come to be extremely proud of this flag," said Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). "The state has seized a wonderful opportunity to improve its symbolism."
He said he believes it would rank in the top 10 among the states and provinces of the United States and Canada were NAVA members and the public to be surveyed.
I hope the Minnesota Legislature doesn't waste much time on the state flag debate. It's clear what it should do.
The Commission went through a painstakingly thorough and thoughtful process, so the Legislature should quickly and decisively approve the recommended new state flag. It is a huge improvement over the ugly, in so many ways, flag that has been poorly representing Minnesota for far too long.
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