Larry Correia cites Pathfinder for diversity in gaming.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
EntrerisShadow wrote:
Horse. S*++.

*Ponyfeathers

EntrerisShadow wrote:

It's not a No True Scotsman. If his family had immigrated from a Latin American country and had a background there, then I would have no problem saying he's Latino. At some point there's a difference between NTS and just ignoring facts.

Actually, I'm more protesting about the people claiming Correia hasn't dealt with discrimination and treating this article as proof of that. They then point to things like "insufficiently non-white".

Or more accurately, "white".

But leaving that aside, where does Correia claim he's dealt with discrimination. He says

Quote:

I get that. I truly do. I grew up in a Portuguese culture in a really poor dairy farming town, where the men were manly men, problems were solved with fists and the problems that couldn’t be solved with fists were dulled with beer, reading books was a waste of time that could better be spent milking cows, and D&D was for worshipping the devil.

In my school, half of us could speak English. Half of those could read.

So, he grew up poor, but I don't see any actual claims of discrimination.

I didn't reread the whole thing, so I might have missed something.


thejeff wrote:
Or more accurately, "white".

Or, more accurately still, "insufficiently minority". Which is, y'know, wrong.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Or more accurately, "white".
Or, more accurately still, "insufficiently minority". Which is, y'know, wrong.

Yes, just like I am "insufficiently not-white", or as I usually put it, "white".

And nothing on him actually claiming any discrimination?


I don't feel like rereading it all, either. I'll leave that to someone more invested in this debate than the two of us. ;)


If Fox News gets a black guy to come on a show and declare racism is over... do we believe him?


Irontruth wrote:
If Fox News gets a black guy to come on a show and declare racism is over... do we believe him?

I will gladly believe that he believes it.


Boy, why even bother with a quoting system anymore? Seems like everyone's pretty okay with just making up and exaggerating points.

thejeff wrote:
babajiii love expert black magic

Quick, Gary, ban him!


How you look may not impact what race you are, but of course it impacts what sort of racial discrimination you may face. My grandmother is half-Chinese, making my mother 1/4 and me 1/8th. None of us have experienced much in the way of racial discrimination for being Chinese though. One of my mothers brothers does look quite Chinese though, as does one of her cousins and one of my cousins, and they've each experienced some level of racial abuse.

Whether somebody looks like a race is going to be a strong factor in what racism they get exposed to, often more of a factor than what race they actually are. My mother has just as much Chinese blood as her cousin, but she doesn't know what it's like to be discriminated against for being Chinese, while her cousin does.

Regardless, what discrimination Larry Correia may or may not have suffered isn't really relevant to what discrimination others have faced. Maybe he faced less, maybe he handled it differently. Neither would make racial discrimination any more acceptable.


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Of course not. That's why people should stop refuting Larry's points with accusations of racism and "privilege".

The bare fact is that the guy who wrote the original article comes across as clueless, self-righteous, melodramatic, and itchin' for a fight. Correia states he has frequently responded to tor.com's articles, so while he comes across as quite confrontational, I got the sense he was more irritated because he was sick of having to deal with this particular website.

If you don't want people to try calling tor.com or its supporters racist, stop calling Correia and his supporters racist, or privileged, or gendernormative, or whatever the hay we're calling people now. Someone can have a different opinion from a supporter of social justice and be just that—someone with a differing point of view.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Of course not. That's why people should stop refuting Larry's points with accusations of racism and "privilege".

The bare fact is that the guy who wrote the original article comes across as clueless, self-righteous, melodramatic, and itchin' for a fight. Correia states he has frequently responded to tor.com's articles, so while he comes across as quite confrontational, I got the sense he was more irritated because he was sick of having to deal with this particular website.

If you don't want people to try calling tor.com or its supporters racist, stop calling Correia and his supporters racist, or privileged, or gendernormative, or whatever the hay we're calling people now. Someone can have a different opinion from a supporter of social justice and be just that—someone with a differing point of view.

Well, it's not like he has to deal with this particular website. He could, for example, ignore it.

It's almost like he's some kind of anti-Social Justice Warrior, "constantly perched like a falcon, ready to swoop in to right wrongs."

And the first accusations of racism in this thread were thrown at George, not Correia.


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Actually, the first accusations of racism were thrown at GenCon attendees and staffmembers. :)


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I think the original article isn't put terribly helpfully, and I think the Correia article is a pretty poor thing as well. Having confronted some people several times is no excuse for doing so in the aggressive and dismissive manner he does.

I think one could equally say 'stop jumping to take offence every time somebody tries to talk about how privilege and racism are real things in society'. That doesn't mean that everybody talking about such things does so in a reasonable way, but some people being unreasonable isn't some kind of pass for other people being unreasonable in turn.

Personally i have little time for any argument that needs to hang itself on putting people into buckets. "Oh, all you social justice warriors are just the same!" "You're a voice for the patriarchy and part of the problem!"
Neither are terribly helpful. It just gets people wanting to hop onto whichever 'side' they agree with rather than actually listen to what a particular person is saying.


Berik wrote:
"Oh, all you social justice warriors are just the same!"

From what I've heard, "social justice warrior" is a term applied by others. It is a negative term for "social justice extremist". So, yeah, I'd say all social justice warriors are douchebags. :P


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I'm more inclined to think negatively of people who want to throw the social justice warrior label on someone because apparently that improves their own point somehow. Yeah, lets call people names and at the same time imply that 'social justice' is somehow a bad thing. That's a worthwhile contribution to debate!


