Stop Rainbow Washing, Start Celebrating Pride 365 Days a year! How Pride Palace serves as an example to all companies selling Pride Apparel
What is "Rainbow Washing"?
The term rainbow washing continues to be a hot topic during Pride Month, as so many companies attempt to profit off using a rainbow in their marketing and products. Despite never addressing real issues the LGBTQ+ community faces or participating in allyship year-round, these companies participate in this performative allyship for their benefit. According to @mattxiv, “Rainbow-washing” allows people, governments, and corporations that don’t do tangible work to support LGBTQ+ communities to slap a rainbow on top of something in June and call it allyship.
Rainbow washing continues to be prevalent. At Pride Palace, we hope to serve as an example to all companies out there who want to exhibit active allyship and celebrate pride 365 days a year. How are we doing this? By proving education, application, and most of all, donations every month to LGBTQ+ organizations.
1. Valuable education
If you follow us across social media, you know that we post educational posts weekly to ensure all identities are celebrated and understood. We create academic carousel posts that teach about diversity, identity, and the history of the LGBTQ+ holidays and topics. These posts are often shared thousands of times, allowing the information to reach the masses and educate people worldwide. Yes, we are an LGBTQ+ apparel company that sells products, but our primary mission is to celebrate pride 365 days a year. The educational posts are one way to do it, and it would be great to see some of these companies claiming to be allies to celebrate these identities and holidays.
2. Amplification
Another main component of our mission is to amplify voices in the LGBTQ+ community. To do this, we share stories almost every Saturday, consistently reshare videos from popular creators and provide other opportunities for people to share themselves with our audience. An ally must recognize the work that has come before them and create space for LGBTQ+ to be at the center of conversations. Simply offering them money to promote your new rainbow pride month collection without sharing their story and other stories throughout the year is unacceptable. Amplify the community and help us bridge the gap between allies and the LGBTQ+ community.
3. Donations
Donations to pride organizations during pride month are fabulous, but the community struggles throughout the entire year. Therefore, why not donate some proceeds from your Black Friday sales or at some other time than June? At Pride Palace, we donate proceeds to LGBTQ+ organizations every month, and all companies should make too! To amplify the organization we have contributed to and encourage you to donate as well, here are the organizations we have contributed to in the past year:
Past Donations
Trans Women of Color Collective
iPlan2live
Last but not least, during Pride Month, we have many different charitable contributions we are making this Pride Month:
- June 12th, we will donate to the https://onepulsefoundation.org to remember all the lives lost at the Pulse Nightclub.
- We are hosting an event with https://www.campuspride.org on June 30th and will make a sizeable donation.
- We are currently giving two $500 scholarships to LGBTQ+ changemakers in the community. Apply here!
To all the companies selling pride merch and calling yourself allies, provide the receipts to back it up. Pride isn’t an opportunity for you to profit off the community. It is something you should be supporting 365 days a year. Follow our lead…
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