Thanksgiving Massachusetts Native and Newcomer Flags

Happy Thanksgiving!  This year the Massachusetts flag has been culturally reversed.  Instead of featuring a Native American, we now have a Newcomer American of the English stock fancying his way into this land. 

The Newcomer Pilgrim-Massachusetts Flag

The Culturally Reversed Massachusetts Flag

Thanksgiving is a holiday which commemorates the friendship and union of Natives of the New World and Newcomers from the Old World.  In honor of this holiday we have the flag of Massachusetts and a modified version.  The official Massachusetts features an Indigenous American with a bow and arrow, but in a new version we have a pilgrim with a walking stick and Bible.  In addition, the white star is now a white cross.  As with the flag of Oklahoma that has six brown crosses, in many Native American traditions the cross is a symbol that represents a star rather than a method of execution.

The Newcomer-Massachusetts flag is a twice modified flag.  The original version was first presented to vexillologists around the world at the 2009 International Congress of Vexillology in Yokohama.  Peter Orenski gave a thought provoking paper on Controversial Indian [Native American] Symbols on U.S. State Flags.  In an effort to put the proverbial red man's moccasin on the white man's foot, Orenski placed a pilgrim on the shield and replaced the frontier man's sword with a red man's tomahawk. 

Official Massachusetts Flag

But with my modifications, a Native American version of a star is in the canton position of the shield, which is the white plus symbol.  Also, the arm matches the posture, coming out of the heraldic wreath.  Orenski's version had the hand off set 90 degrees.  Finally, my version has a red field, while Peter's version had white shield for the Pilgrim.

 Dr. Orenski was one of the primary voices in vexillology, who recently passed away last year.  He is sorely missed and was a great inspiration to everyone connected to vexillology.  Originally from Romania, Peter was a bright star in vexillology. This flag is for Peter.  I am ever grateful for his work, as vexillologist who lives in his afterglow.

You can see Peter Orenski's paper here, with original Pilgrim Flag:
http://www.manataka.org/page1189.html

Newcomer and Native Designs for the Flag of Massachusetts Compared

Klingon Republic - California Style

Here is the California flag with a Klingon Targ, which is sort of like a Klingon Boar.  If you didn't know, Klingon's are fictional aliens in the Star Trek Universe.  They are a rather warlike species and its seen in way of all things Klingon.

Here is the flag with Klingon Script on the California flag. It reads phonetically "Qalighrnya Republiq." Also the star has been changed into the Klingon Emblem.

National Geographic Society Flag in Different Languages

In French this is what the flag should look like.

National Geographic Society in Japanese, at least this is one way when translating directly to meaning instead seeing the concepts of National, Society, and Geography and foreign.

This is the Thai Version of National Geographic Society.

In Hebrew we have National Geographic Society.

National Geographic Society in Korean.

National Geographic Society in Russian.

In Sanskrit we have the National Geographic Society Flag.

 National Geographic in Georgian Script.

 National Geographic Society in Klingon!

African-American St. Louis Pride Flag

The St. Louis African-American Pride takes the official flag of St. Louis and changes it with Pan-African Colours.

African-American Mississippi Pride Flag

Like the African-American flag designed by David Hammons, the African-American Mississippi Pride flag takes the official flag and modifies it with Pan-African colours.  In this case, the intensity of the flag seems to invert and speaks of Black Pride. Yellow is added and gives the flag a Jamaican flavor.  Usually the colour red is conserved in Hammons-type flags, but only the bottom red band is maintained to remind us that blood is red in all peoples.  And note, the Jamaican flag has a yellow cross and no stars, also the left and right wings are black.  However the green and black wings are reversed, to distinguish this flag from Jamaica and Dominicana; yet it allows a connection to be noticed. 

Dominica is the little sister of Jamaica who everyone always overlooks and mistakes for the Dominican.  Like Jamaica they speak English in the Dominica, but in the Dominican they speak Spanish.

But remember, many African-Americans are double transplants.  Perhaps the most popular doubly seasoned transplant of America is the Scotch-Irish, who were originally from Scotland, then moved to Ireland, and then moved to the USA.  Likewise this flag pays homage to the double transplant of Afro-Caribbean Americans who were originally from Africa, then transplanted to the Caribbean and then to the USA.

Like the Scotch-Irish Americans, the Afro-Caribbish Americans are an essential and delicious element of American Pie.

African-Christian Church Flag

The African-Christian Church flag is based upon the regular Christian Church flag, but with Pan-African colours.  Like the Hammons African-American flag, the colour red is conserved and Kwanzaa colours of red and black are included.  Red is always conserved because the blood every Christian is always red, regardless of skin tone.

The popular Christian flag has a field of white with a blue canton and red cross.  The unity point between these two flags is the red cross.