LGBT gets a new flag - reinventing the visible light spectrum

Color blend is shit.

I prefer the flag with all the skin tone shades on it. Have that waving next to the rainbow.
 
Like the idea but it's ugly as hell. I think a vertical black and brown stripe toward either side of the flag would look a lot better. The vertical stripe would also be easier to expand to accommodate different racial identities if people start to feel like the brown stripe is too generic to represent every non-black PoC's racial identity.
 
kingsamj said:
Like the idea but it's ugly as hell. I think a vertical black and brown stripe toward either side of the flag would look a lot better. The vertical stripe would also be easier to expand to accommodate different racial identities if people start to feel like the brown stripe is too generic to represent every non-black PoC's racial identity.
Click to expand...

With the black and the brown, I'm pretty sure most if not all race = color equivalencies are there. That being said, I hate this.
 
royalan said:
As a gay black man living in Philadelphia, let me tell you why I think this makes sense, at least for our city.

Philadelphia is one of the growing number of major metropolitan cities in this country that is also majority minority. Particularly, black and brown people (black people alone make up over 44% of the city's population). You're thinking that black and brown is implied by the actual colors of the original rainbow flag, but as someone who lives here, is very active in the community, and experiences gay life here day-to-day, let me tell you that my response to that is a big fat "Fucking LOL."

The gay community in general has its issues with race, but Philadelphia's gay community in particular is one of the most segregated communities I've ever experienced. For a city full of black people, it's not at all uncommon to see only a handful of black people in the Gayborhood (the name of our gay district) at any given time. And speaking to a lot of gay people of color in this city, it's not at all uncommon to feel unwelcome in the Gayborhood. Bars, bartenders, bouncers openly discriminate against you. I have been refused service in gay bars in this city. I have been out with white friends who have actually had to call this out.

And the timing of this flag is no coincidence, because this subject has come up a lot lately.

Brian Sims, a Pennsylvania House Rep who serves the Gayborhood, recently wrote an op-ed about it: Gayborhood's 'Dangerous' Climate

Last year, the owner of iCandy, one of the Gayborhood's largest clubs, had a disgruntled former employee release a video of him looking at security footage and calling all of the black patrons "niggers who just want free drink passes." This one stung me personally, because I was a regular at this bar, knew the owner personally, and never once stepped into the place unprepared to pay for my drinks and tip handsomely. I haven't been back to this bar since this happened.

Also last year, there was a hearing in the city specifically on racial discrimination in the Gayborhood. It was attended by hundreds.

And recently Tavern on Camack, another popular bar/club, had a mass firing over a series of incidents that I don't know the details of. But to this day there is now a notice posted at the entrance to the bar announcing that ToC is a bar for everyone, and racial intolerance will not be accepted from anyone, patrons or staff (I'm paraphrasing, obviously).

And let me not even get STARTED on the absence of PoC participation in Philly's queer/pride festivals.

The point is, by amending the flag, Philly's not just making a statement on the gay community as a whole, it's more directly addressing a symptom of our community not being particularly accepting of queer PoC. It'll take more than adding a few stripes, but it's appreciated.
Click to expand...

A+ post. I personally don't give a shit about whether the flag is good looking or not (it's always been kind of ugly IMO), but I do like what this change represents and sheds light on. I'm a straight PoC, but I have a lot of family and friends who are queer PoC who deal with twice the shit I do on a way-too-frequent basis within a community that SHOULD be inclusive but isn't anywhere close yet.

This is a step in the right direction, however tiny or huge it might be.
 
Miles X said:
It can't be transparant because I don't have any hidden opinions. Again, it's great that they want to address it, they should, everyone IN LGBT should. Stop fucking putting words in my mouth because you can't handle what I'm saying.

I don't ever talk about black on black crime FYI.

My issue is how I am always hearing about how mistreated black people are in the lgbt community (that's great, that it's getting exposer) but so very little in the black community about LGBT rights. Fuck a thread, that isn't going to do anything, and I'm not in the black community so I can't say/start any conversation about it IRL.

I feel like LGBT rights for black people would improve immensly if not only LGBT pulled together but the black community as well, that's just the point I'm trying to make here. I feel like it gets overlooked which is why I made the comments.



Fuck off. Already said the flag is fine. She can wave it all day and night.
Click to expand...

If you're not black and aren't a part of the community, how do you know how black LGBT folks are treated in the black community?
Where are you getting this information?
 
Completly misses the point of the original flag design.

If they want to reinvent the LGBTQ symbol they can do a lot better.
 