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"Social Justice" ain't a bad thing. "Social Justice Warrior" is. We clear on that? Got nothing against social justice—just people who use it as an excuse to push people around.

The writer of the original article comes off as a whiny, self-righteous bully. As a matter of fact, I'm inclined to think he is one. Correia's attitude may be more confrontational than is suitable for some, but I have trouble feeling sorry for his "victim".


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Right, and I think that the Social Justice Warrior tag is bad too. It's just a label for anything that the user doesn't disagree with. I mean, is there a meaning for Social Justice Warrior beyond 'person who is backing some kind of social justice position that I personally disagree with'? What use is that as a phrase? Just get on to what you actually disagree with rather than just throwing a meaningless label on things.

And there's no reason to take a 'side' between either article. I think the original article didn't make the point well and did come across a bit whiny, but I think Correia came off at least as bad. If I'd call anyone a bully from the two articles (let along the linked one about diversity in science fiction casts) it would be Correia.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

thejeff wrote:
Kthulhu wrote:
thejeff wrote:
]My stance is and remains that he claims incorrectly to be a Person of Color to mock and dismiss racial discrimination.
Do we REALLY want to go down the road of saying "He isn't [color] enough to be a REAL [race]?

No. And I'm not.

He's Portuguese-American. He's European-American. He's white.

It's not about being not [color] enough to be a REAL [race].

This doesn't mean he wasn't poor. This doesn't mean he didn't face discrimination, 1st and 2nd generation immigrants often face discrimination where ever they come from. I lived until recently in a town with a high Polish immigrant population. They had a rough time of it in many ways. But that doesn't make them people of color.

So you're saying Theresa Heinz-Kerry is African American?


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If we didn't say "Social Justice Warrior", we'd just call them "whiner" or "jerk" or "bully".

I didn't really want to have to spend an hour on this (not least because I hate giving tor.com ad revenue), but if you insist:

George wrote:
By far, the most visible minorities at GenCon were the hired convention hall facilities staff who were setting up, serving, and cleaning up garbage for the predominantly white convention-goers. It was a surreal experience and it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants.

Stupid statement speaks for itself.

George wrote:
Gaming has a race problem. For all its creativity and imagination, for all its acceptance of those who find it hard to be themselves in mainstream society, gaming has made little room for people of color.

To be more precise, America has a race problem, and gaming happens to exist in America. Gaming is an extraordinarily inclusive hobby—it's just expensive.

George wrote:
The broad acceptance that white people enjoy is the unspoken—but clearly visible—rule of our society, reinforced through a thousand structures and symbols. It pervades everything around us, reminding everyone that white people are the center of the story, no matter what story is being told. As a kid who desperately wanted to belong and fit in, white was the color of god.

While it is true that media often used to only center on white people, there are a ton of movies, TV shows and novels with non-white leads nowadays. The number grows steadily, too.

His point applies to his childhood, not the modern day. That complaint also applies to his complaints about non-inclusive tabletop games—Pathfinder and D&D both disprove his point with tons of minority characters.

George wrote:
I don’t think there are official surveys and statistics on the gaming subculture, but perhaps this study on the top 100 domestic grossing films in science-fiction and fantasy is an indication of similar trends in gaming: There are only eight protagonists of color in the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy films. Six are played by Will Smith and one is a cartoon character (Aladdin). None of these protagonists are women of color.

Gee, maybe if he looked at more recent movies, he'd see a change (funny enough, Lion King is pretty damn centered on Africa, though I'll concede the characters don't exactly look black).

Again, he's not really going for an up-to-date view. I think that's really harmful. Racism is a thing nowadays, too. Focusing on the problems of way-back-when reinforces the people who claim racism to be dead and in fact hurts the case of actual social justice.

Okay, so the earlier stuff, that's opinionated. I'm not gonna stand by what I've been saying so far, because it's a bit stream-of-consciousness, and I apologize if it ends up coming across the wrong way.

But now...

George wrote:
Things are changing in the world of gaming, but too slowly. The designers are mostly white, especially lead designers and executives. Equally, the key officers of most conventions are almost entirely white. Usually, they are well-meaning people who do not realize how their roles and decisions impact the larger gaming community and its lack of diversity.

...

He's implying that the designers and officers are at fault because their whiteness is impacting the larger gaming community.

Like Correia said. People get the job because they work towards it. Minorities often don't get the job because they don't work towards it because they tend to not have the money to afford the lazy man's equivalent of polo. This is a race issue, but it has nothing to do with gaming.

George wrote:
GenCon is emblematic of this problem. Of the twenty-seven Guests of Honor (in various categories), only two are people of color.

Correia already responded to this stuff quite well. I'm not gonna waste your time just repeating what he said.

George wrote:
Furthermore, GenCon is disturbingly tolerant of deeply offensive material.

Oh? Let's see what your evidence is...

Quote:
Shoshana Kessock wrote about her experiences with Nazi cosplay and paraphernalia at Gencon shortly after returning from GenCon 2013,

Okay, so here's her two experiences:

Shoshana wrote:
I wish I had a picture of this person, walking down the street past the noodle shop in downtown Indianapolis. I was sitting with a friend, talking about how wonderful the convention had been so far, but not five minutes before I had been discussing how tired I was of seeing Nazi EVERYTHING lately. Then, no sooner had we moved on to another topic but BAM. Here comes a Nazi down the street.

