It all started so well with good intentions with this tweet from Plymouth Citybus
Rainbows have become synonymous with hope and the NHS during the current pandemic, so we thought what better way to show our thanks to our amazing NHS and key workers, than to re-brand our Pride bus to our rainbow 'NHS' bus? Look out for the bus on our roads soon!
However you would have thought it was pure evil from Citybus when you started to read some of the comments it has generated…
A poorly conceived & ill thought out move. As a Plymouth resident, gay man & NHS worker I was really pleased to see the Pride Bus around our city promoting inclusivity for its people. To just erase this message at this time is insensitive.
Congrats, this is offensive to both the LGBT+ community and the NHS workers, who deserve better than hand-me-downs...
Can't say I'm keen on a company openly admitting that it's lazily recycling one trendy gesture for another. That is what makes businesses come over as superficial or insincere when they say they support Pride. It would've been easy for you to do something without being shallow.
I love that the rainbow is the symbol of the NHS.But this bus was created for pride.Notice the 6 colours universally recognised as part of the flag?Are the NHS not important enough to get their own bus? It’s lazy and disrespectful to everyone involved. Stop trying to gaslight us.
There have been some voices of reason though
I’m not going to join the outrage at Citybus over their awkward rebranding the pride bus to support the NHS. They did the right thing by supporting #plymouth pride, and supporting the NHS is good too. Let’s not play one group off against another at a time of crisis please https://t.co/LSocIpNGim
— Luke Pollard MP (@LukePollard) May 17, 2020
I do feel sorry for Citybus as this was clearly well intentioned as they wanted to show their support for the NHS and I am not sure that their paintshops are currently up and running as they are not exactly essential. I would hope that they come out with a simple apology and explanation of their good intentions and that clearly there was no intent to cause offence. Hopefully they can reinstate the Pride bus, which was probably not in use at the moment anyway and maybe later come up with something different for the NHS workers.
Its just sad that these days these things grow so quickly…and everyone takes offence when none is intended.
Sadly one thing I have noticed, especially with people having more time on their hands is the amount of abuse, nastiness or fake news going around. It really makes you think about things and how we behaved with each other before all of this.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence, Graham, and therefore I do not think that any apology or explanation is necessary. The bus still shows the multi-colours of Pride and also the colours of the rainbow, so what is there to apologise to anyone for?
ReplyDeletePS - and not EVERYONE takes offence, just a noisy minority whose mission in life is to find negativity wherever they can. Well, good luck to them.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, rant over! Thank you, Graham, for your blogs and I hope you're keeping well in this worrying period of our lives.
Thats Society today im afraid easiley offended by trivial things i was on a bus once and a women started kicking off because the chap sat next to her was eating a cheese sandwich which was offending her postion as a vegan. On the other hand i read somewhere a driver in norfolk refused to drive a operators pride bus because they dident want to be seen promoting something they dident agree/beleve in. So as the articles title suggest what ever you do you cant win.
ReplyDeleteMaybe like stagecoach did with the cancer bus in 1 of there ops any revenue taken on a certain day is given to the charity this may appease negitivity
Why are my comments being ignored?
ReplyDeleteSorry - it wasnt deliberate! I wasnt aware of your comments as for some reason I didnt get (or at least I didnt see) the usual emails with comments - Having just checked the site I have found another dozen or so comments from others, all of which have now been 'approved' (along side about a a dozen spam comments!) Sorry! Graham
DeleteWhen all this is all over I expect Citybus will dump the NHS staff and jump on another bandwagon to promote themselves. After all, firms like this don't really care about the NHS or LGBGT or any other group - it's just a way of getting free advertising and trying to look cool. Normally firms get away with it, but on this occasion they've been caught out and have brought shame on themselves.
ReplyDeleteThats a bit harsh! Citybus have a good record of supporting other causes / charities and communities. I sure they will produce a replacement Pride Bus in the near future.
Delete...and when they do, Plymothian Ttansit along with other bus websites, plus local newspapers and their websites will feature it and there's the free advertising. A lot of companies do it. Citybus could save the cost of the paint and labour, and donate it to a charity instead. That would be something they could feel proud about, not parading a bus around town shouting "hey look how good we are"
DeleteI think that's bang out of order, If that's the case lets all the names of GWR's trains because its cheap promotion. Take Flybe's Kids & Teens Cancer E195s G-FBEM the cost to put vinyl wrap on the aircraft cost them £20k, and a further £20k to remove it. Flybe didn't charge the charity all of it came out of their own pocket, they didn't have to do it but they wanted to do something special. It's exactly the same for GWR, Plymouth Citybus, Stagecoach etc. Anything like this comes out of their profits, they don't get paid to do it and they don't get anything from it. Finally how do you know that PCB don't donate anything, because I imagine they probably do, and even if they don't, how many people have donated or decided to join or help a charity by seeing that bus?
DeleteAs much as I am someone who disagree with the NHS stunt above your accusations are unfounded. Citybus invests alot more than what you may think behind the scenes. They invest in the cities infrastructure, into charities, they've donated buses to schools etc...
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