No stone shall be left unturned. This is clearly the message our nation-rending cultural revolutionaries have sent, and a great example is the latest controversy over a supposedly “racist” state flag.
No, it’s not some banner bearing a Confederate symbol or even that of an ex-slave state. Rather, it’s the flag of a place that constitutionally forbade slavery upon its attainment of statehood in 1858 and, just a few years later, devoted troops to the Union’s Civil War efforts. History buffs may now know that we’re talking about the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
That’s right, the state stereotyped as “Minnesota nice” is guilty of Minnesota vice according to the wokesters, though the issue has nothing to do with slavery. The Root’s Kalyn Womack reports (and distorts) on the story:
Minnesota lawmakers have proposed a commission to redesign the state flag, according to CBS News. The state representatives and residents have agreed the flag is tainted with racial undertones. This isn’t the first flag found to honor a disgraceful moment in history.
Rep. Mike Freiberg sponsored a bill on changing the state flag arguing the imagery on the seal needs some fixing. The imagery in question is an Indigenous person riding on the back of a horse as a white farmer tends to the land — a depiction of the displacement of Indigenous by the colonizers who “found” America.
“I just don’t think it’s a fair representation of Minnesota history, the diagram that’s on the seal. It wasn’t designed with input from the people it depicts on it, and I think that’s a real problem,” said Freiberg in a statement.
This might hardly warrant mention, except that Microsoft Network somehow saw fit to put Womack’s highly biased (in favor of a lie) article on its homepage and thus give it wide exposure. But for the record, it appears that only a small minority of “state representatives and residents have agreed the flag is tainted with racial undertones”; why, all the CBS article Womack cites says is that “some” have “suggested” as much.
In fact and in fairness, there has been a longstanding effort to change Minnesota’s flag for quite mundane reasons, as the 2022 video below explains.
As for Representative Freiberg, however, he agrees that the flag’s horse-riding American Indian and white farmer depiction is disturbingly racist. “It has a very clear connotation,” CBS relates him as saying. Really, it does?
Since good judgment is facilitated by actually knowing what you’re talking about, I did something The Root’s Womack almost assuredly didn’t: I actually researched the flag’s history. Here’s part of what WorldAtlas explains about its meaning:
The design is in a field of blue with the image of the seal in the middle. The seal is surrounded by a white banner forming an outer circle with 19 stars distributed all-round the circle. These stars symbolize the states of the US with Minnesota being the nineteenth state to join the union. On the upper part is the largest star which denotes the North Star and the state of Minnesota. The stars are symbols of being outstanding states.
The images on the seal are a man plowing and an indigenous American Indian on horseback holding an axe and a gun. Images symbolize the rich agricultural potential, the landscape, and the heritage of the early inhabitants. On the background of the seal is a river depicting the importance of Rivers Mississippi and St Anthony to the state. The state tree is captured by the three pine trees on the background. The trees symbolize the timber-rich regions of St. Croix and Lake Superior. The seal is surrounded by the pink lady flower which is the official state flower.
Obviously, much thought went into the flag’s design. There’s more to WorldAtlas’ explanation, too, though only passionate vexillologists may be interested.
As for the flag’s genesis, website US Flags relates that in preparation “for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a Minnesota Women’s Auxiliary Board was put together to create a design [for a flag]. They hosted a contest and from 200 submissions, local artist Amelia Hyde Center designed the winning flag…. The flag was officially adopted April 4, 1893.” A short video on its history and evolution follows.
By the way, there’s zero indication that Amelia Hyde Center, the wife of a wealthy businessman, was any kind of bigot. Though we can’t read minds, it appears she just aimed to thoroughly represent her state’s heritage, part of which involves American Indians.
The kicker: Some speculate that Center’s design was inspired by the flags of Minnesota military regiments that fought for the Union in the War between the States.
So how does one read racist intent into an apparently innocuous image? Well, when all you have is a woke and woolly hammer, everything looks like a white-supremacist nail. It’s just like a dirty old man who perceives sexual intent where none exists, projecting his salacious mindset onto others.
The wider problem is that so-called leftists are essentially overgrown (and twisted) children, people with stunted moral development. And unfortunately, too many modern(ist) Americans treat them the way they may raise their own children: with permissiveness and pandering, unable to say “No!” Instead, we respond to their irrational tantrums with capitulation, which perpetuates the behavior.
The tragedy is that these children can do more than just pound on the floor and cry — they can destroy a whole civilization.
