Pride
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Around Christmas 1995 a friend came to visit me in my newly married, presumably happy, life in Michigan. We went to a museum where we saw an exhibit of a Japanese tea room. Outside the display was an attempt to describe this exhibit. It started with something like: “Within the tea room, one feels loneliness which penetrates into the marrow of one’s bones...” and ended with the caution “Please do not enter the tea room”. I laughed out loud. If you don’t get it, you probably should leave.
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11 comments:
I care. :)
I care a lot. because I love you. ;)
Oh that better be my fella 'cause otherwise it's sorta creepy.
Yooo hooo....hello? You can sign in with a name. See, it's right down there. It says "Blogger" "Other" and "Anonymous". Choose "Other" and then pick a name, preferably one that is not "Freddy Kruger", "Michael Meyers" or other scary ass shit like that.
Nice "word of the day", I'm hungry already?!
You should not respond to any "anonymous" postings, it just encourages them.
To me, if you can't say your name, then where is the honesty?
Peace
i agree w/ goatman (4 words that i did not ever believe i would ever use in conjunction).
also, i find myself suddenly confused as to wether your a lesbian or not.
no, don't tell me; let me discover it in the fullness of time.
"sudden, violent comedy"
Ok I was just wondering why they got the rainbow!? Where I work there are many homosexuals. I have even been to two "unions" of some co-workers of mine. (this is what they call their marraige, it isn't legal but they are still considering themselves married)
I have been kind and understanding and supportive of their lifestyles. I count them as my friends. But heck! I like rainbows too...one day a girl at work had on some rainbow socks and the lesbian asked her..."Hey are you supporting the cause?" So can we just have the rainbow back?
Why they got the rainbow. Interesting question. We are such extremely cultural beasts aren't we? People adopt and adapt symbols of all sorts, sometimes taking things that have function and form in some other more general context (or a number of specific contexts) and transferring it to a specialized one where it is invested with specific significance.
Sometimes this happens intentionally and sometimes incidentally. From what I can tell here, it's a combination of factors. From Wikipedia - "The use of rainbow flags has a long tradition; they are displayed in many cultures around the world as a sign of diversity and inclusiveness, of hope and of yearning. This denotation goes back to the rainbow as a symbol of biblical promise, and the use of all the colours of the rainbow symbolises all flags in one." The flag was conceived specifically as a symbol of gay pride by an artist and flown in a "Gay Freedom Day" celebration in San Francisco in summer of 1978.
This alone did not give the symbol its overwhelming associative power nationally (and now internationally). I think one way that potency can arise is when there are attempts to limit the symbol as a means of limiting the empowerment and/or expression of a group. Consider just one outcome of the US governmental anti-indian policies - the development of the ghost dance, or african-american dialectial distinctions which remain despite years of attempts at standardization.
In 1978 (again, according to histories of the gay pride movement and the rainbow flag in particular), it seems the assasination by an anti-gay former San Francisco city official (White) of an openly gay San Fransisco city supervisor (Milk) and the then mayor (Moscone) elevated the somewhat locally popular rainbow flag symbol to a more powerful status. In the aftermath of the assasination, the rainbow flag was chosen by those mourning the deaths of the Milk and Moscone, and by those protesting against what was seen in the pro-gay civil rights community as a homophobically motivated lenient conviction and sentence of the assasin. We don't hear about this in history books, but there were riots following White's conviction and sentencing in 1979. Those outraged by White's sentence were empowered to act, and to carry the newly adopted rainbow flag as part of those actions.
The rainbow flag, now firmly adopted as a symbol of gay pride along with the pink triangle (which has more dark origins), itself became a topic of hate by some people. In 1989 a man sued his landlord for the right to hang a rainbow flag from his apartment balcony. Which means his landlord had forbidden the flag. To me, this shows just how powerful a symbol it had become, which in turn feeds the popularity (in both extremes).
Having been verbally assaulted and intimidated by men on public streets because they decided I looked like a lesbian, I can tell you I understand the desire to have a symbol that you can wear or wave or hang that says I am proud of this, I claim it, and you can't make me feel bad for being myself. It's so fucked up because I am not gay but when the huge man in chicago was screaming inches away from my face "fucking dyke! You fucking dyke cunt bitch!" or when the men coming out of a hockey game and onto the train platform in Boston surrounded me while my friend held me up and one of the men said in a low and creepy voice "look, dykes!" I wanted to jump up and scream Yeah that's right, I'm a fucking dyke! Because at that moment "dyke" had nothing to do with sexual orientation. It meant "something to hurt" "someone to harm" "someone it is safe to destroy and abuse". And you want to claim the word and the idea and sharpen it and shove it right back into them. Can you relate? Given this small reaction of mine to these two isolate incidents, I see symbols like the rainbow flag as admirable because despite the anger and outrage that comes from the constant implied threat some groups of people live under in our culture, here they are waving a symbol with roots in hope, peace, and a promise of grace. How amazingly beautiful is that?
But back to the issue of a general purpose symbol becoming an icon and whether or not anyone can ever "have it back" once that has happened. Consider this. If you see the letters WTC or the numerical phrase 9/11 do you feel anything? I do. For me the association is so strong that when I see the net abbreviation "WTF" its visual similarity evokes an echo of my reaction to the events and legacy of the destruction of the World Trade Center. I don't think it's just me. If you type either "WTC" (upper or lower case) or "9/11" into google, you will get pages of hits having to do overwhelmingly with the world trade center and the events of, around, and relating to september 11 2001.
WTC and 9/11 are still letters and symbols with a general use. When I happen to write a check on September 11th or have a doctor's appointment card in my wallet with that date on it, I know this. Still, there is the impact of the other symbolic purpose it now has gained even in these more general contexts.
The letters, numbers, and their combinations remain in a general purpose, but they also have this other status that is nearly impossible, at least in our current cultural context, to remove.
The general idea is the same, I think, with the rainbow flag and rainbow elements in general now. In the case of the flag and pride rainbow sybmols, it was adopted and adapted as an expressive symbol of hope and given power by people wishing to express solidarity with or hate towards the ideals and practices of the people who adopted it.
what the hell do you mean 'you people'?
Mr. Sock,
wha?
I guess when you wear your heart on your sleeve, so to speak, you allow the less developed to rain on your beliefs. I have never understood even the intent of people who put flamingoes in the yard much less indicators of belief like flags flown at half-mast till the war is over.
Why subject the ignorant to a reason to insult you?
But I have to applaud your wanting the other cheek slapped!
Peace
My ex mother in law once said "I don't have a problem with ho-mo-sex-uals, as long as they aren't trying to shove it down my throat..." I had to leave the room quickly to avoid saying the obvious come back to that one. But hey, this here's my blog, so I'm not leaving. I followed some of your logic but not all of it. I think I understand some of your point. I don't agree, but I understand it. What I don't follow is the part about my wanting either of my cheeks slapped though. Do you mean my being out with a female friend on the two occasions I mentioned was an example of "subject(ing) the ignorant to a reason to insult"? I don't see how.
I'm often not a fan of turning the other cheek. I'm more of a "slap back" kind of person.
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