Honestly surprised by how many people here are more perturbed that a rainbow flag is altered to be more inclusive to have black and brown colours added when they weren't there before to represent black and brown and other LGBT people of colour who face specific problems even in a marginalised community with the defense that the rainbow automatically stood for everyone so it shouldn't be changed and the aesthetic is now oh so important. The traditional rainbow flags are not going away or all being replaced by this new colour scheme. Royalan's post is spot on.
royalan said:
As a gay black man living in Philadelphia, let me tell you why I think this makes sense, at least for our city.

Philadelphia is one of the growing number of major metropolitan cities in this country that is also majority minority. Particularly, black and brown people (black people alone make up over 44% of the city's population). You're thinking that black and brown is implied by the actual colors of the original rainbow flag, but as someone who lives here, is very active in the community, and experiences gay life here day-to-day, let me tell you that my response to that is a big fat "Fucking LOL."

The gay community in general has its issues with race, but Philadelphia's gay community in particular is one of the most segregated communities I've ever experienced. For a city full of black people, it's not at all uncommon to see only a handful of black people in the Gayborhood (the name of our gay district) at any given time. And speaking to a lot of gay people of color in this city, it's not at all uncommon to feel unwelcome in the Gayborhood. Bars, bartenders, bouncers openly discriminate against you. I have been refused service in gay bars in this city. I have been out with white friends who have actually had to call this out.

And the timing of this flag is no coincidence, because this subject has come up a lot lately.

Brian Sims, a Pennsylvania House Rep who serves the Gayborhood, recently wrote an op-ed about it: Gayborhood's 'Dangerous' Climate

Last year, the owner of iCandy, one of the Gayborhood's largest clubs, had a disgruntled former employee release a video of him looking at security footage and calling all of the black patrons "niggers who just want free drink passes." This one stung me personally, because I was a regular at this bar, knew the owner personally, and never once stepped into the place unprepared to pay for my drinks and tip handsomely. I haven't been back to this bar since this happened.

Also last year, there was a hearing in the city specifically on racial discrimination in the Gayborhood. It was attended by hundreds.

And recently Tavern on Camack, another popular bar/club, had a mass firing over a series of incidents that I don't know the details of. But to this day there is now a notice posted at the entrance to the bar announcing that ToC is a bar for everyone, and racial intolerance will not be accepted from anyone, patrons or staff (I'm paraphrasing, obviously).

And let me not even get STARTED on the absence of PoC participation in Philly's queer/pride festivals.

The point is, by amending the flag, Philly's not just making a statement on the gay community as a whole, it's more directly addressing a symptom of our community not being particularly accepting of queer PoC. It'll take more than adding a few stripes, but it's appreciated.
Click to expand...
The article is pretty clear that while many are supportive of the flag, there is pushback against the flag from certain LGBT circles which is a shame.

But with the nationwide support came pushback and criticism. Hikes said that the "vast majority" of critics are gay white men, a sector of the LGBT community that doesn't necessarily understand the issues that LGBT people of color might face.
"White people do not know what racism looks like, because that's the definition of racism," Hikes said.
There is a presumption among gay white men that the rainbow flag already represents everyone, Hikes said. When other variations of the pride flag have been introduced, such as striped flags representing bisexual or transgender pride, there was significantly less criticism, she said.
"If we use that logic, there should have been the same kind of pushback," Hikes said.​
 
amar212 said:
Okay, but if that is the logic than more than one particular "color" is missing.

I know this comment will be unpopular and Eurogaf here, but the logic should be logic.
Click to expand...

Please tell me you don't mean 'white'? Did you actually read the OP and the reason why they added those colors? Or did you just see black and brown and thought "Where the fuck is mah white?!"

#notalleurogaf
 
Messofanego said:
Honestly surprised by how many people here are more perturbed that a rainbow flag is altered to be more inclusive to have black and brown colours added when they weren't there before to represent black and brown and other LGBT people of colour who face specific problems even in a marginalised community with the defense that the rainbow automatically stood for everyone so it shouldn't be changed and the aesthetic is now oh so important. The traditional rainbow flags are not going away or all being replaced by this new colour scheme. Royalan's post is spot on.

The article is pretty clear that while many are supportive of the flag, there is pushback against the flag from certain LGBT circles which is a shame.

But with the nationwide support came pushback and criticism. Hikes said that the "vast majority" of critics are gay white men, a sector of the LGBT community that doesn't necessarily understand the issues that LGBT people of color might face.
"White people do not know what racism looks like, because that's the definition of racism," Hikes said.
There is a presumption among gay white men that the rainbow flag already represents everyone, Hikes said. When other variations of the pride flag have been introduced, such as striped flags representing bisexual or transgender pride, there was significantly less criticism, she said.
"If we use that logic, there should have been the same kind of pushback," Hikes said.​
Click to expand...


