The Journey of the Gay Pride Flag

                I wonder how many people know exactly what the gay pride flag looks like. Although the gay pride flag was made specifically for gay and lesbian people, the rainbow design has been used around the world as the symbol of all LGBTQ+ communities. There were many efforts that went into the creation of the flag.

                In 1951, Gilbert Baker, the creator of the gay ride flag was born in Kansas. He has been creative and artistic since a little child. When he was in training for the U.S. military, Baker identified as gay, however, he faced serious homophobia there. After he left the army, he put his energy and artistic talent into his political efforts and designed a banner for anti-war and pro-gay movements. At San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade, the first rainbow flag, which he designed then dyed and sewed with some volunteers, was raised in 1978. It was composed of 8 colors: pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, blue for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. “It all goes back to the first moment of the first flag back in 1978 for me. Raising it up and seeing it there blowing in the wind for everyone to see. - It was the most thrilling moment of my life. Because I knew right then that this was the most important thing I would ever do – that my whole life was going to be about the Rainbow Flag.” Baker said. After the parade in San Francisco, he contacted with the Paramount Flag Company to mass produce the flags, and they started selling it with the pink removed from the first flag Baker designed due to the commercial issue. Eventually, indigo was also eliminated from the design. A six striped rainbow flag has since spread around the world as the most common version of the gay pride flag. As a fun fact, Baker created a mile-long rainbow flag for the 25^th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot, which won a World’s record in 1994, and it was carried by 5,000 people.

                Even though Gilbert Baker passed away March 31^st in 2017, his achievements and messages still live on today. The gay pride flag as his legacy not only made LGBTQ+ community visible but also made them unit tightly.

References

A Brief History of the Rainbow Flag. San Francisco Travel.

About Gilbert Baker. gilbert baker.

By Minori Sakurai

   Queer Program Intern

    Pronouns: She/Her

The Importance of Gender and Women’s Studies

                    First of all, I am going to share my experience. Last semester, I was taking a speaking class in another school. One day, I had a speech about “legalizing prostitution in the U.S.” which I chose myself. Before the class, I asked my teacher to fix my notes for the speech. Then, she asked me “Why did you choose such a controversial topic?” I knew this was a tough topic, but I had been learning about gender studies and women’s studies. Also, I wanted to take classes about it at Chico State. Then she said, “why are you studying them? They are useless because you cannot make money by those knowledges.” At that moment, I literally got mad and I tried to counter with her but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t only because she was my teacher. She was a person who would grade my speech and my whole semester.

                   There are two critical points in this story. The first is her role as a teacher in the school. She might say it is just her opinion, however, she was a teacher who educates students. She should not try to diminish the student’s curiosity. Even if she strongly believes gender and women’s studies are not useful, she is not supposed to say such a ridiculous thing to a student because we cannot even counter with her because of her privilege…

The second is she slighted gender and women’s studies. IAC Publishing states that “Gender studies allows people in different social environments to solve gender-related conflicts by providing a common understanding regarding gender identity and relationships.” Also, Hilary Watchler, who is working for a major women’s health organization in San Diego, proposed “When you major in Women’s Studies, you study politics, theory, literature, history, sociology, and psychology, all with a feminist perspective. You discover and ask questions that no one’s ever challenged you with before.” No doubt gender studies is not only for LGBTQ people and women’s studies is not only for women. Their goals have not been attained yet. Furthermore, there shouldn’t be a hierarchy among the disciplines because the connection with the future job is just one of the reasons to study. When people more deeply understand the importance of these two studies, and more students take these classes, their social issues are more easily settled.

                                                                                                    

References

“What Is the Importance of Gender Studies?” by IAC Publishing

“5 Reasons Why You Should Major Women’s Studies” by Hilary Watchler

By Minori Sakurai

What is Participatory Democracy?

I read an interesting article the other day and thought it'd be pertinent given the political and social movements that are currently taken place.  This article "Ella Baker and the origins of the 'Participatory Democracy,'" touches on the subject of democracy and of course, participatory democracy.  First of all, democracy is the rule of the people - a government that is of the people, for the people, and by the people.  However, not every people is included within the democracy which is what Ella Baker is addressing: what the people can do for the people who do not fall under those terms is what she calls participatory democracy.  We can choose to participate in our democracy by getting involved either directly or indirectly; examples of such acts include marches, voting, donations, writing to representatives, and rioting. Riots are a completely different subject because when we riot it is under certain circumstances where our democratic system has failed us especially for people of color.  We have social movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the Chicano movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and of course the recent March for Our Lives movement.  There are also interest groups with a movement for example: the NAACP and Students for Democratic Society were interest groups within the Civil Rights Movement.  Brown stresses the need for direct action for such movements such as sit-ins, demonstrations, and boycotts which are necessary in order to give power to the people - the right to protest and go against government decisions that affect our communities.
 

                                                                     References
     "Ella Baker and the Origins of 'Participatory Democracy'" by Carol Mueller


By:  Leslie Macias

Censorship in America

Censorship in America has influenced how popular culture has developed within the last century.  Such influence can be seen through our ratings system which is essentially some form of censorship especially when it comes to the content the MPAA is repeatedly refusing to broadcast.  The MPAA being the Motion Picture Association of America which consists of a handful of super exclusive board members, whose identities are kept a secret, who ultimately get to decide what is "appropriate" for the American people.  Before I go into how censoring is problematic, let me explain exactly how censoring works as a whole within the motion picture industry: censoring is basically the media neglecting to broadcast to the American public everyday issues and injustices people within the United States experience.  In order to do such a thing, the MPAA runs their ratings by censoring topics such as gender inequality, the life of a soldier, same-sex intercourse, etc. 

A director being interviewed within the film, "This Film is Not Yet Rated," made an interesting point about a film he made about the life of an American soldier stating that if they are willing to censor a film he made about the life of an American soldier stating that if they are willing to censor a film that depicts the daily lives of real American soldiers that is not even scripted; why does the U.S. send them to war in the first place if they are not willing to show the public what really goes on out there and what those soldiers have to endure every single day out there.

Our society/culture still cannot makeup its mind up about what it wants and whom it wants to represent.  Films are meant to represent American culture which includes every diverse aspect of it whether it is a gay people, an interracial couple, war, mother nature, etc.  If we continue to portray minority groups in a stereotypical manner then the public will become accustomed to those stereotypes and it will continue to be a norm; same goes with not portraying the LGBTQ community - if we continue to censor what the media considers "abnormal" sexual intercourse then it will never be accepted and continue to be viewed as abnormal.  The fact that all of this can occur simply because of the power the MPAA holds over American films is absolutely horrendous.  The MPAA should not hold this much power and their identities should not be kept a secret from the American public.  It is time to change our censorship rituals and begin portraying America as it truly is without the need of extreme censorship.

References: "This Film is Not Yet Rated" film


By: Leslie Macias