Open Letter: Alex Brower and the Great Flag Debate
Alderman Brower,
As a lifelong Milwaukeean and former resident of your district, I’m writing to express concern about the City Flag Task Force. With full respect for your office, I believe this initiative misdirects time, energy, and public resources away from far more pressing issues.
You’ve campaigned on transformative policies like public ownership of utilities, housing equality, strong public schools, and worker empowerment. I support these goals wholeheartedly, but when civic leadership like yourself prioritizes symbolic debates over material needs and a broader agenda, it fosters disillusionment among your constituents.
The value of a city’s flag is diminished when measured against the practical challenges that city faces daily—be it economic disinvestment, infrastructure decay, or public safety concerns. A flag may express a shared identity, but surely it cannot solve a housing crisis. It may inspire pride, but it factually cannot repair roads, reduce violent crime, or improve access to public transit or education. By fixing these real-world issues first the symbols of this great city, including both of its controversial flags, will then change for the better.
If the goal now is to legitimize a new flag through proper bureaucratic channels, understand that this, too, invites a certain level of public scrutiny. Any new design your task force has a hand in formally adopting will be picked apart and ridiculed. That’s not a threat, that’s just the nature of public-facing design. It happens every time a company rebrands or unveils a new logo. Some people will love it. Others will hate it. Most will learn to live with it. Either way, the process won’t guarantee consensus. But it will guarantee noise and unrest.
And it’s important to note the People’s Flag of Milwaukee has already been embraced by the public. It appears on murals and apparel, as full-body paint jobs on vehicles throughout town, and even some of the newly redesigned MCTS buses are inspired by the flag design. It has been co-opted by major institutions like the Milwaukee Brewers who have used it on promotional merchandise and officially licensed jerseys during nationally televised games. None of this was the result of a top-down campaign spearheaded by politicians. It was the byproduct of a community-driven, organically spread, and culturally affirmed movement. That kind of adoption is more authentic than any legislative declaration.
I urge you to reconsider your focus, Alderman Brower. As someone who campaigned on the power of grassroots movements, you understand better than most that authentic change comes from the ground up, not from committees down. Honor that ethos by redirecting your energy toward the material improvements your constituents have been waiting for.
