this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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AFAIK, the monochrome flag comes from military uniforms, a lot of them have adopted flag patches in monochrome tans and greens to better match the camo of their uniforms. Police have been adopting more "tactical" military style uniforms in black, so black monochrome flags match that color scheme.
You may also notice that some of them have the flag backwards with the stars on the right, that's another styling cue from the military. The flag patches on uniform shoulders are in that orientation, it's mean to evoke the image of the flag streaming behind them as they walk.
As far as why civilians display these symbols, there's probably a few reasons, but it's probably pretty safe to say that most of them would identify themselves as being patriotic to some extent or another and want to show support for the police and/or military or at least think that the tactical look is cool.
The black version probably caught on mostly because it looks cool and kind of works with whatever color gear or vehicle you want to slap it on, tans and greens and such don't necessarily go with everything quite so well.
You'll often see these black flags with a single colored stripe, this originates from the nickname for the police "the thin blue line" (blue because police in the US traditionally usually had blue uniforms) though pretty much every vaguely public-safety/military/law enforcement has their own colored line these days- red for fire, green for military, forest green for park rangers, yellow for tow truck drivers etc.
You could probably write a book about what these lines are meant to represent, how they're interpreted by different groups, etc. Often they're meant to represent something like "the line between order and chaos"
Thanks to the blue lives matter response to the black lives matter movement, this sort of imagery has also become very associated with conservative politics
You may occasionally see the flag being flown upside-down. This originated as a distress signal, and is basically people saying that they think the nation is trouble.
I've tried to keep this mostly very matter-of-fact and not go off on my personal thought on these types of symbols and the people that display them, and kept it to just where these symbols come from. I'm going to leave my personal opinions with just a simple statement that these symbols tend to be used disproportionatly by the right wing, and I do not particularly like the symbols, what they represent, and how they are used.