September 28, 2021

"The colors of our flag are intended to stand for unity, valor and justice. The gray, monochrome flag represents America surrendering..."

"... to its fall from power and loss of the ideals it once stood for. The American dream is being washed away."

Here's her redesign:

Here's a webpage showing more work from Na Kim. She's mainly a book cover designer, but she's also been prominent in social media, including in this Instagram account Panolo Blahnik, which is photographs of shoes made of bread (or... should I say bread made into shoes?):


Take that into account as you decide how to understand the proffered flag.

60 comments:

tim maguire said...

I hate the gray and find it unjustifiably pessimistic. Still, though, I'm intrigued by Na Kims justification given that all this woke/systemic racism/BLM silliness is meant to force America to finally embrace the values it has claimed but ignored for 250 years. She describes that as being a loss despite the fact that she is in the art community, which is almost uniformly behind these new movements.

Gunner said...

I thought the American Dream was to get rich. Are people not getting rich anymore?

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Justice = leftists get to lie, cheat, steal. Do we need a flag for lying leftists?

John Borell said...

If people continue to tear down the symbols of our country, soon we'll have no country.

No diverse group of people can hold together as a body politic without something to unify them.

CJinPA said...

We used to laugh off such exercises. Anyone who laughs it off now is uninformed. Unless it's a nervous laugh.

LordSomber said...

Looks like they ignored the vexillology basics.

Nobody does their homework anymore.

Dave Begley said...

Fuck Na Kim. She's no Betsy Ross. She's doing this to generate controversy and attract attention to herself.

Seriously, these people want to destroy and reconstruct the United States in their own liberal image and likeness. And, frankly, with 2m new illegal aliens in 2021 they are doing a damn good job. Every single fucking day Joe Biden does something else to destroy the Rule of Law in this country. Ann is a former law prof and there are many lawyers here on the blog. I've long said if we lose the Rule of Law in this country we're ruined. The latest example is that SCOTUS clearly said no more eviction moratoriums and Biden blew them off. Here in Omaha, it is apparently a crisis in county court with evictions brought to a near stand-still.

FJB

Dave Begley said...

BTW, I looked at all the new flag proposals. They all suck.

Yancey Ward said...

If she had thrown in a hammer and sickle, she would be making the point appropriately. I can't read the article- it is behind the paywall- but would that be making her point more explicit, or is the point she is making the exact opposite? The bread shoe provides no illumination.

Achilles said...

1. It is a commentary on what is happening. It is powerful and it is direct.

2. She never discusses whether or not she thinks it is a good thing.

3. This is the end game. The Aristocracy has been trying to take down the United States since it's inception. They have wanted their serfs back forever. This is their final play.

They seized power with an obviously fraudulent election. They know they are going to get wiped out in any real election. They would lose California in a paper ballot voter ID to vote purple thumb election. They know their shenanigans don't help most people and the more people who understand what they are doing will turn against them.

This lady cannot say what she thinks because the aristocracy controls her profession.

But my guess is she is not happy with what the globalist aristocracy is trying to do.

tommyesq said...

It should have hammers and sickles on each side, with stars in the middle to better represent the current US.

Achilles said...

Yancey Ward said...

If she had thrown in a hammer and sickle, she would be making the point appropriately. I can't read the article- it is behind the paywall- but would that be making her point more explicit, or is the point she is making the exact opposite? The bread shoe provides no illumination.

That is just a tool for motivating a few retards.

Climate Change, Tax the Rich, Critical Race Theory and BLM are far more popular tools.

But it is the same people using these tools to the same end.

Narr said...

"Proffered" is a great word. I'm not trying to understand the flag, though, or the artist.

Chuck said...

Oh boy. I expect some vintage comments in response to this bit of New York Timesism from the Althouse commentariat.

All I'd say, is that for years I have been looking at all kinds of US flag variations in Trumpist America. Black and white flags with one blue stripe which I think it is supposed to be a "Thin Blue Line flag." And similar flags in black and white but with a red stripe (a "Red-Republican Line" flag). There are the flag images embedded into the "Punisher" skull shape. Too many others to list, right?

So as the Lefties at the New York Times do their graphic riffing on the US flag, they've got quite a ways to go, to catch up to the Trump/Tea Party crowd.

veni vidi vici said...

Did anyone ever publish Trump's proposal for the revamping of the graphics on the new Air Force One planes?

He was correct that hearking back to the Kennedy era as we have for the past 60 years is a bit long in the tooth for a country not in decline.

I suppose we'll know what the Smart Set (TM) thinks of that last bit by whether they toss out the planned revision and revert to the old style.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The flag that supports police is the "thin blue line" flag - it has nothing to do with Trump.
It is a symbol of support for the police. Period. It represents the line at dawn or dusk. The person you call when you are in trouble. The person who stands between you and the criminal.

