Victoria’s Pride Centre adds black and brown stripes to its rainbow flag
Image: Victoria Pride Centre. Image: Facebook.
Victoria’s Pride Centre has added black and brown stripes to its rainbow flag logo, to help recognise Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and non Anglo-Saxon people in the LGBTI community.
During its last meeting the Pride Centre board noted the recent More Colour More Pride campaign in Philadelphia, which saw many flags adopt the two new colours over pride month to recognise queer people of colour.
“Our previous logo was an interim logo the board envisaged would change with the evolving discussion about what the Pride Centre will mean for the Victorian LGBTI community’, said board member Margaret Hansford.
“In changing the logo, the Board had three thoughts. First, the LGBTI community has been a major beneficiary of increasing public support for diversity and inclusion. We need to be leaders in continuing to identify and welcome groups who feel, or are
in fact, excluded from our community.
“Second, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTI people have helped, in no small measure and by their personal and political examples, to build the community and the organisations we have today.
“They face severe and ongoing discrimination and oppression and we want our “welcome mat” to have a specific “hello” for them.
‘Third, it is clear that the proportion of non-Anglo-Saxon people involved in our community and its organisations is substantially lower than their proportion in the general population. We need to constantly remind ourselves the benefits it provides us are not enjoyed by many others, and we need to send signals we want this to change.”
I think this might be well meaning but I think it is wrong headed. The rainbow, symbolised by the flag, is uniting and inclusive, all under the rainbow. It is also a symbol of aspiration, hope and pride. No one stripe represents any particular group. Adding black and brown stripes changes that and is potentially divisive. Can I even lodge my objection without the risk of appearing unsympathetic to the issue this change seeks to address? The Victoria Pride Centre don’t own the Rainbow Flag, anymore than Philadelphia Pride do. If they wish to adopt this as the symbol for their organisation, so be it. Their choice. I will stay with the original. My choice.
Colors Blended together of the Rainbow Flag is black and brown and everything …. It’s the beauty of it!
THEY HAVE CHANGED TOO MUCH FROM IT’S GRAND DREAM.
MAYBE black framing of the flag would be OK.
I registered to pride Vic website and have NEVER HEARD FROM THEM! Given their choice of location on the ICE USER strip … it is one more worry about their direction.
Pink.. Pink is not there. Pink is also the color of many people’s skin.. Or the various shades or yellow etc. And brown.. No – not THAT brown.. the brown that is a little lighter than the common brown.. sort of the tan type brown.. Because we have to make sure that everybody feels included..
Please – the original flag was made to be inclusive regardless of race and sexual orientation. Can we not leave it like that without getting Butt-Hurt that somebody might view it and worry that their particular (insert group here) is not represented. Or feel ‘Offended’ that special recognition was not given to them due to a historical event nearly 200 years in the past.
ask yourself how many people on the Board of the Pride centre are actually POC (not that many, possibly only one). Also if they really cared about POC and multiculturalism – racial diversity , why not set the centre up in the West of Melbourne where it can have most impact on Melbourne’s most multi-racial areas. But oh no the other side of town must how this very expensive centre.
Tokenism and virtue signalling at it’s best.
Please, what is non Anglo Saxon? Pardon?
I’m pale, but that tag is just wrong.
We define people by what they are, not by what they are NOT.
It’s people of colour or PoC or POC, that is why the new stripes are there, the brown and the black, because they too have been marginalised by us Anglo Saxons, for thousands of years. They asked for them. Just like some queer people asked for the other colours.
Honestly, can we be more open-minded? Try a bit harder?
From colder countries, pale people are less likely to be sharing, collective, inclusive, but we can learn better when out of the snow and ice, surely.
“From colder countries, pale people are less likely to be sharing …”
Someone clearly hasn’t seen the news over the last few decades about how those evil non-sharing pale people of Europe have opened their doors to millions of not-so-pale people from, I guess, kinder more sharing countries or how countries founded by evil pale people are the most multi-racial whereas giving, kind, non-pale people remain the least open to mass migration, even priding themselves on racial purity.
Too much PC – which is a big problem with australia. The rainbow colour configuration is not an act of human but nature, so why messing with it? For the record as a non Anglo Saxon to be told that black and brown are my colours of identification is extremely appealing! This is in fact institutionalising the division based on skin colour and ethnicity!
Poor decision! Yet another shameful day for the community
too much, too much. Reformers are out of control.
A rainbow is a rainbow – I wasn’t aware that any colour in the rainbow represented my skin colour – hence the addition of brown and black to the Victorian flag is ridiculous and looks horrible.
The rainbow flag has been synonymous with the LGBT community for decades now. It has been a beautiful and natural representation of us all. This “other flag” will never represent me and I am one who certainly won’t be flying it.
I’m confused by this change. The existing rainbow flag never excluded people on race, it’s almost as though they are saying it was a flag that only represented white people. People of any ethnic background have always been included. None of the colours represent any specific ethnicity as I don’t know anyone whom is pink or red etc. A rainbow consists of the colours of the light spectrum, these new colours are not part of that.
We are now changing a flag of colours that represent unity for all to a race based flag. Makes no sense.