The criticism in this thread is evident of this. Gay racism shows it's ugly head but no one wants to be called a racist.
 
It feel very tacked on in a "okay fine black gay people, you weren't actually part of the flag before, but now you are" kinda way. Some people might appreciate it, I can also understand if others would be insulted by it.
 
Nice idea I guess.

Aesthetically, I think it would look better if the black was on one end next to the red, and the brown next to the purple on the other end.
 
I definitely get the reasoning, but I think some people miss the point the rainbow. It was already about inclusion. It wasn't just for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet people. That doesn't even make sense.


But I guess if it gets the conversation going about the discrimination that gay POC face, then more power to them.
 
Sunster said:
it's a flag
Click to expand...

It's just not American enough for you. Ahhh, that stealth edit. It's okay, plenty of people share your opinion.

681px-The_Rainbow_Flag%2C_GLBT_Pride.jpg
Click to expand...


Edit: I wonder if you could hand those out in blue collar American and tell them it's about American Pride. How many would actually fly it?
 
Volimar said:
I definitely get the reasoning, but I think some people miss the point the rainbow. It was already about inclusion. It wasn't just for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet people. That doesn't even make sense.


But I guess if it gets the conversation going about the discrimination that gay POC face, then more power to them.
Click to expand...

POC are often forgot about when people
talk about inclusion. They are not represented as much as people think
 
Volimar said:
It's just not American enough for you. Ahhh, that stealth edit. It's okay, plenty of people share your opinion.




Edit: I wonder if you could hand those out in blue collar American and tell them it's about American Pride. How many would actually fly it?
Click to expand...

thought my original comment was a little much. because I like the idea it.
 
I didn't realize how rampant racism was in the LGBTQ community until I started lurking here. There was just a protest at DC Pride by a gay minority group and too many comments were along the lines of "black people would be nowhere without us Liberals" and "why do they have to ruin our day?" as if the minorities weren't LGBTQ themselves.
 
OG Shaka Zulu said:
I didn't realize how rampant racism was in the LGBTQ community until I started lurking here. There was just a protest at DC Pride by a gay minority group and too many comments were along the lines of "black people would be nowhere without us Liberals" and "why do they have to ruin our day?" as if the minorities weren't LGBTQ themselves.
Click to expand...
It really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
 
Litan said:
It really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Click to expand...
I guess I never actually thought about it before. After befriending people and acquiring in-laws from some popular northern Liberal cities, its rather scary how ignorant they are about race. The foolish optimism I had as a kid is long dead and buried. America has a lot of work to do when it comes to race and we are burdened with a population that has no substantive interest in self-reflection.
 
Tuck said:
No, it doesn't make sense at all actually.

I'll preface this by saying I'm a brown, gay man. There is much to be said about how people of color are treated in the LGBT community. That is, not particularly well; there is a clear higharchy: whites at the top, blacks at the bottom and everyone else in between. I do believe this needs to be tackled, and that it often gets swept under the rug.

I do not like this new flag however. In fact, I might just actively hate it. The first reason is a bit shallow: its ugly. You have the rainbow.... and then black and brown. It doesn't fit and it doesn't really look nice.

The second, more important reason is that the pride flag does not explicitly include ethnicites and thats the point. Its supposed to be a sign of welcome for everyone. This betrays that completely. By adding black and brown, they are taking away from that underlying theme.

What about Asians (Which itself is a group of a wide range of unique cultures) ? What about Latinos? First Nations? Shouldn't they get representation here too? Thats the problem this flag introduces, and its a problem the original avoids by design. The original flag implicitly includes everyone by explicitly including no one. This flag explicitly includes only two groups and therefore explicitly excludes everyone who doesn't get their own color. I see this as leading to quite the slippery slope where everyone else needs their own color on one flag and suddenly we have just as many colors as we have in the LGBT*.... acronym (which is to say, a lot).

Different ethnic groups are not supposed to have their own color on the flag because it betrays the point of the flag, which is to unify. This divides. This reminds us how fractured the LGBT community is. Now, maybe to some thats a good thing. It shows people how far we have to go. But that turns it into a symbol of negativity, wheres its supposed to by a symbol of happiness and well, pride.
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
Doesn't really phase me if its for a variation.

