About the Disability Pride Flag (its design & meaning)
Because:
A) I see it around the Internet where the proportions are off, and I think people are copy/pasting from different thumbnail images that come up in search results, and not clicking through to get the original. It's not a big deal, but it causes a hiccup in my brain whenever I see it.
and
B) There's been some discussion in the Disability Community here on Tumblr on what the precise symbolism should be, and it's changed a bit and gotten complicated. So I want to simplify and broaden it, so it can be explained to curious Normate folk -- without going into a 15 minute explanation of social constructs.
So I'm making a fresh post right now to put all that stuff together.
I'm gonna leave the detailed description of the flag design's proportions just in the alt text (so that people with screen readers know what they are, without having to listen to it twice)
The width of each colored stripe is proportional to the overall width of the flag, but I decided to leave the general proportions of the flag flexible (so it's easier for people to make one based on what materials they can find -- just in case there's a need for a protest sign for a pop-up rally).
The Meaning (Short Version -- what to tell someone who asks while you're waiting for the elevator)
6 colors represent how the Disability Community is Global
The 5 colors in the middle represent how diverse that community is
The black is inspired by pirate flags: rage at injustice, fighting back
The stripes are diagonal to represent cutting through barriers.
The in-depth reasons behind the meaning (Long Version -- If you actually want a 15+ minute discussion of social constructs and history)
Should the White Stripe in the flag remain explicitly for Invisible Disabilities?
Yes. People with Invisible disabilities don't get enough recognition otherwise
No. It'd be wrong to single out one category.
Only if a parallel can be found in the social construct sphere
(Please subtract one vote from the third option -- that's just me, the poll-maker, wanting to track the votes as time goes on)
[Dreamwidth lets poll-makers see results automatically, BTW]
Also, here's the obligatory reminder to reblog for a larger sample size.
Reblogging the poll for more visibility, and also to reply to these Quoted tags:
#I am of the opinion that *all* disabilities don't get enough recognition as-is [...] #I say this as a person who can be fully able-passing (for short amounts of time)
@strangestructures made similar points in (excellent) replies to this post, especially how any disability can be made "invisible" depending on what resources a person has access to, or the context of what they're doing and when.
Back when I was still in the first stages of designing a disability pride flag (when I was still focused on the cursed zigzag design), and I was still thinking of representation in terms of different medical conditions, I only had four stripes, and someone asked me to add a fifth, for invisible disabilities.
At first, I just stuck that stripe (originally a unique purple, which was hard even for me to reproduce consistently) on top of the other stripes. But after changing it to white, and mucking around with the design, I decided to move it to the center of the design, because Invisibility is at the Center of all Disability.
