This is a great masterpiece. You are a wizard with words and your thought-processes need to be stored for humanity. I agree that we have no time for stocktaking our failures (or just "the failures that affect us"), and we need to hop into action. I also believe there are some other things that need ti be done and probably more radical. You mention the Rainbow Flag and you and us all speak of the flag with some sort of great relevance. The greatness of flags comes from the perceptions, narratives, and symbolism, the history, the challenges, the omnipresence and immortality of it. That may be the case of flags that have waved for centuries over nations waging world wars, kingdoms and empires collapsing and heroic stories of flags then giving people strength in adversity, giving them hope, communities assembling under them, regaining their pride and uniting them, making them all feel somehow safe, protected looking at the flag, knowing military forces will defend those flags and its people. Our rainbow flag has not had such a history. It can not unite us as we are not even represented as the different colours, because there is no historical context to the colours nor need. No one died for the flag, or at least went into war with it leading the battle cry, nor did we go to war and have to defend it (yet). Country flags not only have the history, but they then have political weight and they are enshrined in constitutions, given credence by elected governments, pledges and oaths reference country flags, military swear to honour the flag, the flag becomes political, even international laws exist to protect country's national flags, such as by punishable sentencing to anyone that burns a sovereign country's flag in public. The Rainbow Flag does not have that same gravitas and acknowledgement. It doesn't represent a nation of people, a country, nor a city. Its not a flag representing a geographical area. It doesn't have a "home"a "nation" that its people are unified under at home, where they feel safe. We want others to acknowledge the importance of our flag, but one can't say that it carries the same worth or value in the eyes of others. I am not belittling Harvey Milk here by the way! But we have no custodian of the rainbow flag unlike national flags. Thats because we do not have a systemic socio-political structure with the LGBT community. We are ultimately legally and emotionally obliged to identify with our national flag. Governments are obliged to fly their flags in public areas and buildings, but they are nor subjugated to fly the rainbow flag. The flag is not a part of any nation's treasures or representational symbols. And to further damage the flags reputation, we ourselves are to blame. With out expanding acronym reflecting the multitude of sexual orientations emerging and developments in gender identity nomenclature, rather than uniting under the rainbow flag, new flags were designed because people felt unrepresented. We are to blame for dismissing our original flag and then creating new ones devaluing previous efforts whilst the general population watches on amused, as even the likes of those Republican queens Santos, Grenell and Milo rip into the queer culture ultimately flaunting their self-hatred and conflicted internal turmoil and purging any LGBT symbols and elements of a queer history or culture and as if the Republicans really care if they destroy their own communities. Again, the flag does not unite the LGBT community, it is in fact highlighting our differences, this is my flag, that is yours, I am G, you are I. You are different to me, you are not me. There is no "we". When (if) I saw we, then I probably mean other gay CIS men. Perhaps even white. Truth is that I do not identify with any of the other letters. I have no relationship to the narratives and unique historical context of the supposed communities behind the letter. How can we though even develop one? Its seems forced and unnatural. "Fake news". And internally, there is movement in the LGBT spectrum. How many times have I heard that you and I are basically mainstream now, our "street cred" is shattered. We basically white CIS men. Punkt. The archenemy of all the letters, though not united in being against us. You and I have to work a lot harder to earn our place under the rainbow umbrella.
We need a new approach, maybe its a global marketing campaign and we ditch rainbows, unicorns, pink triangles, red ribbons, the Scrabble letters, dubious uber correct acronyms and come out with a new brand. LGBT rainbow flag/community et al version 2.0. ?? And we use real whole words, so that we can finally make neat and grammatically conforming verbs, adjectives and not have to do linguistic work arounds to buttress our acronym so as to defend it from the morphologists. And while we at it, we can think about a new flag in the context of it representing a nation. A nation of individuals from differing sexual orientations and conflicting gender identities. I like to entertain this idea. You mentioned the Jewish persecution during WW2 and I am in awe at the history of the Jewish people..Their resilience after such atrocities. I think about those LGBT people that were also murdered. We can not speak of a genocide though but still, the Jewish people made a new home, a new nation. Maybe we need to follow. Let us assume/pretend that we could all go on an exodus to country X (which would be more difficult, some territory been given to us by a nation or the LGBT community agreeing to which territory we should go to?) Either way, lets say we avoid any sort of resistance or problems in the territory and also our neighbours. There is peace all around us and in our territory. Now its time to form some sort of political decison-making and civil administration. How would that look? Would we have political parties as per the letters? Who would be Head of State? A king, a queen? We have enough of those but we have no royal houses. Do we fake it and create some pink dynasty? Or do we go for a queer president? How would that look? Wouldn't we need some sort of Dayton Agreement in place? Like rotating presidencies every year, with each letter getting a turn? What would we do with our population numbers? How do we make sure those born LGBT are brought to their new motherland? What happens if we have children that are not LGBT? Hmmm.... probably not the best solution either, but, either way, we need to do something, think radical, be courageous to try something, because standing still will ensure that like the Roman Empire, we will crumble.
That's quite the comment :) I agree that the diversity in our community makes it at times very difficult to find a common strategy and unifying symbols but we must stay united because our fates are intertwined and we are fighting the same enemy, the politicization of our lives. There has been more bizarre alliances in history that have succeeded in achieving common goals. Their common denominator was a courageous and legitimate leadership. Today our institutions are weak, many of our leaders are corrupt and catering to the echo chamber they live in. Ultimately, you ask whether we should create our own country, I am afraid we can't, we are too numerous and even if we were given Delaware, it would go against what we wish to achieve: finding dignity, happiness and economic opportunities within our families communities and countries. Therefore we have no choice but to gain some level of power, continue to change hearts and minds and remain united.