One guy dressed up in a Nazi costume exists nearby GenCon! Aaaah!

Her other complaint was about someone selling nazi paraphernalia at a booth. This was explicitly against the rules (no 20th century costumes) and I heard it got shut down for that and other reasons, so, yeah. It's a damn cosplay. Not a very okay cosplay, no, but seriously? We have Irregular Webcomic featuring a group of nazis as joke villains. We have Springtime for Hitler. I know joking about nazis still upsets people, but...are we really gonna call GenCon racist over this?

George wrote:
and I had similar encounters

Which he will never actually explain, sooo...yeah, I'm thinking they don't exist. I doubt he'd miss a chance to go into detail if they did.

George wrote:
It would be impossible to imagine minority players running around GenCon in t-shirts that read ‘Kill the white man!’, yet the convention welcomes and profits from images of racial hatred.

Oh, really? So there were people going around in t-shirts that read 'Kill the black man!' Gee, that sounds terrible. Can't believe GenCon allowed that.

He's calling a nearby cosplayer and the booth "horrific violations". That's his evidence that GenCon is tolerant of racism.

George wrote:
These are symbols, important symbols. If the color of all the leadership, of all the roles of power and recognition, the entire structure is white, and if this same leadership is tolerant of hate-speech, it gives a clear unspoken signal to the non-white community: You can join us here, but only if you leave your history, your people, and your emotions at the door.

Can I bring my animal companion in, too?

That's the extent of his evidence. Look, I agree that the booth should have been shut down faster. It clearly upset some people. But...seriously? The writer of the original blog mentioning nazis actually explicitly stated she didn't think any of this was GenCon's fault. So, once again, this is a case of a self-righteous bully standing up in defense of someone who doesn't need defending just so he can get up on his soapbox. His evidence is s&$@. His logic is s~!@.

He uses


Hey! Postmonster! Stop reverse-eating!

Welp, I'm not gonna risk editing only to find myself ninja'd. Suffice to say the guy uses faulty examples.

Is it a shame there aren't more minorities in gaming? Totally. But that's more an economic thing (our current core is from people who were gaming in the "heyday", and those people came from generally white, reasonably financially stable families). It has a basis in racism, yeah, but that racism doesn't come from gaming. Gaming isn't at fault for having mostly white designers and panelists—that's simply a sample of the overall proportions, which see re: economic thing.

Grand Lodge

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Irontruth wrote:
If Fox News gets a black guy to come on a show and declare racism is over... do we believe him?

As long as questions like this are asked, the obvious answer is no. Idiocy, or willful delusion doesn't change because of the color of the speaker.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:

If we didn't say "Social Justice Warrior", we'd just call them "whiner" or "jerk" or "bully".

I didn't really want to have to spend an hour on this (not least because I hate giving tor.com ad revenue), but if you insist:

George wrote:
By far, the most visible minorities at GenCon were the hired convention hall facilities staff who were setting up, serving, and cleaning up garbage for the predominantly white convention-goers. It was a surreal experience and it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants.
Stupid statement speaks for itself.

I've said it before and I certainly don't blame Gencon for it, but I've been in places that had this dynamic and it's freaky when you realize it. And I'm a white guy. I really can't imagine what it's like if you match the servants, not the guests.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:


George wrote:
Gaming has a race problem. For all its creativity and imagination, for all its acceptance of those who find it hard to be themselves in mainstream society, gaming has made little room for people of color.

To be more precise, America has a race problem, and gaming happens to exist in America. Gaming is an extraordinarily inclusive hobby—it's just expensive.

George wrote:
The broad acceptance that white people enjoy is the unspoken—but clearly visible—rule of our society, reinforced through a thousand structures and symbols. It pervades everything around us, reminding everyone that white people are the center of the story, no matter what story is being told. As a kid who desperately wanted to belong and fit in, white was the color of god.

While it is true that media often used to only center on white people, there are a ton of movies, TV shows and novels with non-white leads nowadays. The number grows steadily, too.

His point applies to his childhood, not the modern day. That complaint also applies to his complaints about non-inclusive tabletop games—Pathfinder and D&D both disprove his point with tons of minority characters.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:


George wrote:
I don’t think there are official surveys and statistics on the gaming subculture, but perhaps this study on the top 100 domestic grossing films in science-fiction and fantasy is an indication of similar trends in gaming: There are only eight protagonists of color in the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy films. Six are played by Will Smith and one is a cartoon character (Aladdin). None of these protagonists are women of color.

Gee, maybe if he looked at more recent movies, he'd see a change (funny enough, Lion King is pretty damn centered on Africa, though I'll concede the characters don't exactly look black).

Again, he's not really going for an up-to-date view. I think that's really harmful. Racism is a thing nowadays, too. Focusing on the problems of way-back-when reinforces the people who claim racism to be dead and in fact hurts the case of actual social justice.

Will Smith isn't exactly ancient history.

Quote:
Her other complaint was about someone selling nazi paraphernalia at a booth. This was explicitly against the rules (no 20th century costumes) and I heard it got shut down for that and other reasons, so, yeah. It's a damn cosplay. Not a very okay cosplay, no, but seriously? We have Irregular Webcomic featuring a group of nazis as joke villains. We have Springtime for Hitler. I know joking about nazis still upsets people, but...are we really gonna call GenCon racist over this?

I don't know if that booth was eventually shut down or not, but according to the linked story, GenCon officials basically ignored complaints and did nothing about it.

