Pride: Rainbow-Washing Isn’t Just Reductive, It’s Dangerous
Brands must step away from the rainbow-colored background and fight for at-risk LGBTQ+ communities
When the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police earlier this month sparked a national uprising against racial injustice and police brutality, brands were quick to take to social media with statements in solidarity with Black Lives. But as a sea of black backgrounds with white lettering took over social media feeds, an all-too-common phenomenon quickly exposed itself.
Fast Company reporter Jeff Beer hit the nail on the head: “Many marketers, particularly those that would rather not say anything, want to say just enough to get some credit for being on the right side of history, but not so much as to draw too much attention.”
Such was the disappointing impetus behind the uniform statements; and to deepen the insult, few of them reflected values the brands in question live by in practice.
We see the same phenomenon each year during Pride Month: rainbow-washing. While this concept is nothing new, juxtaposing it against the recent brand response to Black Lives Matter brings to light just how much damage it does — and in particular, how it hinders progress toward not only equal rights, but basic safety for Black people in the queer community.
Beyond Hypocrisy: The Intrinsic Harm of Rainbow-Washing
We often talk about the problem with rainbow-washing in terms of its hypocrisy: that it co-opts the visual identity of the queer community for financial gain, without advocating for or enacting equal treatment and respresentation. Less frequently discussed is the intrinsic harm of rainbow-washing itself.
There’s a reason queer activists are reminding us this month that Pride began as a riot.
Like the wash of black and white statements posted by brands over the past few weeks, rainbow-washing reduces a radical cause to something more “palatable.” In doing so, it effectively de-queers the LGBTQ+ movement: it removes its rage, its heart, its joy, and its power.
The rainbow becomes a playful clothing design. Black becomes a social media trend. Colors and symbols that represent the centuries-long struggle and tenacity of oppressed communities are reduced to anodyne images.
And so we stop discussing them. We stop asking what they mean — and more importantly, what they ask of us.
Listening to the Movement; Learning to do Better
Our job as brand platforms, and as individuals, is to keep these symbols alive as a call to action for society to do better, and a manifestation of the fact that change is possible. To do that, we must educate ourselves on their history, as well as what and whom they represent today.
The queer community itself is beginning to interrogate the effectiveness of the rainbow flag in advancing LGBTQ+ rights, particularly as queer Black communities question the extent to which the Pride movement is there to serve Black Lives.
In Brooklyn earlier this month, the “Brooklyn Liberation” march for Black trans lives saw 15,000 people gather in the streets dressed in white. Black transgender people are disproportionately the victims of police brutality, which makes marching for their lives more dangerous too. Inspired by the 1917 Silent Parade against police violence convened by the N.A.A.C.P., the carefully chosen dress-code honored and protected the Black trans people out marching, and called attention to the suffering of a marginalized LGBTQ+ group that has been overlooked for too long.
An antidote to rainbow-washing, the sea of white exemplified the power of symbolic demonstration when conceived with an eye to both the history and the future of the civil rights movement in America.
Intersectionality, and Building a Radical Movement
Rainbow-washing compromises a social justice movement that must necessarily be radical to succeed. It flattens out the element of protest vital to disrupting the status quo. Worst of all, it lulls us into a false sense that the work is already done, when many LGBTQ+ people continue to suffer discrimination — especially those who, like Black trans people, move through the world with identities that intersect with other marginalized groups.
American civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the concept of intersectionality as a way of understanding how inequalities persist.
Intersectionality has become somewhat of a buzzword in recent months, but developing a workable understanding of how this concept operates within the LGBTQ+ movement is key to brands’ rehabilitating Pride as a protest.
It’s useful to know that American civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the concept of intersectionality as a way of understanding how inequalities persist. In other words, there are some subsets of the LGBTQ+ community (cis, white, male groups for example) that are becoming more accepted by society; meanwhile, where LGBTQ+ identities interact with other minority gender, racial or disabled groups, the fight for equal treatment is still far from over.
A recent survey found that Black transgender people had an extremely high unemployment rate at 26 percent, two times the rate of the overall transgender sample and four times the rate of the general population.
Another study found that as many as 85% of detained LGBTQ+ youth are youth of color.
The LGBTQ+ movement has sharp edges — identity lines where progress has slowed, and must now be made; if we’re to move toward equal rights for all, brands have to stop covering them with rainbows.
For the Black trans protesters in Brooklyn, the rainbow could not speak for them. Wearing white showed both courage and ingenuity. If brands are to be effective allies moving forward, they must follow suit.
Intersectionality in Action: What Brands Can do Now
So how can brands contribute to building an intersectional movement, and create the radical, outspoken Pride campaigns the Black LGBTQ+ community needs and deserves?
Our main advice here is simple: stop generalizing, start being specific. The principles of intersectionality tell us that the way to address the areas where disrimination continues against — and inequities persist within — a marginalized community is to bring to light the intersections of minority identity within that community.
Ultimately, the discourse surrounding Black queerness, re-queers the nation by, paradoxically, bringing queerness back into a marginal position from which it can be critical of the state. — Elena Kiesling, The Missing Colors of the Rainbow: Black Queer Resistance
The queer experience is not a monolith, and even where progress has been made, it’s often in service of the clean-shaven, well-dressed, able-bodied vision at the forefront of popular culture. We encourage brands to celebrate the diversity of queer culture in a way that challenges the reductive visual culture of Pride, but also zero in:
- What marginalized voices can you highlight?
- What are the overlooked issues where you can use your platform to educate?
- What underfunded communities can you donate to?
And finally remember, Pride is not a holiday, it’s an ongoing, intersectional movement. By the same token that all lives can’t matter until Black lives matter, all LGBTQ+ lives can’t matter until the lives of Black LGBTQ+ people matter too.
Looking for ways to put this advice into action for your brand? Email us at hello@praytellagency.com to learn more about our Allyship practice.
Written by Nadia Bovy, with the generous support of the Praytell LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group
Read More: Brands are Stepping Up. Cynicism Isn’t the Right Response
