Instead of 13 stripes and 50 stars for colonies and states, this flag features 7 stripes and 27 stars for Articles of the Constitution and ensuing Amendments to it. I feel like mere territorial growth doesn’t tell the story of America’s development as a society and republic as well as tracking the changes to its constitution. Especially the voting rights amendments.
Colors borrow from the cardinal direction colors used by Indigenous American nations, (black and blue are interchangeable depending on which nation your speaking to). This was done to bake some land recognition into the flag.
Lastly the torch of Lady Liberty is included both to visually distinct the flag from the original stars and stripes, but also to signify America’s status as a nation of immigrants. 99% of all Americans today either are an immigrant themselves or have an ancestor within living memory who was one, and Lady Liberty became a sort of patron saint of such folks by being the first sight a lot of people saw coming to America for the first time, not to mention how she’s technically an immigrant herself having been gifted from france.
Imgur asked to verify I was 18 or older before viewing that…
STUPID SEXY STRIPES!
At least you got there, it me blocked before then because I have a VPN turned on on public WiFi.
Security for me but not for thee is the motto of many sites like Imgur and Reddit.
I don’t know that the torch completely works. I didn’t know what it was, read your text, looked back at it, and it still took me 30sec or so to figure it out.
A more stylized torch might work better?
Love it overall though! Absolutely gorgeous. :)
Totally agree. How much symbolism do you want to put into a flag anyway. Even without the torch, this flag has plenty. Also, the torch has way too much detail to work in a flag, but you could simplify it to just a wavy flame.
Probably, but I had to hand trace it because I didn’t know how to get a more stylized one onto the page lol
Tried a new divider Saw this broken arrow symbol on Extra History’s Hiawatha episodes and apparently it’s an old peace symbol for the indigenous nations in the region.
Could also do a venice and have a war variant with the opposite symbol, two arrows pointing in opposite directions
Edit: I did a Venice
Goddamn. Like reddit, imgur has gone to absolute shit.
Imgur actually started their blatant enshittification before reddit did. They started first by gaslighting that imgur wasn’t originally made to just be an image for reddit. Despite the original reddit posts getting people to try it, which were still up last I checked, literally saying that.
Yeah I was there when it was being promoted by the creator to be used specifically for reddit. Found it pretty funny when they tried to walk back on that years later.
99% of all Americans today either are an immigrant themselves or have an ancestor within living memory who was one
That’s a shocking stat to me. My perspective is probably skewed because I am from a small town in central Appalachia so nearly everyone in the county was from one of the families that settled the area shortly before the American Revolution. I would have assumed the percentage of people whose families immigrated here before the Civil War was much higher.
I don’t think it is correct either, but consider this:
If the family is native american/settled before the civil war, but a single person married into the family who immigrated later, then the whole branch of the family tree falls under “immigrant in living memory”.
FWIW, I’ve heard this statistic before as “Only 1% of Americans today are Native Americans” which feels a bit closer, though a quick Google indicates puts that number closer to 3%. That fact sort of inherently rejects the 99% claim, which indicates to me it may be exaggerated or has been repeated in slight error.
The 3% is a reason to be skeptical, but doesn’t necessarily refute the 99% claim. A person can be a Native American, part of their community, and have a grandparent who was an immigrant. 2/3 of them at minimum would need to have a similar situation at minimum, but it’s less than the percent who live outside reservations (78%) so it doesn’t seem totally far-fetched. It seems high though to be sure
That presumes that all of that 3% of Indigenous folks are of pure indigenous american decent, which for a variety of reasons, doesn’t really jive with the reality of things.
Fact of the matter is that what people primarily identify as rarely reflects the whole story of their heritage, and even people who’s families are seemingly untouched by outside influence in centuries turn out to have a great grandparent who only signed documents the way they did because they were told to at Ellis Island when the clerk Americanized their name.
