The display of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, or the Gadsden flag with its timber rattlesnake often seen at pro-gun rallies, is under investigation by the federal government as constituting race-based harassment, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received a complaint in early 2014 from an African-American man who felt that a white co-worker’s baseball cap featuring the coiled snake design was racial harassment. Both men work for the US Postal Service.
The man’s complaint is now being investigated by the EEOC. According to the Washington Post the agency has already decided that wearing the Confederate Flag can be construed as harassment.
Nothing has been reported about the man with the allegedly offensive cap doing or saying anything racist to the complainant.
The EEOC has not made any determination that the Gadsden flag is a “racist symbol,” as hoax-debunking site Snopes notes. The EEOC’s ruling on the case so far even includes the flag’s history.
Designed by Christopher Gadsden during the Revolutionary War, the Gadsden flag has been used of late by pro-gun and pro-military types, and in the early days of the Tea Party it was standard at that movement’s meetings around the country.
Some people see it as shorthand for distrust of the government and intolerance. Prior to 2009 or so, this wasn’t the case. It was just a nifty looking historical flag and design that even Metallica had cribbed for a 1991 best-selling album
Only the timber rattlesnake occurs throughout the area of the original 13 Colonies and the snake motif was used in various official government seals, particularly for the military opposing royal tyranny, even before the Revolution.
. The rattlesnake, like the bald eagle, came to symbolize American ideals and society. The rattlesnake symbol was first officially adopted by the Continental Congress in 1778 when it approved the design for the official Seal of the War Office.
