this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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That pride flag is an eyesore. The colours don't go together already (natural colours, pastels, AND earthly colours) but moving the arrow to the middle makes it look even worse.
Yeah, I get they're trying to be even more inclusive, but isn't a rainbow used because it includes every color in the visible spectrum? Everyone, no matter their orientation or anything else, is included. Obviously the rainbow is segmented because it looks nicer, but it's not like every segment is supposed to represent a group, right? We don't need to include brown/black/whatever to include people of those skin tones, right?
It's an issue of when the flag was created and what it stood for then. The rainbow flag was specifically created to represent the LGB community (back when trans wasn't considered so much a separate thing from being gay). Indigenous people weren't a group originally considered to be included in the flag because it was specifically about sexual orientation, and that's why the inclusion of the trans colors made sense too, since our current understanding has shifted to how being transgender is about gender presentation and not sexual orientation. So both of those were added to flag not only as a show of support to include those communities, but as a statement about how all minorities are united in the issues they face.
Kinda like how the old American flag with the 13 stars for the 13 original colonies would still be inclusive of the entire 50 states today since they're all part of the US, but it doesn't get used because they kept changing it to include new states as they were added to represent the entirety of the US.
I get it, but also I think it may not be so great an idea. I like the rainbow pride flag including everyone. If you start adding extra things, then that's also implying anything not there isn't included, which I disagree with.
Personally, I'm a straight white man, but I also identify with the pride flag because I want to include and accept all people. For some reason many straight people think it excludes them, but it doesn't really. Everyone should have pride in who they are, it's just certain people weren't socially allowed to for a long time.
I guess if these things make people feel like they're included more then it's alright, but I just think it's better to say the pride flag is all-inclusive. (This is doubly true because eventually it will have to become a mess of a design.)
I know what you mean, and I agree to some extent.
The original pride flag was made with a specific purpose in mind - which was opposing oppression of the gay community in all its forms. It wasn't meant to include anybody else just by virtue of the circumstances in which it was made. It's also why there's like 500 other flavors of Pride flags (like the Trans flag that the trans colors on the inclusive flag are derived from). From that perspective, the original Pride flag and the new flag weren't made to include you as a straight white person any more than the American Flag was made to include Norwegians. And that's okay, because those flags symbolize a specific group of people, just like the Lesbian Pride flag doesn't include gay men or straight women. You can absolutely still identify with the Pride flag or support other groups for the exact reason you stated, and you don't need anybody's permission to do that, but it is important to remember and respect that not all spaces are meant to include everyone all the time.
I think what we need is a new, universal flag that can be focused specifically on the act/idea of being inclusive. And maybe the rainbow Pride flag will (and already has) changed meaning to be that new inclusive flag. It feels like it's been moving in that direction with the adoption of flags like this one, but I wouldn't want to assume something and accidentally appropriate an item that has cultural identity to a group. But, like you said, there's no reason to keep slapping competing colors and meanings on top of it if it already means being all-inclusive, and by slapping more stuff on there it implies that it isn't.
We either need a new flag specifically for inclusiveness, or just use the original rainbow flag to mean that. Slapping other stuff on it is giving me a headache from clashing colors.
Exactly. The point of the rainbow flag was the rainbow, and the people who created these new grotesque flags missed the point by miles and miles.
If we didn't need a brown stripe to represent people of colour, then there wouldn't be any racism in the queer community. The fact that some queer people are racist is why the rest of us decided to fly a flag with a more explicit message.
Also the black stripe is for victims of the AIDS crisis
You think that's bad, wait till you see the new design. Looks like a color explosion, except it's all the same colors.
I still get the classic flag 🏳️🌈 The whole point was that the colors aren't skin color... They're your goddamn soul. Being gay is all about being skittles on the inside, and those who attempt to divide us keep scribbling dumb ass skin colors on a perfectly balanced design.
I'm brown, I'm bisexual, I don't feel any "more represented" by this flag. All I feel is someone didn't go to design school.
It's meant to acknowledge intersectionality. The ways that minority identities can overlap, creating more complex lived experiences for some individuals.
I don't see how it does, to be honest.
Edit: I want to say, yes, I understand why those colors break right through the middle of the rainbow flag, but why? Does it really express what you hope for it to express?
And what abort white people? Where are their colors? I feel like this flag divides more than it brings anyone together. Seems like it only succeeded in bringing together a lot of SJW "political-correctness-gone-mad" types but not so much the average gay person.
White people don't need to be represented in a flag, because white people are already represented everywhere.
FFS this is some all lives matter bullshit.
Lol please, I'm not complaining about white people not being in there as much as I mean to criticize that you can't represent everyone on a flag by skin color. That would have to be every color. I think it's ridiculous to even aspire to add these extra colors, because it negates what the rainbow is supposed to represent,
All human skin colours (including "white") are shades of brown. The flag has a brown stripe for people of colour.
So if white is a shade of brown, then why is that stripe there? To signify what? That we all have skin?
The social construct of whiteness excludes so-called white people from having "colour" or "brownness". These are objectively untrue of people with pale skin, because cream is a colour and a shade of brown. But white supremacists and white culture at large deny objective reality, and substitute their own. This is why the term "people of colour" is able to exist. If it weren't for racists pretending white isn't a colour, it wouldn't make sense. In society, white people are privileged by being treated as though they do not have race. The privilege of being white is never having to think about your race if you don't want to. It's the default. If you say "a worker" or "a politician" or "a firefighter" or "a woman" or "a gay person", society teaches people to think of a white person in all of those cases. Being nonwhite is considered a character trait, and being white isn't. People of colour were often given less depth in older movies, and excluded from being the protagonist, and that's still happening, because society says whiteness is the default. That whiteness... isn't a characteristic. Within this social context, a brown line which is objectively the colour of "white skin", subjectively excludes white people due to their social privilege.
I don't want a flag that doesn't include everyone for some weird queer theory or hetronormative analysis reason. 🙂😉
And that's why the rainbow is enough. It speaks beyond all these complications. Adding brown to it implies that brown people were not part of the rainbow, that more need to be added. All we really needed to do was indicate that brown people like any people fall under the same gay flag, regardless of the current existing social dynamic relating to race.
If the rainbow had been enough, then we wouldn't have ended up with racist queers in the community. That's why the rest of us decided to send a clearer message. Are you interested in sending a clear message?
It was always enough. I think your message isn't clear nor helpful.
Then why are there racists why fly the rainbow flag?
/: I don't like racists but I can't stop them from being gay or taking pride in being gay or flying this flag or any flag. Hopefully by meeting other people different than them, they will stop being racist and grow as people. I don't think SWJing will help in any way, probably it makes it worse. I don't like that vomit flag and I won't fly it, but you can if you like 🤷♂️
What a cowardly response. You dismiss all possibility of actually working to make things better, and choose hopes and wishes instead. Your argument is that trying to make things better is bad? How dishonourable.
My argument is: don't fix what's not broken.
This hyped obsession with skin color irks me as a "gay person of color". This is a flag to celebrate all sexualities, it's redundant to add the brown or black to it for purely SWJ-y reasons. I think your response is complicated and unpractical, it also kills me how it's okay to make sweeping statements about white people like that's not some form of racism rofl
Like have that flag if you like, but as a "gay person of color", I will not, and I will always point out how vomity it looks, how it lacks good design, and how it never helped.
Don't quote me on this, but I feel like the reason the arrow is in the middle of this one is so it doesn't get covered up by cars or something. Usually it's at the end
Aren't people tired of flag discourse yet?