November 15th, 2022Just sayin’… By Donna Kelly

START worrying white males, your time is running out.
How do I know this? I read a call-out for people to join a local board.
Anyone can go for it but they especially encourage, in the same breath,
“women, people of all ages, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people, people
with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and
from LGBTIQ+ people”.
So, no white males need apply. I thought I might though. After all, I am a
woman, of a certain age, got a dodgy knee, speak Japanese and, while I am not
LGBTIQ+, I am interested in sex. I can’t tick the indigenous box but the family has
been here for quite a while – Ned Kelly and all that. I’ll let you know how I go.
Oh, after a lot of website clicks I found out you only need to be available one day
a month for the year and you get over $7000 for your contribution to society. Who
needs Powerball when you can become a board member?
You do have to be vaccinated under the current legislation but that will probably
wane, much like the vaccine currently in me, seven months since my last booster.
But, as we all know, Covid is over. Gone baby. Vamoosed. Look at the crowds at the
AFL grand final, the Melbourne Cup. Unless you are, of course, one of the 50 people
who died last week from the disease, or perhaps their family members.
Anyway, back to the call-out for the board members. It is nice they are being so
inclusive but what happened to A? As in LGBTIQA+. It seems to fall off every now
and again. Maybe it is acronym typing fatigue. And what is the A, I hear you ask.
Asexual. So Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Intersex, Queer and Asexual and then for anyone feeling a bit left out.
I sometimes wonder if all those groups want to be included with all those other
groups. I know we have the rainbow flag and all but at this rate it’s going to end up
alphabet soup. I wish the acronym was one I could remember a little easier. Or type a
bit faster – it does take some concentration. But I guess it is all about being inclusive.
Like the afore-mentioned rainbow flag. Which is now more inclusive than I ever
realised. We may need some new flags for ChillOut. Here’s why.
I asked Hepburn Shire about the colours of the Big Rainbow coming to
Daylesford soon. I wrote: “Just wondering why the rainbow starts with black and
then brown at the top. Rainbow flags start with red.” Or so I thought. Here goes with
their reply, which put me back in my place.
“There has been an evolution of Pride flags since 1977 when Gilbert Baker’s
design was originally nine colours: lavender, pink, turquoise and indigo stripes along
with the red, orange, yellow, green and violet. Over the years, most rainbow flags had
six colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
“Black and brown were added to the rainbow to create in 2017 the Philadelphia
Pride Flag that is now used widely.
“The Big Rainbow’s colours start out with the colours of the Philadelphia Pride
Flag, and added the colours of pink, pale blue and white, so that ALL the colours of
the various Pride flags are included. The designers of the Philadelphia Pride Flag said
that black represented black people and brown represented people of colour (both
marginalised groups within the LGBTIQA+ community) but another interpretation
is that black band of the rainbow is in memory of those who have died of AIDS.”
So there you go. I bet even some LGBTIQA+ people didn’t know that.
Oops. Sorry. Just read the new Covid variant from Singapore is here and the latest
wave is just hitting the shores of Victoria. Where’s that N95 gone? Just sayin’..