by Helen Sabin, Corvallis
This is in reply To Judge Ed Sperry’s article on Republicans and when did he turn Red – Nov. 15.
Judge Sperry – Your article made me laugh and then think. So I looked up various colors and learned the following. Now this is from the Internet so take it with a grain of salt…
FROM THE CONVERSATION and Red and Blue States…..
The color RED was associated with Communism and the Soviets, and that connotation was objectionable enough that Cincinnati’s professional baseball team officially changed its nickname from the Reds to the Redlegs between 1953 and 1959.)
China today and in the past used RED for its official party color.
In 1980, the states voting for Ronald Reagan were colored BLUE on TV, with ONE RED state NOT voting for him in the middle of a sea of blue states that were named, “Lake Reagan.”
After the 2000 presidential election, no Republican victory of whatever size would ever again be described using the color blue. That year, the networks had chosen red to represent states won by the Republicans and blue to represent states won by the Democrats. However, by the end of Election Night, neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore had a definitive electoral majority to turn the country red or blue. Night after night of television coverage had fixed our political colors in the national imagination: red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. What was once discretionary and variable became a permanent feature of the country’s political imagery to signal the country’s ideological divide.
Now let’s look at “white.” What does White represent? From Roxana Marieau…
How and when did colours become associated with genders? To answer these questions, we would have to go back in time.
Until the late 19th century, young boys and girls were traditionally dressed in white DRESSES until they were five or six years old. White was easy to bleach and launder, with no colour fading and cheaper to buy than dyed clothes (at least until cheap chemical dyes were invented). Caregivers chose dresses for practical reasons: it was much more accessible to change dirty cloth diapers in dresses than pants. Also, dresses were easier to adjust to children’s rapidly growing needs.
Around the 1920s, magazines started to advertise pink for boys and blue for girls aggressively. The generally accepted rule was pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl. (Today, one prison uses pink clothing for inmates. It is said to be a calming color.)
June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department
Then marketing came into play and voila a switch! It was then blue for boys and pink for girls. Those two colors were “appropriated ” by the Trannies who use it as the colors of their “flag” while “gays” use the “rainbow” to represent their sexual lifestyle.
So, to end this “educational” tidbit – what’s in a color? Absolutely nothing except to the eye of the beholder.
I have a suggestion though, why don’t we all go to RED, WHITE and BLUE and stand in reverence for our flag? Now those are colors that matter. Would you agree? Thanks for the brain teaser, Judge. I enjoyed researching the topic.