A Democratic state lawmaker is asking for Native American illustration to stay on the state flag whereas additionally elevating considerations concerning the state fee tasked with redesigning it.
State Sen. Nick Collins (D-First Suffolk), who co-chairs the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, mentioned he’s involved Native American residents have been “largely excluded from any meaningful participation in the process” of making a brand new state flag and is asking for Native American illustration.
The Massachusetts Seal, Flag, and Motto Advisory Fee is edging nearer to nearing its December 15 deadline to submit a closing advice to the State Home. The Fee has launched three proposed designs for a brand new state seal, flag and motto.
Collins expressed sturdy opposition to the newest proposals in a November 10 letter to the Fee, the place he associated the try to take away the Algonquin featured on the present flag to “an exercise in cancel culture.”
“The Commission’s attempt to remove the representation of the Native American community as a centerpiece of the Massachusetts Seal and Flag is particularly egregious,” Collins advised the Fee in his letter. “The depth and significance of Native American history here in Massachusetts including as it relates to the early formations of our democracy cannot be whitewashed away by this Commission. So, I urge you to reject the proposals put forth and maintain the presence of our Native American community front and center on our flag and seal.”
The state flag has been on the middle of controversy in Massachusetts for years, with these supporting a redesign calling the Native American featured on the seal “offensive,” including that it negatively “stereotypes” Native Individuals.
Final up to date in 1885, the state seal options an Algonquin Native American holding a bow and a downward pointing arrow. A blue protect serves because the backdrop for the Native American determine with a blue ribbon surrounding it displaying the state’s motto, written in Latin.
Kathryn Akuahaha Watson — an Elder and tribal advisor for the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Tribe — helps Collins’ efforts to maintain Native Individuals entrance and middle on the state flag. In a Collins press launch saying his considerations, Watson expressed sturdy objections to what she calls “serious substantive and due process flaws in both the former special commission and the current state advisory commission.”
Watson famous that the fee’s unique goal was to deal with the “harmful imagery” of the raised arm with a sword on the crest and seal whereas retaining the determine of the “unknown Indian.” She says the Fee has moved away from that doctrine, calling its proposal to take away the Native American emblem “inconsistent with the commission’s charge and unsupported by any formal finding.” She provides that no formal vote has taken place that has established the Algonquin determine presently on the flag meets that standards.
“Both the Special and Advisory Commissions have been given a duty, highly significant and impactful for hundreds of years to come and is a unique historical obligation,” Watson mentioned. “The 400-year-old legal and historical Great Seal of Massachusetts is not a matter to be taken lightly, frivolously, whimsically, or capriciously, and its legal images and words must first be respected and preserved.”
Watson additionally says Native American residents weren’t supplied satisfactory time for enter through the six week window for public testimony between August and September, which she says coincided with Pow Wow season.
Amongst these supporting the removing of Native American imagery is the Metropolis of Boston. The Boston Human Rights Fee (HRC), which is overseen by Mayor Michelle Wu, filed a decision in Might 2024 declaring the Metropolis’s assist for a brand new state flag and seal that didn’t embody Native American imagery.
“The design of the current flag and motto of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts insult, demean and harm the history and dignity on the Indigenous peoples of Massachusetts, and therefore does not embody the Commonwealth’s contemporary commitment to peace, justice, liberty, and equality for all,” the Boston HRC wrote in its Decision in Assist of Altering the Flag & Seal of Massachusetts. “The flag and motto of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should symbolize our collective will and capacity to live together, in a united political community with liberty and justice for all, and should not inflict harm, threaten, insult, or demean any group of residents of Massachusetts.”
The decision went on to say that the present state flag “celebrates” violence in opposition to Native American populations by colonists.
“The current seal and motto of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were last updated, without public input from its residents, in 1898, and exhibits features (the sword, the figure of the Native American, and the motto) which celebrate the violence perpetuated by settlers against Native American populations of Massachusetts,” the HRC wrote.
Collins says the Native American group disagrees with Mayor Wu and the Boston HRC, saying that Wu as an alternative needs to “cancel” the Native American’s presence on the flag. He says the socialist “Wu wing of the Democratic Party continues to bleed independents and even Democrats with a far-left platform that now alienates the Native American community.”
The state Senator can also be calling for the motto, presently written in Latin, to stay as such. He says many of the languages spoken in Massachusetts by individuals who converse English as a second language are derived from Latin, pointing to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Cape Verdean Creole, and Haitian Creole as examples.
“Having the motto be spelled out in Latin does just that. An effort to turn the motto into English only would exclude those who do not speak or speak English as a second language to the aforementioned six languages,” Collins mentioned.
Collins urges those that want to take part within the course of to submit written feedback to the Fee by way of its web site.