More generally, I agree with you. The racist problem is a more generally American one and less a specifically GenCon or gaming one. That said, in the sense in which George is using the term racist, the GenCon organization is racist. As are most of us. Well-meaning, as he acknowledges, but clueless.
In the sense in which Correia uses the term, they are not. One of the problems with Correia's piece is that he dismisses Georges definition and proceeds to analyze the post using his own definition. Another is his casual mocking of George's description of his own experiences.


Matthew Morris wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Kthulhu wrote:
thejeff wrote:
]My stance is and remains that he claims incorrectly to be a Person of Color to mock and dismiss racial discrimination.
Do we REALLY want to go down the road of saying "He isn't [color] enough to be a REAL [race]?

No. And I'm not.

He's Portuguese-American. He's European-American. He's white.

It's not about being not [color] enough to be a REAL [race].

This doesn't mean he wasn't poor. This doesn't mean he didn't face discrimination, 1st and 2nd generation immigrants often face discrimination where ever they come from. I lived until recently in a town with a high Polish immigrant population. They had a rough time of it in many ways. But that doesn't make them people of color.

So you're saying Theresa Heinz-Kerry is African American?

Cute.

Shadow Lodge

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Fun fact: Charlize Theron is an African-American.


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thejeff wrote:
Will Smith isn't exactly ancient history.

The point was that he's taking a sampling from movies over the last century—the majority of which we spent with nearly no minorities. Of course it's gonna be skewed. It's like averaging dodo populations over the last five hundred years. :P


Wheels within wheels


thejeff wrote:
I really can't imagine what it's like if you match the servants, not the guests.
...

As a white man living in an area that is NOT so white dominated i have often been in restaurants and stores where the waitstaff or cashier was the only other white person there.

Shadow Lodge

JurgenV wrote:
thejeff wrote:
I really can't imagine what it's like if you match the servants, not the guests.
...
As a white man living in an area that is NOT so white dominated i have often been in restaurants and stores where the waitstaff or cashier was the only other white person there.

I taught high school in West Helena, AR for a year. There were a few other white teachers, but on the other side of the building. On days when my white student (yes, that is singular) was absent, I rarely saw another white person aside from that handsome guy who lives in mirrors.


Kthulhu wrote:
Fun fact: Charlize Theron is an African-American.

That's true, in a way. And I'd laugh at anyone who claimed that she was black because of it. Or a person of color.


Adding to the derail, is Theron African-American? I haven't heard that she's gained U.S. citizenship; as far as I know she's just South African, and therefore African.

Grand Lodge

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Has this been posted?


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Hitdice wrote:

Adding to the derail, is Theron African-American? I haven't heard that she's gained U.S. citizenship; as far as I know she's just South African, and therefore African.

According to Wikipedia: she has both. And apologies for adding to the non-sequitur portion of the thread.

Lantern Lodge

sorry for another derail but I wasn't sure where to post this and thought it had some relevance to some aspects of the discussion:

I've been looking in to privilege theory online mainly because the 'check your privilege'/''it's not my job to educate you' response are the only ones I've had when asking those who make reference to it in their campaigns at my University but all I can find is studies and opinions based out of the US and I'm in the UK and from what I could find there seems to be significant enough differences in our cultures to warrant studies based in Britain rather than simply applying the american one and saying 'this applies despite the differences'so can anyone recommend UK or Europe based studies or is the theory based purely on the society of the US and being applied regardless?


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Actually, given that no one is talking about how super hot, wealthy blond actress are taking jobs away from americans, but every one disapproves of the icky immigrants of color who steal the manual labor careers from real americans, I'm not sure it is a non sequitur.

Actually actually, I think the disparity George writes about and Theron's dual citizenship are both symptomatic of a problem that GenCon exhibits, rather than causes, and problems like that require generational solutions. I also think that RPGs as a whole, and specifically in the cases of Paizo (as the industry leader) and WotC (as the producer of the most recognized brand name), are inclusive to a degree that "Gencon has race problem" is a simplistic statement.


Ronin_Knight wrote:

sorry for another derail but I wasn't sure where to post this and thought it had some relevance to some aspects of the discussion:

I've been looking in to privilege theory online mainly because the 'check your privilege'/''it's not my job to educate you' response are the only ones I've had when asking those who make reference to it in their campaigns at my University but all I can find is studies and opinions based out of the US and I'm in the UK and from what I could find there seems to be significant enough differences in our cultures to warrant studies based in Britain rather than simply applying the american one and saying 'this applies despite the differences'so can anyone recommend UK or Europe based studies or is the theory based purely on the society of the US and being applied regardless?

I'd say the basic theory, especially when you apply intersectionality to consider the different types of privilege (or the opposite) that affect each case. Members of the dominant race/ethnicity/culture in any given place have advantages over others that they are generally unaware of, unless they've educated themselves on the topic in one way or another.

What groups get those privileges and exactly what the privileges are various from country to country and even in different regions within the country, but the basic concept applies.

Lantern Lodge

thejeff wrote:

I'd say the basic theory, especially when you apply intersectionality to consider the different types of privilege (or the opposite) that affect each case. Members of the dominant race/ethnicity/culture in any given place have advantages over others that they are generally unaware of, unless they've educated themselves on the topic in one way or another.

