We live in a state where loyalties are divided between two teams: the Utah Utes, whose color is bright red, and the BYU Cougars, who wear dark blue. Because we are Cougars at our house, we wear a lot of blue and almost no red. In fact, I am the only member of the family who will wear red at all, and I get a lot of guff from my children about it, but the way I see it, the University of Utah does not OWN the color red. I will not surrender one eighth of the basic Crayola Crayons box to our sworn enemies across town. If I want to wear red, I will wear it (just never on game day).
I got to thinking about this because the other day I read about an upcoming event requesting that everyone wear "survivor pink." I know it's about fundraising and breast cancer awareness, etc., but there are dozens of shades of pink and no one owns any of them. While I whole-heartedly support the cause, I will not surrender the color.
Similarly, I will not surrender the rainbow...not for gay rights and not for Jesse Jackson's coalition. No one institution or group of people can own the sequence of colors created by a prism of light, affectionately known as ROY G. BIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. I love all of those colors, and I love them in that sequence. Rainbows are a naturally occurring phenomenon, and the awe-inspiring experience of seeing one cannot be co-opted.
For me, green does not describe jobs, czars, movements, etc. It is a color. Please leave it alone.