While the few bad cops get all the media attention - all the good police are ignored.
The pro-police flag is a way to let the good police know - they are supported by people who are grateful for their service.

Chuck said...

"Decoding the pro-Trump insurrectionist flags and banners..."

https://qz.com/1953366/decoding-the-pro-trump-insurrectionist-flags-and-banners/

Howard said...

Keep pulling the crabs back into the pot, Achilles. It what CCP and KGB operatives prod you to do like a dancing poodle.

Amichel said...

What's striking to me is that not a single one of these proposed flags was actually beautiful. They were all designed to push some ideological point or other, with aesthetics only an after-thought.

Narayanan said...

Is she also doing this redesign for states also?
could be a nice lesson in civics!

Scot said...

Ciabatta means "slipper" in English.

Temujin said...

I can't help but go here. The Left has spent decades taking the things we knew for sure- our traditions, culture, the difference between right and wrong, what is criminal and what is not, even gender- and working on them to make them less certain. Not so much muddied, as greyed out. Taking things that, beforehand, had always been black and white, and turning them into a muddled grey. So no one could make anything out of it. Thus allowing anything to be a possibility. That is how the ridiculous becomes the new standard.

This one image shown on your post personifies their work. At last, they've reached the point of greying out America entirely.

Mr Wibble said...

Nothing says you love America like tearing down statues, attacking the founding fathers, claiming that the country was founded on racism, and proposing to change the flag.

wendybar said...

Chucky....your side has BLM and ANTIFA flags. Settle down.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Chuck is king of whataboutism.

All sort of flags are created to send messages. That is wholly different than suggesting we change the US flag and our National Anthem to acquiesce to the collective left's current woke-victim grievances.

Some stupid pop star recently suggested that the white stripe in the US flag is a symbol of white supremacy. Lunacy and historical ignorance. Perhaps we need a better public education system? is there a flag for that?

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Trump hate = we must throw our entire history as a nation in the garbage for the left's pathetic grievance theater.

Putin is laughing his ass off.

rcocean said...

Burn a BLM flag - DC Obama Judge sentences you to 3 years.
Burn an American flag - DC Obama Judge applauds.

Thats this country 2021. Frankly since we don't have a country anymore, who cares what the American flag looks like?

We need to breakup the USA into separate parts. I'd suggest three: NY, New England, Del, NJ DC, MD = 1. Calf, Wash, Oregon, Alaksa, Haw =2. Rest of country =3.

Breezy said...

The Q&A on her website indicates she is very much living the American Dream, though finding it needing constant care and being driven more by fear of failure than by confidence in sustainability. That sounds right to me. The Dream is a risk, as it should be, and is agreed to be by the many who risk their lives to come here.

Her flag and comment is depressing. No, thank you.

Mikey NTH said...

She got her attention, which is what she wanted.

PM said...

1. Black + White = Gray flag. Leaves out our Hispanic, Asian, Native American brothers.
2. High-end shoes made of bread very appropriate, considering the bread they charge.

Scot said...

PS. The loaf in the picture is ciabatta.

cassandra lite said...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre...

Lurker21 said...

The point of the article is "Look at me! Look at me! Am I not clever!" The Times did stuff like this 50 years ago and nobody paid attention, because we didn't have the internet and social media and the ability to conduct endless mass discussions about everything.

Variations on the US flag are pretty common. You may recall the stars replaced with marijuana leaves 50 years ago, or the stars replaced with swastikas or skulls 20 years ago and today. The "thin blue line" flag looks quite benign and even respectful in comparison.

This is the sort of thing people do when they have too much time on their hands and think themselves clever. Making it into a battle between woke America and "Trumpist America" (all of one piece, really? Plenty of people with the "thin blue line" flag may have voted for Biden) gives such things more importance than they really deserve.

Narr said...

I'm old enough to remember when US flag clothing was considered disrespectful by some--as well as flag-design wastebaskets and other tchotchkes.

I don't mind people playing with the color or design of the American flag, or proposing new ones; I just don't have to understand the deep symbology or agree that it needs improvement. The state of Mississippi recently changed theirs entirely, to get rid of the CS influence, but when Tennessee and Arkansas got modern flags for themselves, sharp-eyed vexillologists discerned confederate elements anyway.

Sometimes you can't win.

Anyway, the artist is just running her ideas up the flagpole to see who gets a hard-on.

Bilwick said...

I still prefer the Gadsden flag. You don't tread on me, I don't tread on you. Or as the late, great Leonard Read summarized it: "Anything that's peaceful."

