Happy pride month everybody! I’m sure as we speak the largest corporations around the world are busy putting rainbows on their logos, their apps, and even their products. But why do they do that, and is it a bad thing? Well, I think it’s a bad thing… but let’s go through this from the beginning.
Queer “Pride” has a long and storied history, which I don’t feel I can to go into here… but it started as a protest against discrimination and injustice. Lately however, it seems to have taken on a personality all its own and grown to encompass an entire month. It seems less about standing up as a community against hate, more about being seen and celebrating. Which is a welcome change, as any movement against discrimination and injustice grows it too should hopefully transition away from protest and into celebration; but here I think it’s premature, and has been appropriated by corporate interests.
Why would corporate interests appropriate pride, especially when it’s the subject of isolated but vocal pushback? The same reasons corporations do anything: money. While I think pride should be a protest more than a celebration still, there has definitely been major progress since it started and as such people want to celebrate that. Corporations see this progress, and read the wind. They know that society is moving forward (if slowly and unevenly) on the issues Pride has been protesting, and are looking to score free attention and social capital by showing their support. Sometimes this support is token in nature, meaningless and empty; other times it’s genuine and meaningful, but it’s still a money grab and should be treated skeptically.
So, corporate interests appropriate pride for money… but is that dangerous; surely, having more visibility and support is good right? Well, yes… but actually no. More visibility helps drive home that LGBTQ+ people don’t need to hide, and helps sustain the progress Pride as a protest has been aiming for; however the support these corporate interests provide is merely at their convenience, which makes it fickle and fleeting.
Rainbow Capitalism’s Reach
Rainbow Capitalism takes many forms, from logo changes to product marketing, and more. Some companies give away thousands of branded pride merch at pride parades across the country, some sell marked up merch which has queer-positive slogans and imagery, some simply change their logo to a rainbow remix on all social media and make a few token posts. But what does this do to the idea of Pride?
It slowly transforms Pride into a hollow shell of an event, instead of being a celebration of queer people around the world Pride becomes a time to praise corporations for their support of queer people… even if they don’t actually live by that. So many corporations make these token gestures, but don’t do anything meaningful to support the queer people in their employ or across the world.
Supporting Actual Support
Here’s my take on Rainbow Capitalism: It’s a symptom of the world moving past the old Pride, where it was an act civil disobedience. It’s a sign that the majority of people consider the issue of LGBTQ+ equality decided and over, that there’s nothing left to fight in this matter.
But time and time again, we see that these issues aren’t decided. In the US alone, trans people’s rights to exist in public are under attack in many states and municipalities. We just moved on from a president of the US that decided to bar trans people from military service, and in that case many tech corporations co-signed an amicus brief to the supreme court denouncing… but there were corporations that didn’t, while still proudly wearing their rainbow logo.
So, before you go supporting a corporation for having a rainbow logo, or making some #Pride posts on twitbook… I think we should all make a concerted effort to see what that corporations actual record on queer issues is. There’s many corporations who are actually doing good on this front, but others will simply slap on a logo and move on.
A Parting Note…
In my research while collecting my thoughts on this issue for this post, I found a few instances of Rainbow Capitalism detractors being shouted down by the people who sought to produce/design the products/logos. The designers of these things can be queer folks looking to get branding that makes them feel more welcome. There is nothing wrong with this, however it is still a symptom of Rainbow Capitalism. The people who made these things happen are not the problem, the corporations that proudly wave them around when it’s in vogue and then forget about queer people are actually the problem.
Here’s hoping you’ll make more informed decisions this pride month… now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go buy my pride LEGO set.