So I was musing about the retro apple decal I have placed over the Apple logo on top (back?) on my laptop (you know, the one that lights up for all to see when you're using your Mac so that, in case any one missed it, you own a Macintosh computer). It occurred to me that some people might take me for a homosexual because of the brightly lit rainbow decal. I don't really think I should worry about what random strangers are thinking about me, but this concern at least brings something else to the forefront of my thought: when did the visible spectrum as shown in its whole likeness become the exclusive property of male and female homosexuals? It belongs to all of us, whether we're straight or gay!
This probably didn't come up in the 80s when Apple designed their original logo, but in the rising wave of the increasing civil rights movement for gays, the rainbow has taken a more exclusive connection to that group of individuals within our culture. Ergo, Apple--and I'm totally speculating--decided to change the polychromatic to the monochromatic. Blank whiteness bears all peoples, I suppose. We also associate the color white in our culture with purity and goodness, and I'm sure that Apple must have taken that into consideration when they recolored their logo.
It seems to me that I can have not qualms with the vintage rainbow decal. In the sea of Mac users today, it provides a fresh twist of the unique for those who find out about them and decide to place them over the saintly logo that is already in place. Is our world a black and silver one, or do we wade in variegated streams? I know that life is beautiful.