What groups get those privileges and exactly what the privileges are various from country to country and even in different regions within the country, but the basic concept applies.

a fair point but at the same time they keep referring to examples which to my knowledge are based entirely on the culture and institutional structure of the US, such as the invisible knapsack article, I was hoping people more aware of where to search and more informed in regards to recent research might at least be able to reference websites that analyse the application of those theories in regards to Europe and how they hold up or places where I should start looking. At the moment I can't even find a website with a definition for the base theory.


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Hitdice wrote:

Actually, given that no one is talking about how super hot, wealthy blond actress are taking jobs away from americans, but every one disapproves of the icky immigrants of color who steal the manual labor careers from real americans, I'm not sure it is a non sequitur.

Actually actually, I think the disparity George writes about and Theron's dual citizenship are both symptomatic of a problem that GenCon exhibits, rather than causes, and problems like that require generational solutions.

To first part, maybe it isn't then. To the point, I think it's a matter of what social perception defines in that sense. Because while blond Theron may be able to get that US job, Columbian blond Sofia Vergara had to dye her hair dark to get a US role because she wasn't "Latina" enough. So while the question of bias towards immigrants of color is brought up, apparently other immigrants have to accept it "because we don't know who you are" otherwise.

And that is where part of the issue with the George article and Correia critique lies. George's commentary about GenCon and advocacy for diversity in gaming is a fine point, but overly tied to an anecdotal personal history that not everyone can agree to (and they shouldn't have to). When he makes statements like "it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants," it comes off as a personal, circumstantial license because there is no evidence in fact. Correia's response - sarcastic or condescending as it may be - is to call him on this and cite some evidence. He also cites his own personal perceptions to that disagree with George's on Gencon.


LazarX wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
If Fox News gets a black guy to come on a show and declare racism is over... do we believe him?
As long as questions like this are asked, the obvious answer is no. Idiocy, or willful delusion doesn't change because of the color of the speaker.

That was kind of my point. It doesn't matter what ethnicity Correia is or isn't. It doesn't change the meaning of his words, so arguing over it is worse than arguing over semantics.


Very much agree.


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Alex Martin wrote:
And that is where part of the issue with the George article and Correia critique lies. George's commentary about GenCon and advocacy for diversity in gaming is a fine point, but overly tied to an anecdotal personal history that not everyone can agree to (and they shouldn't have to). When he makes statements like "it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants," it comes off as a personal, circumstantial license because there is no evidence in fact. Correia's response - sarcastic or condescending as it may be - is to call him on this and cite some evidence. He also cites his own personal perceptions to that disagree with George's on Gencon.

Here's an issue with this whole thing.

Racism is personal.

It doesn't matter about statistics and probability to a large degree. If someone is impacted in a negative way, regardless of how widespread that might be in other instances... they were still impacted in a negative way.

There are certainly aspects of racism that can be looked at in aggregate, but at the same time, it doesn't matter on the individual level.

If 99.99999999999999999% of cops are completely fair that's great for society. If you're black and shot by the one racist cop in America, that statistic doesn't really help you.

Regardless of the aggregate, the original article is sharing HIS perspective on GenCon. I bet the guy overall has a good time at GenCon. But he's also experiencing these things and is sharing that experience. You can disagree, but that doesn't change HIS experience of these events.

There's another thread around here about being a black nerd. I recommend checking it out. George is not the only person experiencing these things.

Instead of taking offense, like Larry did, at someone sharing these experiences, why not try to understand them better?

Liberty's Edge

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Irontruth wrote:
Regardless of the aggregate, the original article is sharing HIS perspective on GenCon. I bet the guy overall has a good time at GenCon. But he's also experiencing these things and is sharing that experience. You can disagree, but that doesn't change HIS experience of these events.

But here's the thing: He doesn't just share his experience. He also tries to claim objective, fact based, validity and throws an accusation of the people in charge condoning hate speech to boot, all with no evidence.

Personal subjective experiences are fine, and talking about how they've effected you is fine, but arguing them as objective and universal truth and using them (and only them) as a basis for accusing people in aggregate (ie: all the GenCon organizers) of unpleasant things is, in fact, inappropriate and requires people to respond and dispute it.

Irontruth wrote:
There's another thread around here about being a black nerd. I recommend checking it out. George is not the only person experiencing these things.

Sure...but I don't recall anyone there accusing specific groups of gamers of being racist with no real evidence.

Irontruth wrote:
Instead of taking offense, like Larry did, at someone sharing these experiences, why not try to understand them better?

I suspect a lot more people would be willing to do so if he hadn't singled out GenCon and it's organizers for baseless accusations. A post about racism in gaming in general, even one citing a Gencon experience or two in an 'even at GenCon, normally a very accepting environment, these things happen' kinda way wouldn't have drawn this kind of objection.

In short, by accusing specific people of specific offenses, George gave up the right for his experiences subjective reality to take precedent over the objective evidence. People are not inherently at fault when you take offense to their behavior, they can be, but it's not universal. George's subjective experiences may have legitimately been of racism, and that's a valid discussion to have, but he didn't keep his argument in that category, he brought in accusations of objective wrongdoing, and thus brought his entire article into the type of discussion requiring actual evidence...which he notably lacks.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
Irontruth wrote:

Racism is personal.

Regardless of the aggregate, the original article is sharing HIS perspective on GenCon. I bet the guy overall has a good time at GenCon. But he's also experiencing these things and is sharing that experience. You can disagree, but that doesn't change HIS experience of these events.

Instead of taking offense, like Larry did, at someone sharing these experiences, why not try to understand them better?

