Massachusetts Sen. Warren backs efforts to change state flag

Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren this week supported an ongoing effort to change the state flag and seal over concerns it includes imagery offensive to native groups.

"There are people who are reconsidering the flag in Massachusetts, and I support those efforts," Warren said to Fox News. The state flag consists of a white banner with the state seal emblazoned on it.

The seal includes the Latin phrase, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" or "She seeks by the sword a quiet place under liberty." At the center of the flag is a native man. Directly above is an arm carrying a sword.

The flag's detractors, among them Newburyport resident Marianna Vesey, have asserted that the "colonializing and violent depiction" on the seal supports the idea that White individuals are "in charge of this world and that we have to subdue the Native American people."

Fellow detractor Linda Lu Burciaga has pointed to the native on the flag and the history his depiction recalls.

"The belt was patterned by the illustrator after the red flannel belt of Wampanoag leader Metacomet, who was the leader of the first native war of resistance against English colonization," Burciaga said, according to The Blaze. "His severed head was impaled on a pike and displayed in Plymouth for more than 20 years as a war trophy. That's just one part of the depiction."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.