New Flag, Who Dis?

It's a Massachusetts state flag glow up!

But, you know, in a liberal way. ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

Massachusetts decided it was time for a sweeping rebrand with a new state flag, seal, and motto. And who better to choose the iconography and language what will represent the state of Massachusetts around the world, at every sporting event (i.e. Go Pats!), at all those town parades, and on very fancy tote bags and beer cozies given out at political fundraisers, but the proud Massholes of the land.

Um, Massachusetts. A word.

(whispers) This is not a good idea. This is like putting the manager of the Des Moines Target in charge of the MET gala. It’s like giving a 6-year old some finger paints and telling her to go “touch up” the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It’s like electing a mentally unstable narcissistic criminal president of a country. It’s not smart, okay?

We have proven over and over again that the general public should not be tasked with heavy decision making. I mean…. (gestures broadly at everything). The only thing the general public is good at choosing are the winners of television singing contests and new flavors of Doritos. And for Massachusetts’ residents in particular, in the history of the commonwealth the people have made, like, maybe three good decisions and one of them was to start the Revolutionary War. Okay, so, basically one good call. Remember, these were the same folks thought shipping Babe “The Sultan of Swat” Ruth off to the New York Yankees was a great idea. IT’S ONE PLAYER! HOW IS THAT GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE AT ALL YOU GUYS!? We can’t have nice things and we definitely cannot be trusted with something as high level as picking new symbols to represent the state.

How did this all come about? The long answer is racism. The short answer is also racism.

For nearly two centuries Massachusetts didn’t even have any type of cohesive flag. Sure, Texas had their act together as early as 1839 with their state flag. But this would mark the first and last time that Texas did anything ahead of the curve. Over the years there were occasions where a flag or banner was needed to represent the state. During the Civil War the Massachusetts volunteer regiments carried a flag that was a white background with a blue seal. You can bet no one complained at all about having to cart around this extra gear while dodging musket fire. It wasn’t until 1908 that the folks in charge of state swag got down to business to create an official state flag. And wow did they really lean into the whole “LOL Injuns!” vibe.

The image is a Native American holding a bow and arrow set against a blue shield. The arrow points downward signifying peace, which is what nervous citizens of the commonwealth told themselves in order to be able to sleep at night. The figure is supposed to represent an Algonquian Native American, a tribe known to populate areas such as Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, the Carolinas, and as high up as Canada. Oops. The face of the individual was modeled after a photo of chief Thomas Little Shell, a member of the Ojibwe tribe that primarily lived in the Great Lakes region. Oops again. Okay. Well, let’s just embrace our willful ignorance and concerted effort to absolutely get everything wrong about the original inhabitants of the country and soothe our 21st century white guilt with our checkbooks.

Above the shield is an image of a bent arm holding a broadsword. The party line on this is that the depiction is a symbolic reminder that peace and liberty were ultimately won by the war for independence. Further, there is an additional theory that the iconography suggests that a person would rather “lose their right arm” than live under tyranny. Yeah, I’m making that face as well. It’s a conveniently powerful sentiment and certainly resonates in 2025, but the bottom line is that not everyone saw the state flag in such rah-rah-Massholes RULE terms. Those people being, of course, native Americans and plenty of others who consider reckoning with the complicated, not always fun, history of a nation and its citizens necessary, even when it gives white people a major sad.

Evidently people were too busy trying to reverse a baseball curse for over a half a century before finally getting around to dealing with this offensive state flag stuff. The process finally started lumbering forward in 2021 when the governor at the time, Charlie Baker, signed a bill to establish a commission to hold a bunch of meetings in order to talk about figuring out the best way to actually go about putting someone in charge of sending out surveys and collecting data about how to find other people to have more meetings about deciding how to take action on this most urgent and pressing matter!

And SNAP POW! Here we are–a short 117 years later ready to choose a new flag, seal, and state motto. And people say nothing ever gets done in politics. An advisory commission has narrowed down the finalists from over 1,600 entries submitted by Massachusetts citizens. While I still think that it is a fool’s errand to put this in the hands of a people who treat disobeying traffic signals like it is a blood sport, I am at least heartened to see that we’re going towards the kind of designs that would also make for great coloring pages.

You’ll see that turkey feathers have emerged as a serious contender. The turkey is not the official state bird, although it should be because these are salty bastards who routinely like to start fights for no reason. Relatable. There is what looks like a star shining out over the ocean. This could be taken as a nod to John Winthrop’s “City on a hill” sermon. In 1630 Winthrop described the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a beacon, a symbol of exceptionalism in the “new” (but actually quite old and ALREADY SETTLED, BUT THANKS WHITE PEOPLE!) world. Given the precarious state of our educational standards, it’s probably low odds that people would look at that flag and go “Oh right! The Puritan minister John Winthrop. City on a hill, 1630!” Instead they would probably go, “LOOK IT THAT STAHHHHHHH AND THOSE FRICKIN WAVES. GO SOX!” The third choice is a white mayflower against a blue background. Mayflower like the colonial OG boat (check) and it is also a flower that many Native American communities sourced for medicinal purposes. DAMNIT, GINA! WE SAID NO MORE NATIVE AMERICAN STUFF!

The state motto is also on the chopping block. The current motto is: By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty. Some mixed messages going on there for sure. The new motto choices are:

Many voices, one commonwealth (safe, bland)

We honor all life guided by the First Light (a little culty-pass)

We rejoice in the public good (Seriously?! Have you been to a sporting event in this state?!)

My write ins: #1 You think yahhr bettah than us?

#2 Masshole pluribus unum (from one Masshole comes many)

The committee will solicit more feedback and input from the public about these submissions later on in the fall. This is good news because it means there’s still a fighting chance for that Commonwealth of Dunks cup flag design to make a dark horse kind of win. I’ll be watching-fingers crossed!