If the article were simply a personal account of his experiences, his perspective that's fine. But the article adds advocacy on the subject of racism or diversity for entire industry and a large convention without almost no examples to back up his claims of the event.

His only solid evidence is citing an article on diversity in sci-fi films and a Nazi cos-play incident from another writer. Adding "I had similar encounters" to critique a whole event adds nothing to the statement.

But let's say for moment that you want to make an impact on an emotional level; you want to make racism personal . Then tell us your story. Generically telling the reader you are a non-white immigrant who wasn't surrounded by others of his culture and wanted to be white minimizes the impact, if you are advocating social awareness on an emotional level. Give examples of your personal experience that raises that awareness. Otherwise, people like Larry can say: "I have experienced feelings of racism, but I disagree with what you are telling me about the same event I attended."

Lastly, he spends a portion of the article judging and shaming gamers generically for apparently not understanding him and his cultural identity. To which I would ask, if you feel empowered enough to lecture them, then why don't you educate them as well?

There is nothing wrong with the themes of the article - that gaming can be empowering socially and that diversity is needed in RPG gaming. But the message is weakened by the writer's inability to convey it either on emotional, personal level or through fact-based analysis and evidence.

I won't deny that Correia's response could have been more positive. And he clearly has some bias against the manner in which Tor.com does its blogs. But the generic nature of the article's statements and the vague personal nature leaves it open to counter arguments.

*Apologies if I am sounding redundant, since it looks like Deadman gave a more succinct answer.*


Just so we're clear, he does have evidence.

Quote:
Furthermore, GenCon is disturbingly tolerant of deeply offensive material. Shoshana Kessock wrote about her experiences with Nazi cosplay and paraphernalia at Gencon shortly after returning from GenCon 2013, and I had similar encounters. It would be impossible to imagine minority players running around GenCon in t-shirts that read ‘Kill the white man!’, yet the convention welcomes and profits from images of racial hatred. GenCon has weakly worded policies to prevent these horrific violations, but it has failed to enforce its own rules.

I re-added the relevant link into the quote.... but here it is again, just in case you missed it.

This is the GenCon vendor map from 2014.

Note the second column, 5th one down: Belle and Blade.

So, after complaints were made LAST YEAR about these guys. They were allowed to come back.

I don't want to link directly too them. I don't think Paizo deserves links to these guys on their website. But here are some things for sale:

- Triumph of the Will
- baseball caps with swastikas on them
- a work shirt with a Death's Head emblem with the words "Gott mit uns" common Nazi imagery from the period
- Nazi fetish porn

Neither the work shirt or baseball cap are authentic to the WW2 period, but rather reflect more modern designs of clothing. They are not intended to be historical recreations.

Their website is pretty easy to find if you search Belle and Blade.

So, now I've shown that his article DOES contain evidence. I suppose you could try to argue that Nazi fetish porn isn't racist and deserves to be at GenCon.


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Irontruth wrote:


This is the GenCon vendor map from 2014.

Note the second column, 5th one down: Belle and Blade.

So, after complaints were made LAST YEAR about these guys. They were allowed to come back.

I don't want to link directly too them. I don't think Paizo deserves links to these guys on their website. But here are some things for sale:

- Triumph of the Will
- baseball caps with swastikas on them
- a work shirt with a Death's Head emblem with the words "Gott mit uns" common Nazi imagery from the period
- Nazi fetish porn

Neither the work shirt or baseball cap are authentic to the WW2 period, but rather reflect more modern designs of clothing. They are not intended to be historical recreations.

Their website is pretty easy to find if you search Belle and Blade.

So, now I've shown that his article DOES contain evidence. I suppose you could try to argue that Nazi fetish porn isn't racist and deserves to be at GenCon.

And, having seen the booth, I'd say that most of what it is about is movies, movies, and more movies that a lot of people are interested in. Overall, the booth was a lot less offensive than a lot of the manga/anime art ones that were very teen porny.

It's possible that anybody who investigated thought that the complaints were largely minimal compared to the overall focus of the booth. I've also seen a response from Gen Con staff that they told Bell and Blade to not display the underwear. And other posts suggest that they were no longer on prominent display - though were still for sale. And that parallels what went on with the anime porn. One booth in 2013 had the art posted high up at the top of their booth so it could be seen for some distance. Clearly someone complained since after that opening morning the racier stuff had been lowered to be within the booth itself.

Liberty's Edge

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Irontruth wrote:

Just so we're clear, he does have evidence.

I re-added the relevant link into the quote.... but here it is again, just in case you missed it.

Not that he presented. The article he links barely touches on merchandise, focusing on one person dressed as a Nazi who wasn't even inside GenCon. That's not evidence. Not of the GenCon management being responsible anyway.

Irontruth wrote:
So, now I've shown that his article DOES contain evidence. I suppose you could try to argue that Nazi fetish porn isn't racist and deserves to be at GenCon.

Okay, I don't entirely agree with your evidence (though I mostly do), but let's leave that aside for a moment. Assuming your evidence is completely compelling and accurate, that doesn't change a damn thing about what I said above. Evidence existing =/= Presenting evidence.

George never listed anything resembling evidence but the one article, which mentioned Nazi merchandise, but instead focused primarily on the 'Nazi Cosplayer' who wasn't actually at GenCon per se...and could've even been seen immediately after getting kicked out. The Belle and Blade stuff was something of a sidenote, and it wasn't at all clear from the information provided whether anything had been done about it.

