Minnesota’s new state flag should feature an eight-pointed North Star against a dark blue background shaped like the state, with a solid light blue field at the right, a special commission decided Tuesday as it picked a replacement for an older design that many Native Americans considered offensive.

The State Emblems Redesign Commission chose the final version on an 11-1 vote after finalizing a new state seal that depicts a loon, the state bird. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new flag and seal will automatically become official April 1, 2024, when Minnesota observes Statehood Day.

The star echoes Minnesota’s state motto of “Star of the North.” The commission’s chairman, Luis Fitch, said that to him, the light blue represents the Mississippi River, “the most important river in the United States,” pointing to the North Star. But he acknowledged it could mean other things to other people. Symmetry and simplicity won out over other versions, including ones that included a green stripe for the state’s agricultural heritage.

      • wieson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s a depiction (celebratory?) of them being purposely driven away from the land. The Native American is fleeing.

        • aulin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Wow. I saw it as the two people sharing the land. I did not see it as fleeing. Still a terrible flag, and even more so if it can be interpreted so differently.

          • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I saw it as the two people sharing the land.

            Honestly? Even if it was unequivocally that it would still be a problem. The whitewashing of using violence to drive people from their homes and then pretending that they came to an agreement to share the land is just gross.

              • S_204@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Are we still using that word or did we figure that part out already?

                • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  i went to elementry school on a reservation, indian reservation was the parlance of the time. Kinda stuck with me.

                  • S_204@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    Maybe time to leave that in your past. Around these parts that’s not a word folks are fond of.

                • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  Many Native American people prefer the term “American Indians”, to be fair. There is a bit of a split on which one is preferrable depending on who you ask. It varies from tribe to tribe, region to region, and with age differences.

                  Most Native people would just prefer to be called by their tribal affiliation over either of the terms, but accept them as our collective terms for them. Many don’t care which one you use because it’s wrong either way, really.

                  This is just from my experience talking with some people from different tribes in my area, and from seeing the question posted on forums before.

              • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                There really isn’t any “before all that” though. Especially that far west. Along the east coast there might have been a generation of “we just want to escape weligious pewsecution and gwow cown uwu 👉👈🥺” but the first permanent settlement in Minnesota was in 1852, 7 years after the phrase “manifest destiny” was coined. Minnesota was established during the era where the prevailing belief of white Americans was that God commanded them to take all of America for themselves and anyone who tried to stop them was to be destroyed.

          • wieson@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes, but a flag is not the place to tell history. It usually depicts your ideals.

            If Germany had f.ex. a shattered David’s Star on their flag, that would accurately depict history. But it would read as antagonism and a current stance on things. As if it was their goal to destroy Jewish people.

      • hactar42@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It has to do with the setting. It’s not just a Native American riding away on horse back, but the fact that the settler is watching him with his rifle near by. It is like he is driving him away and claiming the land for his own.

        • viking@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          You’re overinterpreting things. And despite that, it’s exactly what happened. Historical accuracy is not racism.

          • KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network
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            1 year ago

            Historical accuracy is not racism. Choosing to identify yourself based on the racist actions in your history is.

            To drive it to the extreme, it would be like saying that Germany depicting Jews being gassed on their new flag isn’t racist, just historically accurate.