Pride Month. But proud of what?
Rainbow-washing won’t wash your dirty clothes.
It’s that period of the year, again. School’s ended, the traffic to the office isn’t so bad, you spend the weekend on the beach and, especially, we can colour our logos with rainbows.
Nowadays, it’s not rare to see companies showing their support for the pride-month celebrations and for all the LGBTQIA+ community with specific publications, communications or campaigns or changing the colours of their logos and brands with those of the rainbow flag.
However, contrary to what people commonly assume, the rainbow hasn’t always been so widespread outside the pride’s community. But then, where are the pride manifestations born and why do we celebrate it every year?
Proud of what?
In the ’60s police raids in gathering places for the homosexual and transexual community were common and violent. Homosexuality was frowned upon, especially in disadvantaged contexts. This was necessary to justify the abuse of power towards the community. But the night of June 28th 1969, during one of those raids at the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar in the suburbs of New York, history was about to be made.
During the fight, policemen tried to arrest an Afro-American trans woman under prostitution charges. However, she resisted the arrest and threw a bottle against the police screaming “I got my civil rights”. That woman was Marsha P. Johnson and her gesture gave the necessary push to the very first Gay Pride through the streets of Manhattan. After nights of harsh and violent fights, many lesbians, gay, trans and outcasts marched through the streets of New York to ask the end of the abuses and the acknowledgement of their rights.
From that moment, the pride celebrations achieved great success. The following year, marches were held in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, but also overseas in London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm. 50 years later, we can safely say that after that night the Pride became a truly global event. Not only to remember gay pride, but also all those minorities whose rights are not acknowledged because of their sexual orientation or gender.
Rainbows, rainbows everywhere.
With time, the Gay Pride entered the social fabric and it has the support not only of the gay community — who become more visible every year — but also of the remainder of society. The Pride marches are easily distinguished from any other social movement because of their festivity. That’s why we find the rainbow flag, an easily recognisable symbol, a powerful sign for the civil rights battle. It is so strong that no one can look at it without thinking of this.
It is in favour of this that many companies adopt a friendly attitude towards the gay community colouring their logos with the rainbow tint and taking part in a huge rainbow wave flooding our social media and our cities, creating an environment where it seems civil rights are a necessity for everyone and not only for the gay community.
Gay pride does not fight with the purpose of having as many rainbow logos as possible, but for a society truly inclusive for every people, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, physical features or ethnicity.
Showing your company with those colour truly is a gesture of intimate support for all the LGBTQIA+ people and their claims, for which they’ve marched for more than 50 years.
If Marsha P. Johnson were alive today, maybe she would be proud of what she did and her life would be totally different. She would’ve lived in an inclusive society, where people — but also big enterprises and multinationals — openly celebrate gay pride on the field. She would’ve been a proud Afro-American trans businesswoman… or not?
Rainbow-washing, what does it actually wash?
Although the many rainbow logos, discriminations during the job seeking or on the workplace are still a huge obstacle for the LGBTQIA+ community and for the achievement of true social equality.
The friendly façade of many companies, indeed, does not represent nor prove their actual support to the community. Oftentimes, it only represents the way the company redesigned its brand to increase their profits.
A company’s communication is important. The perception of target customers for its brand is crucial. Among the thousands of ways a company can position itself, there’s a socio-political level too. It is here that companies can play with their brands and show certain support for social or environmental topics.
This phenomenon is called brand activism. In the last years, it’s been widely proven how people, loaded with ads, buy not only according to the graphic or functional features of a product but also to something more emotional, a sort of ethical research, where they can feel part of a wider context while shopping.
This is a strong process and creates an intimate bond between brand and consumer. The solid nature of this bond attracts many companies which — knowing very well how powerful this is — choose to create an activist narrative, even if they do little to nothing for the topic at issue or go even against it. Such distortion is called with the generic name of woke-washing, and changes according to the issue (rainbow-washing, pinkwashing, greenwashing).
It’s really easy to fall into this trap, both actively and passively. From the outside of a package, one cannot really assess the effort a company made for a cause. If the research has an emotional/ethic tie, then, we always have to face the risk to be tied to an empty box. Or, more precisely, to a rainbow-coloured box.
From the inside, even if it’s easy to have a rainbow-themed logo, it’s hard to assimilate and apply all the history those colours are charged with. For the company that would mean a real investment.
This causes many companies not to learn the real meaning of their communication and, doing so, they fail in their goals and harm their marketing (if exposed, they could receive a huge blow to their image and a total loss of their credibility). But the greatest damage is to the cause.
Towards these unhealthy marketing processes, the entire cause gets simplified and trivialised. Consequently, the whole fight becomes weak. In this way, companies do not tell the fight for what it actually is. They take away its nature, they twist it, making it harder for the process of collectivisation and apprehension for complex topics such as the inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Environmentalism’s ultimate goal is not to use the colour green and draw as many little leaves as possible. It is to save our planet. In the same way, gay pride does not fight with the purpose of having as many rainbow logos as possible, but for a society truly inclusive for every people, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, physical features or ethnicity.
Easier said than done.
Sure it is, it’s actually really hard. Taking part in a cause for real and have it be more than just mere communication, needs a more comprehensive effort. It needs perseverance and commitment, in order to assimilate the various aspects of the topic and act to improve our world. For a company, this means a lot of things, touching all the aspects of the value chain, both internally and externally. However, paradoxically, this complex process can be summarised in an easy, succinct notion: to be.
If the interest for a given social cause sits in the centre of what we are as a company, then we can say that that element is an identity for us. Hence, we will act moved by a deeper and more authentic feeling. It won’t be a matter of mere aspect or narrative, where we only talk about substance and ethics. Rather, it is with fundamental principles that we can actually take part in the wind of change.
Versione italiana dell’articolo a questo link.