However, if its seriously being put forward as something to replace the normal pride flag then that seems to be a bit silly.
 
i_am_ben said:
Doesn't really phase me if its for a variation.

However, if its seriously being put forward as something to replace the normal pride flag then that seems to be a bit silly.
Click to expand...

Again with these ridiculous strawmen.

This thread is a shining, sterling example of why this flag exists.
 
sp%2Bracist%2Bflag.jpg


reminds me of this south park episode..

i agree that the flag change was unnecessary as the rainbow was already inclusive to everyone. now the flag is missing even more colors since you can't represent the whole spectrum of human skin colors with just a few shades.
 
Nickle said:
I can imagine that being the flag of a militant LGBT group.
Click to expand...

Please explain, because this comment is poorly thought out when left just like that.


Yes, the flag is about "inclusion" but as it stands right now, the flag is a lie for many white people flying it, because they're racist af. They are anything but inclusive. Is it the flag's fault? No. But the reality is the LGBT community is racist. Saying "it's already about inclusion!" when we have LGBT black people getting denied service at gay establishments​ sounds ignorant and/or dismissive​. Sure they could find another way to get this message across, but the flag is iconic and provides the perfect avenue to get people talking.

And again, people are making ridiculous assumptions like this is going to permanently replace the flag, which is silly.

Edit: ^ oh boy....
 
This is fantastic news - as has been shown over the last couple of years, despite flags not being the best semiotic means to highlight a specific community in society - they're the best we've got, and here is an example of that - keeping members of LGBTQI colour in the spotlight! (let's hope it's not read as just for bears...)
 
It's interesting how many movements have this kind of issue. People who don't see themselves in a description adding on to it.

Feminism doesn't mean you're against "men's rights"
Thinking black lives matter doesn't mean you think others don't
And a rainbow flag doesn't mean you're not for the rights of gay minorities

But people see these distinctions being made, and they want to add themselves. So people won't say they're feminists because "what about men's rights," won't say black lives matter because "all lives matter," and will edit a rainbow flag because it doesn't represent the struggles of minorities.

Naturally, there are - from what I understand - real issues in the LGBTQ+ community regarding minorities. That said, it's interesting to me how all of this sort of plays out across various movements.
 
royalan said:
Again with these ridiculous strawmen.

This thread is a shining, sterling example of why this flag exists.
Click to expand...

It would be silly because its the amendment of an international flag by a random American to better reflect largely American race issues.

As I said, I have no issue its one of the billions of other variations of pride flags - many of which also represent important causes.
 
Tuck said:
No, it doesn't make sense at all actually.

I'll preface this by saying I'm a brown, gay man. There is much to be said about how people of color are treated in the LGBT community. That is, not particularly well; there is a clear higharchy: whites at the top, blacks at the bottom and everyone else in between. I do believe this needs to be tackled, and that it often gets swept under the rug.

I do not like this new flag however. In fact, I might just actively hate it. The first reason is a bit shallow: its ugly. You have the rainbow.... and then black and brown. It doesn't fit and it doesn't really look nice.

The second, more important reason is that the pride flag does not explicitly include ethnicites and thats the point. Its supposed to be a sign of welcome for everyone. This betrays that completely. By adding black and brown, they are taking away from that underlying theme.

What about Asians (Which itself is a group of a wide range of unique cultures) ? What about Latinos? First Nations? Shouldn't they get representation here too? Thats the problem this flag introduces, and its a problem the original avoids by design. The original flag implicitly includes everyone by explicitly including no one. This flag explicitly includes only two groups and therefore explicitly excludes everyone who doesn't get their own color. I see this as leading to quite the slippery slope where everyone else needs their own color on one flag and suddenly we have just as many colors as we have in the LGBT*.... acronym (which is to say, a lot).

Different ethnic groups are not supposed to have their own color on the flag because it betrays the point of the flag, which is to unify. This divides. This reminds us how fractured the LGBT community is. Now, maybe to some thats a good thing. It shows people how far we have to go. But that turns it into a symbol of negativity, wheres its supposed to by a symbol of happiness and well, pride.



This. It feels like scraps. Like "Ok, sure if you insist, you can have your own special place on the flag, separate from the rest of us"
Click to expand...

This.

The flag's colours do not represent any particular sexuality, or gender, or race, or religion or anything. And that's kind of the point.

Once you put these two on, which are symbolically completely unlike the other colours, you could then make the argument that we need colours representing all the other people within the queer community who face further discrimination - trans people, disabled people, and on and on and the flag is ten stories tall.

In its original form, it is intended to encompass everybody.
 
