Rainbow Abuse - the double bind
Domestic cases are down, but now the problem has been institutionalized.
While cases of domestic rainbow abuse are down 90%, since this time last year there has been a 200% increase in reports of institutional rainbow abuse.
A short stroll through the heart of Stoke Newington corroborates these rumours. The instances of performative signage in windows is down from last year, I’d say 50% rather than 90. Accusations of systemic rainbow abuse are more difficult to verify but a clue can be found in the strange case of the church street rainbow painting.
It is pretty much what it sounds like, two rainbows painted in the middle of Church street. Presumably painted by the council, or at least with its permission and cooperation. That is to say, the rainbow paintings are institutional, meant to convey council ordained sentiments about the public space.
The question is, what?
The other question is around the conjunction of the rainbow symbol, the injunction of vehicular access, and the accompanying sanctions on those who cross the rainbow.
While the rainbow has been mobilized as a symbol of sex and gender diversity, this particular rainbow is more of a classical symbol. The classical (bent)rainbow is said to mean, variously, hope, promise, peace, equality, luck, new beginnings, and eternal life.
The rainbow symbol has also been associated with support for the UK’s National Health Service, NHS.
Over the past few years, the rainbow has been a commonly seen feature in the windows of Stoke Newington houses. But it is not the only symbol to appear in these spaces. Black Lives Matter, White Silence is Violence, various NHS slogans, and the rainbow, have all adorned the expensive homes of Stoke Newington.
Average price for a four bedroom house is around £1.3 million.
This domestic adornment has its roots in the biblical story of exodus. The Pharaoh was stubborn, and refused to release the Jews from bondage, despite the multitude of plagues called down upon him and his people. In the end, Moses got the angel of death, like calling in an air-strike. The angel passed over the city and the first born child of every home was struck dead, except the homes of the Jews, since they had prior warning and marked their doorway with lamb’s blood.
Only then did the Pharaoh let the Jews go, and then only grudgingly.
In the Stoke Newington context, what are we to make of the adornment?
One answer would be to take the adornment literally, as it is written. The combined symbo-logical message is both one of hope and optimism for the future, and that of admonishment for the past and present. By virtue of its presence, the adornments stake a claim to the awareness of a problematic. The homeowner is signaling her attention to suffering, death, pestilence, and the fate of the poor more generally. By doing so, the homeowner is simultaneously signaling his difference, this is not a home of poverty (and in the extreme - of blackness). It is a home of surplus (and in the extreme - of whiteness).
(Note however that poverty is never mentioned in the signage. Nobody says anything about poverty anymore, now that it’s all about health and race and sex and gender.)
One does wonder tho, who is the Angel of Death in this configuration? Maybe in the minds of my idealized homeowner there is some kind of vast contamination, a viral guilt infecting the city. The residents are compelled to adorn their houses in the same way that Christians sought indulgences to escape purgatory and be released of sin.
Here is the rainbow abuse.
The optimism and positivity of the rainbow, as a symbol of hope and a great future, is complicated by the admonishment embedded into the adornment.
Up on Church street, the institutionalized rainbow abuse is even more clear and blatant. For some reason, they thought it was a good idea to twin the street rainbow, with the precise demarcation of a no traffic zone. It isn’t that the street was directly blocked to vehicular traffic, that would be too clear, too obvious.
There is no physical barrier, the demarcation is symbolic (the rainbow) and immaterial (camera surveillance and number plate recognition). The line between heaven and hell is invisible, only G-D is aware. The invoice comes in the post, sent by machine, paid to a machine, witnessed by a machine.
The rainbow of hope and optimism marks the gates to the ideal community, but if you drive over that rainbow in a motorized vehicle you must pay the council £65.
Gregory Bateson proposed the concept of the double-bind, two reciprocally conflicting messages. This is the communal version I suppose.