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Chuck - that link is complete leftwing garbage. But then - you're a leftist now. so - it fits.

Narayanan said...

PM said...
2. High-end shoes made of bread very appropriate, considering the bread they charge.
------------
should it be cake for proper vibe decadent [antoinette]

rcocean said...

Hot Conservative takes:

1. Wow, just wow
2. What a hypocrite, she's American too!
3. No problem, we Cons don't care, just don't scare the horses.
4. what a baby with her wokeness.
5. That American flag helped black people and fought Hitler.
6. Millions are breaking into the USA, we're doing something great.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

If you're a leftwing neo-Nazi fascist lunatic with zits you can wave the Antifa flag.

WK said...

Maybe she used gray so that it looks similar for those people who are red/blue color blind. And the bread shoes are probably gluten free so that people who avoid gluten can enjoy the pictures as well. Very accommodating.

Drago said...

LLR Chuck lefty bookend Howard: "Keep pulling the crabs back into the pot, Achilles. It what CCP and KGB operatives prod you to do like a dancing poodle."

Yes.

Howard wrote this the very week that, once again, as always, the democratical/LLR-democratical DOJ decided to let more ChiCom spies go free.

As. Always.

It appears that our pro-marxist LLR Chuck and Howard basically wait until the Dementia Boy's Earpiece Administration buckles under to Xi before launching another Projection Campaign to see if they can deflect.

I also see that our pro-marxist LLR Chuck is back on the already fully debunked "Insurrection" lie.

Well. Given that just today we heard there are still over 4,000 American hostages in Afghanistan, lots of additional lefty obfuscation "smoke" will be required in the coming days.

Mike Petrik said...

Chuck --
I think you are often treated unfairly in these precincts. But not this time. There is a difference between (i) creating variations of the American flag for special purposes, messages or causes versus (ii) creating a new American flag. This is not a subtle distinction. You are being stupid.

stutefish said...

I think Ms Kim has entirely missed the point of a flag.

Mea Sententia said...

I don't see how the bread-shoe helps me understand her flag. Of the six flags in the article, the one I disliked the least was the last one, the one with the single purple stripe. It was jarring the way the Times used the word 'iconography' to describe the flags since I associate that word with Orthodox religious art of Christ and the Saints. Using 'iconography' to describe national flags was unsettling, although I see now it has a wider, secular meaning too.

Danno said...

Would not a woke leftie understand her stiletto shoes are a tool of oppression for the women of the world?

SteveWe said...

Propaganda comes in many forms from many sources. A national flag IS propaganda, of course. Creating new variants of a national flag are also propaganda. As are any symbols and their various manipulations (stars, bars, colors, etc). Even without changes, a national flag can become propaganda as shown by Jasper Johns' paintings. Get used to it; it will forever happen. But recognize it when you see it.

Jamie said...

should it be cake for proper vibe decadent [antoinette]

That's how I took the shoe, which does in fact color (so to speak) how I take the flag. I took it as "o my people," or at least a weary "haven't we been here before?"

But this is 100% in a vacuum. I didn't look at the other flags; I didn't read about the author. Intentionalism is it of fashion, after all

Maynard said...


Trump hate = we must throw our entire history as a nation in the garbage for the left's pathetic grievance theater.

Of course, Trump hate knows no bounds. He must be a truly transformational figure.

However, the main reason I responded is the phrase "Grievance Theater". I am going to steal that phrase.

Tina Trent said...

The thin blue line flag is for honoring any First Responder killed or otherwise dead in line of duty. It’s more of a military form of honoring their heroes,

Quick: How many names can you remember dead from 9/11?

Matthew Shepard was a meth head who didn’t pay his bill. That was all that got him killed. An honest gay journalist exposed this, expecting otherwise.

A few months later, one of his killer’s mother was murdered for the same reason in the same place, using the same torture and bondage rituals. Anyone remember her name? Of course not. Gays and trannies need to stop thinking their suffering is superior to our suffering. Otherwise they are racists, if not full-bore fascist demanding the government do their wet work.

Full stop.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

which is photographs of shoes made of bread (or... should I say bread made into shoes?)

If you can wear them and walk around in them, then they're bread made into shoes.

If not, not.

Achilles said...

Howard said...

Keep pulling the crabs back into the pot, Achilles. It what CCP and KGB operatives prod you to do like a dancing poodle.

I know that you are having a hard time. Your man Joe got 13 Marines killed for no better reason than to have a September 11th photo op. Which he had to cancel because his Afghanistan pullout was so incompetent that treason is the only real explanation for what happened.

But I think we have all concluded you weren't really a marine. And if you were other marines would disown you at this point.

