DailyDirt: People Colored

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There used to be Crayola crayons labeled "flesh" -- which was re-named to "peach" in 1962, and now Crayola has a pack of eight crayons specifically called "multicultural" that includes: black, sepia, peach, apricot, white, tan, mahogany and burnt sienna. However, there are other colors that have been used to label people, like red and blue. The history of these color associations isn't so black and white. Here are just a few interesting links on how we've changed looking at colors over the years. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
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Filed Under: babies, blue, color, crayons, democrat, perception, red, republican
Companies: crayola


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2012 @ 5:27pm

    Check this out: "1927 Baby Boys Wore Pink"
    http://www.newstrick.com/2012/04/1927-baby-boys-wore-pink.html

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2012 @ 5:28pm

    a crayon labeled flesh!

    that sounds like it's teaching kids to become cannibals or something. yuck.

    kids can dip their flesh crayons in glue and munch away.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pirate Prats, 8 Nov 2012 @ 6:46pm

    The red/blue was flipped in the 2000 election. It's the tradition way with 'left' parties being red and 'right' being blue.
    But Fox changed it in 2000.

    For a REALLY funny thing, we've all heard about 'purple states' (Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Virginia, etc were Purple States this election), What happens when you get a guy barely out of his teens, who has most of his political experiance as a candidate in Canada running a US party? Yes, he decides that the party color should be PURPLE, because that's what it was in Canada...

    This happened with the US Pirate Party, while the person in question was SUPPOSED to be working on statutes.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Andrew Norton (profile), 8 Nov 2012 @ 6:52pm

    Actually, the baby colours is wrong. before the 30s/40s, red/pink was for boys, and blue was for girls, because red was a strong colour, for blood and war and such. Blue was considered a soft colour.
    QI told me so - https://sites.google.com/site/qitranscripts/transcripts/7x07

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Leigh Beadon (profile), 9 Nov 2012 @ 10:01am

      Re:

      That was my first reaction too (and QI rules!) but if you read the full article it's clear that they are well aware of the switching around and it was never quite as clear-cut as that QI episode made it sound. At the same time that some were promoting pink for boys, blue for girls, others were promoting the reverse and others still were saying it had nothing to do with gender and should be based on hair colour and stuff like that.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Andrew Norton (profile), 9 Nov 2012 @ 11:03am

        Re: Re:

        I think it's the opposite.
        I think the smithsonian piece focuses more on a few personal choices after the event (like FDR in a white dress 140 years ago) rather than contemporary accounts in the media showing surprise.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Andrew D. Todd, 9 Nov 2012 @ 1:12am

    Slightly Off-Topic

    Wikipedia has a table of Crayola colors, with 24-bit equivalents, so that you can paste them into a paint program.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    AG Wright (profile), 9 Nov 2012 @ 4:08am

    Colors for kids

    Personally back in the day when I had babies I usually dressed them in yellow. Leave them guessing.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    JJ Joseph, 9 Nov 2012 @ 2:32pm

    Red vs Blue?

    The commies will always be "the reds". Their flags are always red, and they self-identify as reds. Everywhere in the world, Conservative parties are blue, as in "blue blooded". So, yes, it is odd that the Republicans label themselves as the red party.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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