Aesthetically, it doesn't look so good (I'm starting to slowly like it though). Symbolically, it's god damn fucking needed. The amount of racism I've seen in the LGBT community sometimes makes me feel that I'm in 1950s America.

One can just go into gay dating sites and easily see the amount of "no blacks plz" on people's profiles. In LGBT media, people also loves to idolize the white gay cis-male over every other race, sexuality, sex, and gender. Inside a lot of clubs and community centers, there's sometimes a clear disdain for black queers. Oh, and don't get me started on how black trans people are treated. It's bad enough for me, as a white transwoman, but holy shit the disgusting treatment and behavior I've seen against black transwomen within our own community is appalling. Hell, even our own history is whitewashed internally (Did you know Stonewall was started by a Hispanic transwoman and a black cross dresser? A lot of people actually think it was a white guy who did it because of that stupid movie.) Quite frankly, this shit needs to be discussed.

And to be honest, the LGBT community has a lot of bloody bigotry to addressed. It's just not racism, there's slight signs of miysgony, a whole lot of biphobia and transphobia, and in a lot of eyes, every other gender identity, sexualitiy (including asexuals), and romantic orientations doesn't exist. There's a very clear social hierarchy inside, and to say that the old flag should remain because it's "inclusive" is laughable.

In my eyes, this new flag is needed, it's the first step to talking about the sheer bigotry within the community going forward. We seriously need to discuss it.
 
Tuck said:
No, it doesn't make sense at all actually.

I'll preface this by saying I'm a brown, gay man. There is much to be said about how people of color are treated in the LGBT community. That is, not particularly well; there is a clear higharchy: whites at the top, blacks at the bottom and everyone else in between. I do believe this needs to be tackled, and that it often gets swept under the rug.

I do not like this new flag however. In fact, I might just actively hate it. The first reason is a bit shallow: its ugly. You have the rainbow.... and then black and brown. It doesn't fit and it doesn't really look nice.

The second, more important reason is that the pride flag does not explicitly include ethnicites and thats the point. Its supposed to be a sign of welcome for everyone. This betrays that completely. By adding black and brown, they are taking away from that underlying theme.

What about Asians (Which itself is a group of a wide range of unique cultures) ? What about Latinos? First Nations? Shouldn't they get representation here too? Thats the problem this flag introduces, and its a problem the original avoids by design. The original flag implicitly includes everyone by explicitly including no one. This flag explicitly includes only two groups and therefore explicitly excludes everyone who doesn't get their own color. I see this as leading to quite the slippery slope where everyone else needs their own color on one flag and suddenly we have just as many colors as we have in the LGBT*.... acronym (which is to say, a lot).

Different ethnic groups are not supposed to have their own color on the flag because it betrays the point of the flag, which is to unify. This divides. This reminds us how fractured the LGBT community is. Now, maybe to some thats a good thing. It shows people how far we have to go. But that turns it into a symbol of negativity, wheres its supposed to by a symbol of happiness and well, pride.



This. It feels like scraps. Like "Ok, sure if you insist, you can have your own special place on the flag, separate from the rest of us"
Click to expand...


This makes sense to me.
I'm sure it was done with the best intentions, but I'm not sure it's that simple.

Mainly, I just think it looks really bad.
 
i_am_ben said:
It would be silly because its the amendment of an international flag by a random American to better reflect largely American race issues.

As I said, I have no issue its one of the billions of other variations of pride flags - many of which also represent important causes.
Click to expand...

Why do you look at this particular flag as an amendment on an international flag, but not the DOZENS of other variants on it?

Again, it's a ridiculous strawman. There are special rainbow flags that represent bisexual people, and transpeople, and AIDS victims. The rainbow flag has been amended countless times, and until now nobody has cared. The rainbow flag was not adopted with the intention of never being changed.

People are either totally ignorant of the actual history of this flag, or worse.
 
What's infuriating about those white gay men who are pushing back against this is that we have to thank gay PoC for gay rights even being a thing, it was queer brown and black people at the forefront of the fight for gay rights, and these privileged motherfuckers taking umbrage at this gesture is a huge insult to them.

But it's just another day in the post-racial utopia that is America.
 
It's ugly and missing the point IMO, being gay/bi/whatever has nothing to do with race. (Anecdote incoming) I live in Philly and this flag has caused a whole lot of heated debate amongst the LGBT community in Philly, at least on social media -- seems very divisive and not at all inclusive. Then again that contoversy was last week. I'll be at Philly pride on Sunday so I'm curious to see how real the backlash is.
 
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