It must be hard for you with your face diaper and your useless vaccination to watch thousands of unvaccinated illegal immigrants flood our border and into our country while pushing vaccine mandates for US citizens and mask mandates for children in schools.

We could also talk about how your preferred candidates actually did take millions of dollars from Russia, much less the billions they have taken from a wide variety of our enemies.

And General Milley was up there today defending his treason.

And of course everyone told Joe his plan was stupid.

But they all carried it out anyways.

Nobody on the left can take responsibility for anything they do or believe. And thus you end up with dumb people like Howard who get drunk and post really stupid comments about how people that disagree with them are Russian operatives or somehow serving some foreign power.

Democrats are just terrible people.

Eric said...

These folks have to get out more.

Chuck said...

Mike Petrik said...
Chuck --
I think you are often treated unfairly in these precincts. But not this time. There is a difference between (i) creating variations of the American flag for special purposes, messages or causes versus (ii) creating a new American flag. This is not a subtle distinction. You are being stupid.


The New York Times requested of several graphic artists that they do their own impressionisms of American flags. As art; as discussion pieces. The artists' work is not going into some legislative proposal for a new American flag.

Indeed, the artists' work (commissioned as one-offs for a single Opinion column in the New York Times) it seems to me, carries LESS political freight than the scumbag insurrectionists who essentially carried their variety of Trumpist banners as battle flags on Capitol Hill, January 6, 2021.

I just knew the jackals here would jump on this blog post by Althouse to attack the artists without ever thinking of the rather large market of American flag variants in TrumpWorld. Until I reminded them. And then they'd be pissed off. And I was right.

Bilwick said...

Jen Psaki should like the hammer and sickle motif. It will go well with her Commie hat.

tim maguire said...

Chuck said...The New York Times requested of several graphic artists that they do their own impressionisms of American flags. As art; as discussion pieces. The artists' work is not going into some legislative proposal for a new American flag.

And this is that discussion.

Indeed, the artists' work (commissioned as one-offs for a single Opinion column in the New York Times) it seems to me, carries LESS political freight than the scumbag insurrectionists who essentially carried their variety of Trumpist banners as battle flags on Capitol Hill, January 6, 2021.

That’s your opinion. It’s hard for me to see the distinction you’re making, but there it is, you claim to be making one. The reality is, they both come out of a long tradition of making strategic alterations to the flag to make a political statement (one of the remarkable features of the US flag is the breadth of changes that can be made to it while still having it plainly be the American flag—I’ve seen flags that had no stars, no stripes, no red, no white, no blue, yet still made it immediately clear that they were the US flag). Nobody is duty-bound to accept all alterations as a group to be good or bad. There’s nothing wrong with supporting some and rejecting others.

Mike Petrik said...

Chuck asserts that that designing a new American flag for a political/artistic purpose is the same as designing a new non-American flag for a political/artistic purpose if the latter is inspired by the American flag. This makes no sense, Chuck.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Chuck said...
Indeed, the artists' work (commissioned as one-offs for a single Opinion column in the New York Times) it seems to me, carries LESS political freight than the scumbag insurrectionists who essentially carried their variety of Trumpist banners as battle flags on Capitol Hill, January 6, 2021.

Behold the "insurrectionist" dead ender. even the FBI is admitting that they've got nothing. Which anyone with a functioning brain knew on 1/6, since actual "insurrectionists" would have showed up with guns, and piled up hundreds if no thousands of dead bodies.

Does it bother you to always have to lie, Chuck?

Bilwick said...

Achilles: Granted that Howard is one of the stupidest people ever to sit down at a keyboard--that, or hw posts while drunk--but when he accuses of you of being a Soviet pawns, do you think he really believes that, or just lashing out? That is, the equivalent of calling you a Poo-Poo Head? I mean, if a State-fellator such as Howard sincerely thought you were serving te interests of the Kremlin, wouldn't he approve?

J L Oliver said...

What I noticed in the posted flag is the bland sameness which I think is what the equity team has as a final goal for all of us. Being unique means you are not in the hive mind. Just take the blue pill, dammit. A monotonous rut is the same as a grave.

Drago said...

Pro-marxist LLR Chuck: "Indeed, the artists' work (commissioned as one-offs for a single Opinion column in the New York Times) it seems to me, carries LESS political freight than the scumbag insurrectionists......"

Remember, it was just a couple weeks back that our pro-marxist LLR Chuck was hailing Joe Biden as a strategic military and diplomatic genius, along with George "The Walrus" Conway, so, consider the source of this latest and continuing "insurrection" lie which has now been exposed as an FBI operation which the FBI cannot bury fast enough.

Howard and LLR Chuck, leftist amigos, are going to just keep the Lefty Lyin' Train at Full Throttle for the foreseeable future.