"F***in' white people and their f***in' flamingos!" was yelled out into the air from the rooftop across the way while I smoked a cigarette on the fire escape. I glanced down at my feet and at the pink flamingo which lay there. I think the man himself is Mike Tyson. It's been rumored that he has a flock of racing pigeons atop his rooftop in Bed-Stuy. He connected his hatred for white people to flamingos in one fell swoop. I felt ashamed. I felt sorry for moving into this neighborhood amidst its gentrification. I am a part of that gentrification. But to what extent should I feel sorry for being who I am and for living in one of the few places which I could afford? Anyway, back to the flamingo. I was interested in this visual culture of a flamingo. Why exactly do people have pink plastic flamingos in their yard and why has it become a symbol of 'whiteness' as I hear?
From Wikipedia: The plastic pink flamingo was designed in 1957 by Don Featherstone while working for Union Products, and has become an icon of pop culture,[1] and won him the Ig Nobel Prize for Art in 1996. It has even spawned a lawn greeting industry where flocks of pink flamingos are installed on a victim's lawn in the dark of night. After the release of John Waters's 1972 movie Pink Flamingos, [2] plastic flamingos came to be the stereotypical example of lawn kitsch.[1]
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