Minnesota unveiled its new state flag Tuesday, deciding on a design with notable differences from a public submission that had right-wingers outraged this weekend, claiming it resembled a flag from Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) homeland too much.
That outrage stemmed largely from a post by the notorious right-wing X account “End Wokeness,” which wrongly declared Sunday that Minnesota had already chosen its new flag. The account claimed the flag had similarities to that of the autonomous state of Puntland in Somalia, with both featuring green, blue, and white strips, and the inclusion of a star.
Included in the viral post was a photo Puntland’s flag and what was incorrectly declared to be Minnesota’s new flag. In reality, the attached flag was a design submitted by a resident to the state that authorities said they planned to tweak.
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“Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the West,” the post from End Wokeness read. “Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) is from Puntland. Minnesota just unveiled their new flag. I’m sure this is just a coincidence.”
Monica Crowley, the former Fox News contributor who was slated to join the Trump administration but withdrew amid plagiarism allegations, chimed in on the post, which has over 5 million views, writing, “Realize what time it is in America.”
The End Wokeness account went as far as sharing old screenshots of a LinkedIn page for the flag’s designer, in which the Minnesota native posted about getting vaccinated and encouraged others to do the same.
Minnesota authorities said they opted to replace its previous flag because its seal was cluttered and insensitive to the state’s Indigenous American population, as it showed am indigenous man riding off into the sunset as a white farmer tilled the land.
The state’s “Emblems Redesign Commission” finalized the new flag on Tuesday morning after it reviewed more than 2,000 design submissions from the public and tweaked the top submission. In the end, the group decided Minnesota’s new flag would be two blocks of light and dark blue, with an eight-point star on its left side—a nod to Minnesota’s nickname being the “North Star State.”
Barring lawmakers taking action to undo the commission’s decision, the new flag will begin flying over government buildings on May 11, which is Minnesota’s “Statehood Day.”
