Opinion: Minnesotans don't all agree on which state flag should be flown. The conflicts come from many places.

The older flag (Wikipedia graphic)

Minnesota has two flags and both are flying in different parts of the state. The older banner represents the state's connection to farming, which is historically accurate. But the flag illustrates the American Indian running into the sunset, which has proved a problematic emblem for many Minnesotans. The second banner was unfurled earlier this year and features two opposing hues of blue and a bold eight-pointed white star. But even with its simplicity, the new flag has stoked controversy.

Some Minnesotans hoped a new flag would help unite the state, but some more rural counties have rejected the new flag and have stuck to flying the old version, writes Karen Tolkkinen in her opinion for The Minnesota Star Tribune. "America has been struggling with how to deal with the symbols of a past that harmed many people, and Minnesota has not been spared. . . . It’s fair to say that the old state flag reflected the reality of the 1800s. As logging and railroad barons plundered the state, and European settlers moved in, the state’s Indigenous people did lose power."

The new flag (Wikipedia graphic)

Part of the point of changing the flag was to remove a state symbol that was emblematic of Indigenous people's historical oppression and loss. "Arguably now, more than at any time in our state’s history, Minnesotans see and understand the massive loss and trauma endured by Indigenous people," Tolkkinen adds. "Simply changing a flag doesn’t fix that, but those who felt their oppression reflected in the flag no longer chafe under that demeaning symbol."

Hanging onto the old is nothing new in people or government politics, but resisting a new flag can have a deeper meaning. "It’s also easy to see the frantic rally around the old flag as the fearful acts of a majority group that is losing power as demographics shift locally and nationally. Some of that is true. But it doesn’t tell the whole story," Tolkkinen writes. "The sting, I think, is feeling like they are being erased from history."

The ancestors of many rural white Minnesotans "arrived here not speaking English, driven across the ocean by hunger or poverty or war. While hundreds of thousands of settlers got Minnesota land for free through the Homestead Act of 1864, many other immigrants bought their land from the government or the railroad, paying $1.25 an acre starting in 1841," Tolkkinen explains. "They had hard lives. . . . The farmer in the old state flag could have been an ancestor of many people in our area. . . . I can see that they might feel, like the Native man riding into the sunset, that they are being written out of history."