by Gabrielle Okun

Vox lambasted gay white men for their opposition to brown and black stripes being added to Philadelphia’s pride flag in a Tuesday article.

The Philadelphia Office of LGBTQ Affairs created the “More Color More Pride Campaign” to add brown and black stripes in order to make the rainbow flag more inclusive, representing people of color within the LGBTQ community. However, the LGBTQ community greeted the change in colors with mixed reviews, causing Vox author Alex Abad-Santos to lament the state of society.

“[T]here have been many times when the LGBTQ community at large has failed its poor and non-white members, and that many LGBTQ people, particularly white gay men, have failed to recognize or ignored those failings,” Abad-Santos said.

“It includes 2 additional colors — black and tan. no white. yes it’s racist. The rainbow flag is to be all inclusive of everyone,” Twitter user Terence Brady wrote. According to Abad-Santos, comments such as these represent a form of racism by specifically wanting white colors, instead of the two darker colors already represented on the flag.

“It’s no surprise, then, that symbols like the pride flag, messages of equality, and civil rights victories like same-sex marriage, can feel empty for many LGBTQ people of color and other communities under the LGBTQ umbrella,” Abad-Santos wrote.

“This movement has come from a point of exhaustion and frustration — from queer and trans black and brown people and other marginalized communities who have felt that their experiences and their truths have been … dismissed,” Emmelia Talarico, organizer of one of the groups protesting pride parades nationwide, told USA Today.

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