Has the Rainbow been rescued from mermaids and wokies by children showing support for the NHS?

[stumbledin]

When I first saw pictures of children's posters in windows of Rainbows for the NHS I had a negative reaction, ie in my mind it had become associated with woke transactivists and all the madness behind it.

But now I am thinking, not just good to support the NHS but when there is a shared purpose, people can quite easily shrug off the thought police who have tried to capture so much of our lives and how we express it.

Or does this just mean that for the very young rainbows are magic and princesses and unicorns are on duty in the NHS and if you want to change your sex wishes come true?

Rainbows have always been a symbol of hope and promise.

It absolutely developed a much stronger association with sexuality issues over the last few years. Before that I would have said that the rainbow symbol had several meanings, that only being one of them, and sometimes it was just meant to be pretty. Context generally told you what association was intended.

More recently though the sexuality association just exploded, so much so that it seemed to almost overwhelm other ones. So where once it was mostly in flag form all of a sudden it was lanyards and stickers and heart images and clothing. And it also started to be used in places that it didn't make much obvious sense or sometimes didn't even seem appropriate. (If you asked it was always supposedly about showing acceptance of LBGTQ but oddly there were not usually badges or symbols shown supporting many other groups in society.)

When you have your nurse wearing a lanyard in rainbow colours than it seems like almost any rainbow could be meant to be political, who knows - at that point every time you see it, you wonder if it isn't supposed to be making a statement. So I think it's nice to have a clear example where it's being used for an entirely different purpose.

"Sorry if you would have preferred that community to remain invisible."

I do not think anyone at all has suggested that they want any community to be invisible.

I’m in a fb group where someone complained that they were offended that people were appropriating the rainbow - they were pretty quickly told they’d got it wrong but these people exist.

"And comparing the LGB community to skinheads and EDL??"
Are you talking about my post, @alloutoffucks? Let's look again at what I ACTUALLY said:

"It's a bit like the Union Jack isn't it? A national flag that was taken by the skinheads and BNP to be theirs, to the extent few others would use it because of the association it now had in many people's minds. Then somehow, it become fashionable. It was on the roof of new Minis and on shoulder bags, bedding, rugs, shoes - you name it, 'fashion' took it over and totally diluted the baggage it had picked up."

"I do wonder if it will be the same with rainbows. It will be associated with multiple things again (I'd forgotten Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior grin). I think that's a good thing."

I think it's pretty damned clear that I am comparing the Union Jack to rainbow images. How both acquired baggage along the way. How the Union Jack has largely shed that baggage, and the rainbow may well do the same now.

Learn to read.

WhereYouLeftIt

It seems like about 75% of the time if you make a comparison, someone complains that you are comparing x to y, and y is somehow much worse than x and you are terrible and/or stupid for saying they are the same. The fact that the comparison is inevitably of a limited nature, ad often about the logic or process rather than the thing in itself, doesn't matter.

I find myself not making comparisons, or using less useful ones that seem less likely to raise someones ire, even when it would really help to clarify something.

Got to agree Goosefoot. Some people are determined to take offence where none is actually given or intended. Fuck 'em.

I will continue to make comparisons regardless. If someone's going to get a stick up their arse, they'll do that regardless of what I do and don't say. Everyone else will get it, and the sucked-a-lemon brigade will make themselves look - well, look like what they are.

As you say, it's often about the process or logic of something that flags itself to you (in this case, symbols and how their associations vary over time). And yes, comparisons are always limited. But they are still a useful way to bring vague thoughts into focus.

Thanks for 'getting it'.

Silver linings and all that:

Thank goodness for this pandemic bringing back a sense of normality in regards to symbolism.

Money mad, gender PR, narcissistic businesses are a bit fucked going forward are they not.

"ChesterBelloc

My mother pointed out that the LGBTQetc rainbow flag actually only uses 6 of the 7 colours of the rainbow, leaving out violet, I believe. So there is already a (subtle) way to differentiate."

Interesting point, Chester.

Since the LGBT rainbow became so ubiquitous and a corporate marketing ploy, the original 'this is a safe place/person' intent has been diluted so much that it's useless.

How do you really know that that pub is safe for a gay man if head office make the landlord put up a rainbow to be inclusive but dont have any intention of enforcing a gay friendly policy?

How do I know the person with the rainbow lanyard is an ally rather than someone forced to wear it as its company policy?

I wonder why they left out violet?

From at least the 80s it has also been used to represent the diversity of the LGB community

Which is no time at all when you consider it has been a symbol of hope and better things for several millenia.

Drag Queens unite for NHS and keyworkers.

I was thinking about this today in my walk, passing many windows in which children displayed their rainbows.

The rainbow flag is synonymous with the original LGBT movement, having adopted for the fish the rainbow colours.

But I have never associated a curved picture of a rainbow exclusively with homosexual liberation, only the rectangular flag.

A rainbow is a rainbow as a cloud is a cloud, and a child’s drawing of a mermaid is.... a mermaid.

I saw a pair of activists grumbling about this online and it made me laugh. I think they preferred it when it felt like it was - for a short period of time - something they could throw in as a passive aggressive symbol of activism that people couldn't be seen to reject. Suck it up guys. The kids owned the rainbows long before you ever did. 😀

I thought rainbows in windows were for children to spot.
When did they become a support symbol for the NHS? (Not that I have an issue with supporting the NHS. Just wondered when the meaning changed)

I think the Window Wonderland idea was quickly taken over as support for the NHS - perhaps because of all those rainbow lanyard etc.?

The six colours were originally a merge of the light blue and dark blue, keeping violet on the flag. Some flags have shown violet replaced by dark blue. We can only speculate why: violet is the colour most associated with lesbians, of course, so perhaps it symbolises the removal of GC lesbians from the LGBT.
Of course, most people wouldn’t even notice the change.

The rainbows seem to have startd in Italy - 'Many families hung banners with crayoned, or painted, rainbows, with a hashtag mantra: "Tutto andra' bene," or everything will turn out OK.'

"Tutto andra' bene,"

All will be well
And all will be well
And all manner of things will be well.

I think Julian of Norwich's words are very appropriate.