So...even if he's absolutely right about everything, my point in no way changes: He presents no evidence. This presents huge problems with his argument, and makes critiques of it valid. Larry Correia could've done some extensive internet research and found evidence to support George's point...but he shouldnb't have had to. When making a substantive argument, it's on you to provide evidence to back it up.

Now, onto my (relatively minor) issue with your particular evidence:

Irontruth wrote:

This is the GenCon vendor map from 2014.

Note the second column, 5th one down: Belle and Blade.

So, after complaints were made LAST YEAR about these guys. They were allowed to come back.

This is true. I'll note that you posted no evidence of it either, but I did a little internet research, and it is. I'll note, however, that all the complaints I could find that were actually made were about the sexist underwear, not the Nazi stuff, which is actually a highly disturbing...but means GenCon did do something about the complaint, since the sexy underwear seems to be gone. GenCon isn't entirely to blame if nobody complains about the Nazi stuff as strongly.

Irontruth wrote:

I don't want to link directly too them. I don't think Paizo deserves links to these guys on their website. But here are some things for sale:

- Triumph of the Will
- baseball caps with swastikas on them
- a work shirt with a Death's Head emblem with the words "Gott mit uns" common Nazi imagery from the period
- Nazi fetish porn

Neither the work shirt or baseball cap are authentic to the WW2 period, but rather reflect more modern designs of clothing. They are not intended to be historical recreations.

Their website is pretty easy to find if you search Belle and Blade.

In fairness, they present themselves as a war movies and paraphernalia company, and have similar items for everything from the Roman Legions to the American Military (if perhaps not as many)...which makes it difficult to single them out as 'Nazi sympathizers' or anything like that in any public or legal sense. This makes it really hard to blame GenCon for not banning them, they could sue and maybe win, after all.

Now, reading over their website a little, I'm inclined to believe there actually is some Nazi sympathizing going on there (Who the hell refers to Gilliam's Baron Munchausen as a remake of a Goebells film?)...but I couldn't prove it, and GenCon's policies on that sort of thing are indeed a rather grey area, making the aforementioned legal action a possibility. Oooh, I'll also quote Larry Correia's opinion on this here:

Larry Correia wrote:

Yeah, just not seeing this as an epidemic of racism to indict the other 50,000 people, and I really hate Nazis. My grandmother’s family is from Poland and her maiden name was Byreika. I don’t think I have any relatives left there. I’m all about shooting Nazis in the face. I had an incident earlier this year where I had to physically leave a place because there was a guy there with a swastika tattooed on his face and it was taking too much of my self-control not to draw my Benchmade and cut it off.

...

Welcomes? B%$&@#~&. Out of the tens of thousands of people there, somebody did something you don’t like, and you have absolutely no idea what the management did about it, if they even knew. Profits? You mean out of the hundreds of booths and millions of products, somebody brought in something obnoxious and you make it sound like a chemical company profiting off the production of Zyklon B.

So, he notes (in support of my above points) that from George's article it's literally impossible to tell whether the management did anything about Nazi stuff (as a matter of fact, they did basically nothing...but he'd been presented with no evidence of that). So yeah. Now, personally, I feel like banning these people is a good move for GenCon...but I'm not at all sure Correia would disagree with that. He just doesn't see it as endemic of general racism. I'm not sure if I do, but am more inclined to do so, but that doesn't mean he's a bad guy or wouldn't potentially support getting rid of these people (if convinced they had legitimate Nazi leanings).

In fact, clearly, if you want Belle and Blade to go away, the thing to do here is organize. Get a bunch of people together to go next year if they're back (and I suspect they will be), and all complain to the GenCon organizers. I'd bet there are at least a couple of hundred people being made uncomfortable by that company, and if they get that many complaints, GenCon will almost certainly listen.

A handful of complaints seem inevitable to come every business's way every year at GenCon...you need something more than that, enough to make a splash in order to draw the attention of the people running things actually onto the particular problem at hand (which really is small enough on an absolute scale that I doubt they've noticed it...certainly not without complaints).

So, in short, I think it's hard to blame GenCon for the actions of one booth that people don't even seem to have been complaining about that much (not in this context anyway). It's more reasonable than doing so without the evidence that this booth is an ongoing problem, of course (which is what George seemed to be doing to anyone who didn't do some research on this specific topic separate from his article). But really, the complaints should be about the booth in question. Lets actually set about doing something about it, shall we folks?


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Now, reading over their website a little, I'm inclined to believe there actually is some Nazi sympathizing going on there (Who the hell refers to Gilliam's Baron Munchausen as a remake of a Goebells film?)...but I couldn't prove it,

Goebbels may have commissioned the production of the 1943 version of Munchhausen, but a Hungarian directory named Baky actually made it and dodged politics in doing so (apparently to great success as people were looking for a diversion from the bad news on the Soviet front).

But as far as being a remake, it seems to have clearly influenced Gilliam's version according to this blog on the Munchausen films: PSYCHEDELICATESSEN. So calling it a remake? Bit of a strong term, more like influenced some of the forms and scenes. But evidence of whoever posted that on the Belle and Blade site is Nazi sympathizing? That's a pretty tenuous argument too.

Liberty's Edge

Bill Dunn wrote:
Goebbels may have commissioned the production of the 1943 version of Munchhausen, but a Hungarian directory named Baky actually made it and dodged politics in doing so (apparently to great success as people were looking for a diversion from the bad news on the Soviet front).

Sure...but the person that particular site cited was Goebbels.

