Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/26/seattle-person-confuses-norweg.html
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What’s especially embarrassing is that Seattle has a high proportion of folks of scandihoovian descent. You see Norwegian and Swedish flags all over the place. You hardly ever see the confederate flag on the west side of the state too. Anyone sporting the stars and bars in an urban area west of the cascades is going to get weird looks.
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I had a similar experience here in NH.
Coworker: “I saw someone flying an Islamic State flag, Vodalus!”
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Wow. I hope she researches her novels better than that.
After reading this I am disinclined to read one to find out.
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About 15 years ago I was driving through South Carolina with my conservative father-in-law. Many popular places in the south (particularly Florida) hang Canadian flags as a welcome gesture to all the snowbirds from north of the border. I don’t know if there is a flag from a muslim nation or organization that might somehow resemble this…
The 12 minute rant hat followed about how even down here, these people down here think they’re the REAL Americans, and look at them sucking up to the muslims! Ya know what would happen? Some muslim would come here and not see they’re flag flying and get OFFENDED. They’d be a VICTIM. Its not POLITICALLY CORRECT ENOUGH when they come to visit the country they tried to blow up. And some god damned lawyer would make sure…
I didn’t interrupt. Let him run out of steam (think we might have been in North Carolina by then, and quietly mentioned that I’m pretty sure that was South Carolina’s flag he’d seen.
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Surely, he must have been comforted by all the actual confederate battle flags in people’s front yards there.
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Whoa, a Norwegian flag all the way in Greenwood? They’d better move back to Ballard. There’s a clear line that separates those neighborhoods.
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That kind of reminds me of, years ago, someone I used to hang out with, ranting about “all that Mexican writing” on a package of something he had bought. He didn’t appreciate me pointing out that (a) that was French, not Spanish, and (b) they sell it in Canada, and if you want to sell something in Canada, it has to be labeled in both English and French.
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Maybe somebody’s been reading SM Stirling’s “Draka” series, Where the American South and racists in Nordic countries combined to form a racially pure superpower…?
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No, Norway is where Neo Confederates and White Nationalists who like to think they are of Viking heritage would WANT to live, if it wasn’t for all the socialism and ice. 
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They’ll have to move to Norway when they realize Trump has turned Amerika into a shit hole country.
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I just did a search for “confederate flag” and the top-of-the-page image results I got were all of Norwegian flags.
Some confused racists are going to be displaying Norwegian flags at “Confederate pride” events soon.
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Thar takin’ our FREEDUMBS!
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Uff da!
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I love a good internet pile-on as much as the next guy, but if you click through the linked Time article to the original Seattle Times article, you’ll see this:
There was no wind, and on a flagpole there was what obviously was the U.S. flag at the top, and below, a red flag with blue stripes.
Simply hanging down, not spread out, you could make some assumptions that it was the star-filled “Southern cross” of the Confederacy.
The complainer obviously over-reacted and embarrassed herself, but I can totally see on a windless day how you might confuse this
For this:
The colors are similar, with no wind the shapes and proportions are roughly similar. Obviously there are no stars but it’s not an outrageous mistake to make.
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I really tried to come up with something snarky and funny, but this is just so very, very dumb. My soul hurts.
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You could send them all to Edgeøya and Nordaustlandet so they can live out their fantasies.
Silly Rebecca. All the Confederate flags are in eastern Washington.
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