The following letter was sent to Yellow Scene Magazine. As with all Letters to the Editor, the views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publication. We value providing space for community voices.\n<\/p>\n
Andrew Sawusch,\n<\/p>\n
You mentioned that you like research, so I am going to encourage you to do some on this issue, because I think it is important that you understand why comparing a Pride flag to a white supremacist flag is not simply an imperfect analogy. It is deeply dehumanizing and frankly dangerous.\n<\/p>\n
Symbols have meaning, history, and context.\n<\/p>\n
A Pride flag represents a community of people. It grew from a movement for LGBTQ+ people to be able to live openly, safely, and equally. It is a symbol of visibility, acceptance, belonging, and the belief that queer people should not have to hide who they are.\n<\/p>\n
A white supremacist flag represents an ideology built around racial hierarchy\u2014the belief that one group of people is inherently superior to another. White supremacist movements have been responsible for intimidation, exclusion, violence, and the destruction of people because of their race.\n<\/p>\n
Those are not equivalent things.\n<\/p>\n
One symbol says, \u201cPeople like me deserve to belong.\u201d The other represents an ideology that says, \u201cPeople unlike me are lesser.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
When you place those symbols into the same category, even for the purpose of making an argument about government neutrality, you create a false equivalence between the existence and visibility of LGBTQ+ people and an ideology rooted in supremacy and hate.\n<\/p>\n
And that has consequences.\n<\/p>\n
Language shapes the way people understand one another. Repeatedly putting Pride symbols alongside symbols of hatred can eventually create an association in people\u2019s minds that LGBTQ+ identity itself is ideological, threatening, or something from which other people need protection. For queer people, that is not an abstract debate. It contributes to our dehumanization, which is so unbelievably dangerous to our very existence.\n<\/p>\n
I would genuinely encourage you to research the history of the Pride flag, the history of LGBTQ+ civil rights, and the history and purpose of white supremacist symbols. Then ask yourself whether those two things actually belong in the same comparison.\n<\/p>\n
And because you are a candidate for public office, I think there is a larger question you should consider.\n<\/p>\n
If you want to represent an entire town, you have an obligation to understand the people who live in it\u2014including people whose identities and experiences are different from your own. You do not have to agree with every resident on every issue. But you should be capable of recognizing the fundamental difference between a symbol affirming that a group of people belong in the community and a symbol representing an ideology that has sought to exclude, extinct, dehumanize others.\n<\/p>\n
If you cannot understand that distinction, then I believe it is entirely fair for residents to question whether you are prepared to represent all of them.\n<\/p>\n
I hope you will take the time to understand why this matters.\n<\/p>\n
Kim Salvaggio
Erie resident
Submitted to Andrew Sawusch via public record\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following letter was sent to Yellow Scene Magazine. As with all Letters to the Editor, the views…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4877,6836,6837,15120,1676,123821,13556,6833,6838,32609,1681,136,138,137,6065,1677,123820,8423,103414,6835,17549,12883,976],"class_list":["post-300596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-arts","tag-boulder","tag-business-directory","tag-candidate","tag-colorado","tag-comparing","tag-dangerous","tag-denver","tag-east-county","tag-editor","tag-entertainment","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-flag","tag-front-range","tag-informs","tag-letter","tag-nazi","tag-north-metro","tag-pride","tag-resident","tag-restaurant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}