Bill Dunn wrote:
But as far as being a remake, it seems to have clearly influenced Gilliam's version according to this blog on the Munchausen films: PSYCHEDELICATESSEN. So calling it a remake? Bit of a strong term, more like influenced some of the forms and scenes.

Which makes calling it a 'remake of a Goebbels movie' even more...odd. And suspicious in context.

I mean...who brings up something being associated with the Nazis when it's only debatably true and they don't have to as part of marketing it? We're talking a two sentence blurb where that's the first thing said about it, not a long in-depth review. That's...rather indicative that either they think being linked to Goebbels is a good thing, or think their customers do. Neither is a good sign.

Bill Dunn wrote:
But evidence of whoever posted that on the Belle and Blade site is Nazi sympathizing? That's a pretty tenuous argument too.

Eh...that was an example, not an argument. Their WWII German memorabilia outweighs their other memorabilia (and doesn't have any indications of being intended ironically or anything like that...and a lot of it is SS stuff, not just German), and the way they talk about several movies featuring WWII and even other stuff (like the Baron Munchausen thing) just gave me a very unpleasant vibe.

I noted it as me personally being inclined to believe in it, and specified that I lacked proof, after all. And heck, maybe if I met the people behind that site they'd have a perfectly reasonable explanation...I'm just doubtful of that until it happens. Or something else to convince me my suspicions are unfounded.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Evidence existing =/= Presenting evidence.

The claim was made that he presented no evidence.

I counter that he did. I made a stronger case than he did, to show it more conclusively, but he still made the same claim.

Feel free to either...

1) prove he didn't talk about the issue and link to an outside source
2) it didn't happen
3) GenCon didn't authorize these people to be there
4) Nazi's aren't racist

This is a company that sells Nazi-fan apparel. Not war re-enactment apparel, fan apparel. They've been at GenCon as long as I can remember, which my first time was 2005, but I get the impression from others that they've had vendor booths a lot longer than that.

It doesn't matter if someone made complaints about them or not. They're there. Every year they're allowed to come back and offer up their Nazi-fan apparel and Nazi fetish porn.

1st Amendment, sure, they can offer this stuff up as their business model, but that does NOT mean that GenCon is required to offer them space inside their convention to do so. GenCon is completely within their right to say "No."

If a Nazi comes up and asks to use your front yard to sell wares, do you really need to wait until someone complains to ask him to leave?

Dark Archive

Missing a step in there IT..

3a - Belle and Blade are Nazi's

Liberty's Edge

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Irontruth wrote:

The claim was made that he presented no evidence.

I counter that he did. I made a stronger case than he did, to show it more conclusively, but he still made the same claim.

Actually, you didn't notably. You provided an impetus for outside research, but that's about it.

And no he didn't. He accused the GenCon staff of condoning the behavior, not just it existing, and provided precisely zero evidence of that.

Irontruth wrote:

Feel free to either...

1) prove he didn't talk about the issue and link to an outside source
2) it didn't happen
3) GenCon didn't authorize these people to be there
4) Nazi's aren't racist

I need prove none of these things: His accusation was that GenCon did nothing about and thus condoned such behavior. That does seem at least somewhat true...but there's literally no way to reach that conclusion from any of the 'evidence' in George's article.

Irontruth wrote:
This is a company that sells Nazi-fan apparel. Not war re-enactment apparel, fan apparel. They've been at GenCon as long as I can remember, which my first time was 2005, but I get the impression from others that they've had vendor booths a lot longer than that.

That's...a tricky thing to prove. I tend to agree with you (as noted above) but there's enough other stuff they sell, and in such a format that it's very difficult to prove that.

Irontruth wrote:
It doesn't matter if someone made complaints about them or not. They're there. Every year they're allowed to come back and offer up their Nazi-fan apparel and Nazi fetish porn.

Uh...if nobody complains, exactly how are the people who organize Gencon supposed to know? That's not what Belle and Blade bill themselves as, business-wise, after all...you need to look closely to see it. Maybe not as closely as all that, but I did a quick search on Gencon and Nazis and found only a handful of articles on it...and that was specifically looking for it.

Irontruth wrote:
1st Amendment, sure, they can offer this stuff up as their business model, but that does NOT mean that GenCon is required to offer them space inside their convention to do so. GenCon is completely within their right to say "No."

Technically true...but Gencon has a lot of businesses renting floor space. How are they to know this specific one is so much worse than the others if nobody speaks up?

Irontruth wrote:
If a Nazi comes up and asks to use your front yard to sell wares, do you really need to wait until someone complains to ask him to leave?

Sure. But it's not quite that clear cut. They don't, at a glance, look like Nazis, and even at a second glance, they have a plausible excuse for their Nazi stuff so it's tricky to accuse them of actual malfeasance even then.

Besides GenCon is much closer to a business than a private residence, which makes the rules on what they're permitted to do somewhat different. They can refuse service, but to do so without getting sued they pretty much need a plausible reason.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Auxmaulous wrote:


Or you know, you could let the market decide (in either case)?
If you'll pardon the slight tangent—this is, I believe, the chief reason we're never gonna get a gay main character in kids' animation. At least not anytime soon. It's not even a matter of bigotry, it's just not really marketable to kids. The little girls want a traditional romance ("prince/princess"), the little boys aren't old enough to like lesbians and would rather there be little-to-no romance at all. ;P

There's some hope. Desna in "Korra" is so androgynistic, he can't be told from his fraternal twin sister.

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