This is a great masterpiece. You are a wizard with words and your thought-processes need to be stored for humanity. I agree that we have no time for stocktaking our failures (or just "the failures that affect us"), and we need to hop into action. I also believe there are some other things that need ti be done and probably more radical. You mention the Rainbow Flag and you and us all speak of the flag with some sort of great relevance. The greatness of flags comes from the perceptions, narratives, and symbolism, the history, the challenges, the omnipresence and immortality of it. That may be the case of flags that have waved for centuries over nations waging world wars, kingdoms and empires collapsing and heroic stories of flags then giving people strength in adversity, giving them hope, communities assembling under them, regaining their pride and uniting them, making them all feel somehow safe, protected looking at the flag, knowing military forces will defend those flags and its people. Our rainbow flag has not had such a history. It can not unite us as we are not even represented as the different colours, because there is no historical context to the colours nor need. No one died for the flag, or at least went into war with it leading the battle cry, nor did we go to war and have to defend it (yet). Country flags not only have the history, but they then have political weight and they are enshrined in constitutions, given credence by elected governments, pledges and oaths reference country flags, military swear to honour the flag, the flag becomes political, even international laws exist to protect country's national flags, such as by punishable sentencing to anyone that burns a sovereign country's flag in public. The Rainbow Flag does not have that same gravitas and acknowledgement. It doesn't represent a nation of people, a country, nor a city. Its not a flag representing a geographical area. It doesn't have a "home"a "nation" that its people are unified under at home, where they feel safe. We want others to acknowledge the importance of our flag, but one can't say that it carries the same worth or value in the eyes of others. I am not belittling Harvey Milk here by the way! But we have no custodian of the rainbow flag unlike national flags. Thats because we do not have a systemic socio-political structure with the LGBT community. We are ultimately legally and emotionally obliged to identify with our national flag. Governments are obliged to fly their flags in public areas and buildings, but they are nor subjugated to fly the rainbow flag. The flag is not a part of any nation's treasures or representational symbols. And to further damage the flags reputation, we ourselves are to blame. With out expanding acronym reflecting the multitude of sexual orientations emerging and developments in gender identity nomenclature, rather than uniting under the rainbow flag, new flags were designed because people felt unrepresented. We are to blame for dismissing our original flag and then creating new ones devaluing previous efforts whilst the general population watches on amused, as even the likes of those Republican queens Santos, Grenell and Milo rip into the queer culture ultimately flaunting their self-hatred and conflicted internal turmoil and purging any LGBT symbols and elements of a queer history or culture and as if the Republicans really care if they destroy their own communities. Again, the flag does not unite the LGBT community, it is in fact highlighting our differences, this is my flag, that is yours, I am G, you are I. You are different to me, you are not me. There is no "we". When (if) I saw we, then I probably mean other gay CIS men. Perhaps even white. Truth is that I do not identify with any of the other letters. I have no relationship to the narratives and unique historical context of the supposed communities behind the letter. How can we though even develop one? Its seems forced and unnatural. "Fake news". And internally, there is movement in the LGBT spectrum. How many times have I heard that you and I are basically mainstream now, our "street cred" is shattered. We basically white CIS men. Punkt. The archenemy of all the letters, though not united in being against us. You and I have to work a lot harder to earn our place under the rainbow umbrella.
We need a new approach, maybe its a global marketing campaign and we ditch rainbows, unicorns, pink triangles, red ribbons, the Scrabble letters, dubious uber correct acronyms and come out with a new brand. LGBT rainbow flag/community et al version 2.0. ?? And we use real whole words, so that we can finally make neat and grammatically conforming verbs, adjectives and not have to do linguistic work arounds to buttress our acronym so as to defend it from the morphologists. And while we at it, we can think about a new flag in the context of it representing a nation. A nation of individuals from differing sexual orientations and conflicting gender identities. I like to entertain this idea. You mentioned the Jewish persecution during WW2 and I am in awe at the history of the Jewish people..Their resilience after such atrocities. I think about those LGBT people that were also murdered. We can not speak of a genocide though but still, the Jewish people made a new home, a new nation. Maybe we need to follow. Let us assume/pretend that we could all go on an exodus to country X (which would be more difficult, some territory been given to us by a nation or the LGBT community agreeing to which territory we should go to?) Either way, lets say we avoid any sort of resistance or problems in the territory and also our neighbours. There is peace all around us and in our territory. Now its time to form some sort of political decison-making and civil administration. How would that look? Would we have political parties as per the letters? Who would be Head of State? A king, a queen? We have enough of those but we have no royal houses. Do we fake it and create some pink dynasty? Or do we go for a queer president? How would that look? Wouldn't we need some sort of Dayton Agreement in place? Like rotating presidencies every year, with each letter getting a turn? What would we do with our population numbers? How do we make sure those born LGBT are brought to their new motherland? What happens if we have children that are not LGBT? Hmmm.... probably not the best solution either, but, either way, we need to do something, think radical, be courageous to try something, because standing still will ensure that like the Roman Empire, we will crumble.
That's quite the comment :) I agree that the diversity in our community makes it at times very difficult to find a common strategy and unifying symbols but we must stay united because our fates are intertwined and we are fighting the same enemy, the politicization of our lives. There has been more bizarre alliances in history that have succeeded in achieving common goals. Their common denominator was a courageous and legitimate leadership. Today our institutions are weak, many of our leaders are corrupt and catering to the echo chamber they live in. Ultimately, you ask whether we should create our own country, I am afraid we can't, we are too numerous and even if we were given Delaware, it would go against what we wish to achieve: finding dignity, happiness and economic opportunities within our families communities and countries. Therefore we have no choice but to gain some level of power, continue to change hearts and minds and remain united.