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Detroit de Burgundy: The Worst flag ever discovered

For the longest time, I was convinced that the city of Detroit had the worst flag ever concieved by man. It’s an ugly mix of various parts of heritage centered around a city seal that leaves much to be desired. Due to the fact that the flag is so horrendous, most people haven’t known what it looks like. Very few places in the city have the balls to actually fly the thing, which I’m sure is a combination of shame and avoiding the question “what the hell is that flag out front”.

As you can see, the city desperately needs a new flag:

The Flag of the City of Detroit

The flag is divided up to represent French, British, and American rule over the city surrounding the city seal. There’s also some latin words, representing the mottos of the City of Detroit: “We hope for better things” and “It will rise from the ashes”. Despite the fact that the motto represents a fire from the 19th century, that motto has proven to become more and more true over time, sadly enough.

House of Burgundy Coat of Arms

As I said before, I was convinced that this was the worst flag ever concieved by man. It’s as though it was designed by committee, everyone had their own idea and nobody could decide, so all the ideas made it in. Putting the terrible city seal aside, it looks like an awful patchwork of scattered history. Nobody ever could be proud of this flag. However, history has proven me wrong: another flag exists that upon first glance one could assume that it was the inspiration for Detroit’s.

However, it does not.

It represents the flags of the territories of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. His flag was based on the family coat of arms, which we can assume was so absurdly elabourate as to distract the opponent in battle with an array of flying colors and as such, gain the upper hand. You can see it to the left. Tell me you can look at that and not be distracted?

Frighteningly enough, the flag was based on the coat of arms. The patchwork shield became the predacessor of what may be the worst flag in history.

The Flag of the House of Burgundy

Words can’t even describe how bad it is. You just have to see for yourself. It belonged to this guy:

Charles the Bold: Not a Flag Designer

Charles the Bold, in retrospect, I’m sure could have done whatever he wanted as far as a flag went. While he’s not a household name, the amount of land that fell under the house of Burgundy was once massive: rivaling that of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the lands were never unified, and Charles’ vision for his own kingdom never came to be. You can see the absurd amount of land he covered here.

In many ways, there are too many similarities between the land holdings of Charles The Bold and the City of Detroit. Both tried to unify a large, diverse group of people. Both faced an amazing amount of obstacles. Both became powerful before falling drastically, and neither realized their long term vision.

The difference is that it’s too late for Charles the Bold, but not for us. The recent city council primary election results are a slim shred of hope that there may be some competent people left willing to take charge.

But either way: we really, really, really need a new flag. Let’s get something that businesses will be proud to fly, not something so shameful that nobody even knows waht it is.

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