Quote:
Originally posted by zchi2
I just wanted to comment on the upside down triangle. I don't know the sorority, but an upside down triangle is a gay/lesbian symbol. It usually is in pink, but I guess they just changed the color to blue because it is their sorority's color.
|
Greetings Ladies! As a lesbian woman I have to say that I commend these ladies for having the courage to start an organization that caters to the community that they are apart of. Not many, if any already established organizations would do it. Many of you may have sorors who are lesbian, but are afraid to come out, because they witness first hand, the ignorance and disrespect that is show here in this forum.
As a Greek woman I also understand how you all feel to a certain extent, I would be equally as upset if someone had infringed upon my organizations symbols and traditions. But I don't feel that this is the case with this organization. I have a couple of question to pose here, is it so easy for you to degrade and bash them because they are black and lesbian? If they had been a white organization with the same symbols, lesbian or not would you feel so strongly that they were trying to be copycats? The last time I checked no organization was able to place trademarks on colors, if that had been the case then Delta Zeta would be upset. These ladies colors are royal blue and platinum (silver), if you are going to be upset with that, then what about the other organizations, black and white who colors are royal blue and white. I bet you are not going out and bashing them for it! As far as the hands sign, while I will admit they are similar, they are not the same. If you looked closely you would see what I see, and I have taken the time out to look at all the organizations hand signs. Instead of assuming that they are trying to take yours, why don't you ask them to explain theirs. As far as the Delta's sign is concerned I think I know why these young ladies use the "introverted triangle" as it is called by the lgbt community and that information is listed below, if you care to learn something.
I feel that there is so much more we need to be worried about like needy children and families, not what someone line name stands for or if they can wear the outfits that they have on. None of us can honestly sit here and say that all our sorors are the most well put together people around. We were enslaved for many years for the color of our skin and yet someone had the nerve to clown one of these women because she is dark skin. Shame! You supposedly joined your respective orgs because you wanted to uplift, so what do you call this?
Because I have been discriminated against and I am a proud lesbian woman, I felt it was my duty to defend this org since they are not hear to do it for themselves. I have not tried to offend anyone here, but if I have then so be it.
Pink Triangle and Related Symbols
The pink triangle is easily one of the more popular and widely-recognized symbols for the gay community. The pink triangle is rooted in World War II times, and reminds us of the tragedies of that era. Although homosexuals were only one of the many groups targeted for extermination by the Nazi regime, it is unfortunately the group that history often excludes. The pink triangle challenges that notion, and defies anyone to deny history.
The history of the pink triangle begins before WWII, during Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Paragraph 175, a clause in German law prohibiting homosexual relations, was revised by Hitler in 1935 to include kissing, embracing, and gay fantasies as well as sexual acts. Convicted offenders -- an estimated 25,000 just from 1937 to 1939 -- were sent to prison and then later to concentration camps. Their sentence was to be sterilized, and this was most often accomplished by castration. In 1942 Hitler's punishment for homosexuality was extended to death.
Each prisoner in the concentration camps wore a colored inverted triangle to designate their reason for incarceration, and hence the designation also served to form a sort of social hierarchy among the prisoners. A green triangle marked its wearer as a regular criminal; a red triangle denoted a political prisoner. Two yellow triangles overlapping to form a Star of David designated a Jewish prisoner. The pink triangle was for homosexuals. A yellow Star of David under a superimposed pink triangle marked the lowest of all prisoners -- a gay Jew.
Stories of the camps depict homosexual prisoners being given the worst tasks and labors. Pink triangle prisoners were also a proportionally large focus of attacks from the guards and even other inmates. Although the total number of the homosexual prisoners is not known, official Nazi estimates were an underwhelming 10,000.
Although homosexual prisoners reportedly were not shipped en masse to the death camps at Auschwitz, a great number of gay men were among the non-Jews who were killed there. Estimates of the number of gay men killed during the Nazi regime range from 50,000 to twice that figure. When the war was finally over, countless many homosexuals remained prisoners in the camps, because Paragraph 175 remained law in West Germany until its repeal in 1969.
In the 1970s, gay liberation groups resurrected the pink triangle as a popular symbol for the gay rights movement. Not only is the symbol easily recognized, but it draws attention to oppression and persecution -- then and now. In the 1980s, ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) began using the pink triangle for their cause. They inverted the symbol, making it point up, to signify an active fight back rather than a passive resignation to fate. Today, for many the pink triangle represents pride, solidarity, and a promise to never allow another Holocaust to happen again.
Like the pink triangle, the black triangle is also rooted in Nazi Germany. Although lesbians were not included in the Paragraph 175 prohibition of homosexuality, there is evidence to indicate that the black triangle was used to designate prisoners with anti-social behavior. Considering that the Nazi idea of womanhood focused on children, kitchen, and church, black triangle prisoners may have included lesbians, prostitutes, women who refused to bear children, and women with other "anti-social" traits. As the pink triangle is historically a male symbol, the black triangle has similarly been reclaimed by lesbians and feminists as a symbol of pride and solidarity.
WHAT IN THE WORLD???
Linear Mode
