Black Lives Matter

Thank you Paizo!

Be safe out there people! It's a full moon tonight!

Edit:
Makes me remember this moment from 2014.
There is no honor in this!

TriOmegaZero wrote:

An excellent view of Agents of Edgewatch in light of this.

This is extremely worrying and I hope the fact that Tondro is not actually involved in this AP means he is incorrect about it. Absalom has only just abolished slavery, pretending that a force which undoubtedly existed to protect the property ownership of slave-owners and would have violently participated in the capture of runaway slaves is some sort of beacon of tolerance and ethics is beyond parody.

That doesn't follow at all. The Absalom City Guard do not have to be portrayed in the aspirational way he is suggesting at all in the AP, and given that rooting out corruption among them is a plot thread we already know of, they almost certainly won't.

The people he's talking about being aspirational figures of what police should be are the PCs, who have joined the Guard only recently in the first chapter of the AP, which is to say after the abolition of slavery. An anti-slavery advocate who felt unable to support the Guard while slavery was legal but always wanted to be a cop and intends to use the opportunity to make changes for the better in the Guard seems like a very appropriate concept, actually.

As a non-black European I can not say much about this, since I am not directly affected at all.

But I'm glad Paizo posted this.
The world is watching the US, and I hope, in the end, we can remember this as an example to follow. There are other places with systemic racism and violence.
Many of us support the cause, so, please don't lose hope.
Black Lives Matter.

My initial post, a response to someone else, was lost in the clean up (which is perfectly reasonable). I may reword it and repost it later. I don't know. Regardless, I should take a moment and state my general views on the matter at hand:

Black Lives Matter, the police in many US cities are behaving horribly right now, and I'm very glad Paizo posted this. We all need to be very aware of what's going on right now and hope that it achieves lasting change.

Part of the reason I've taken to Pathfinder so much is that I really appreciate how Paizo approaches their work with empathy, compassion, and careful thought.

I know this blog wasn't posted so the company could get credit for being woke or anything, but I do want to say that I very much appreciate their politics, values, and honesty about both.

Both of my posts were removed. They were responses to someone else, so it isnt personal I dont think, but I still feel some type of way about it, to use modern parlance.

Then again I have also had a bad day, so...

Lisa,

Can your Premier Event Coordinator say the words Black lives matter, or only champion the good cops, dismiss a few bad apples, hope for justice, and relate stories about shop owners who benefited from a go fund me.

Can your Venture-Lieutenant of Colorado say the words Black lives matter, or only deflect blame on the media, and wish for a return to unity via praising pandemic responders?

If you were Black gamer would you want to play Pathfinder Society, when it's high level leadership cannot get behind a simple call for solidarity against injustice, without making it about something else?

I look forward to your response.

Organized,

I am not Lisa, but I am the leadership in charge of the Paizo Organized Play program, so I feel qualified to answer your questions.

Both the Venture-Lieutenant (whose post I could not find) and the Premier Event Coordinator are volunteers with the Organized Play Foundation. They are not Paizo employees and while they hold leadership roles in their communities, they do not set the tone or the policy of the program. That lies with myself, the other Org Play staff members, and the Paizo leadership.

As people, they have the same right as any to have their own opinions and speak their minds about the situations in the world. As volunteers, they are expected to uphold the community guidelines and established policies of the program, which are published several places, including here on our site: https://paizo.com/organizedplay/policies.

We number persons of color amongst society membership. They play our games just as everyone else and enjoy the same benefits and responsibilities of being a community member as any other member. IF there is any issue at the table, they are asked to let leadership know, to include myself. I have no problem sharing my email and asking for communication - organizedplay@paizo.com. If, after reading my message, you have further questions on how the organized play program works, I'm happy to start that discussion. You are also welcome to follow me on Facebook - Tonya Woldridge OPM - or Twitter - PaizoOrgPlay - for more information on the organized play programs and our integration in the gaming community.

I am a Black Venture Captain from Organized Play and I fully support Tonya´s words.

It's wonderful to see Paizo respond with such thoughtful and meaningful words. Black Lives Matter!

As a historian, I am excited to see the change that is being advocated regarding racism in the United States. Progress is being made despite the refusal of some to accept the change desired by the majority of the people in this nation. That majority is going to express their full opinion on November 3rd and remove a lot of the people who reject Black Lives Matter and the principle it represents.

We are removing White Privilege from the nation as we continue to build upon the principle of egalitarianism which springs from the American Revolution. We are all equal to one another. That is the majority opinion. It is time this nation lived up to the principles we value.

Learning and growth is important.

From life experiences, I've seen the passive-aggressive dehumanization of sections of our civilization -- and it didn't register in some cases.

That was 'just how things were'.

Before we can honestly say All Lives Matter, we need to stop and look at the lives that 'haven't mattered'.

For many years, different genders and sexualities were actively discouraged -- and in many cases still are.

But we're slowly making progress there as a civilization.

Getting to a point beyond 'pretty tokenism' as a mindset is going to take a LOT of work.

Black lives do matter.

My manager at work is black. He is an incredible boss, and a vast improvement over the previous white manager we had.

But to get to be my boss he needed school, and that was earned on the back of an athletic scholarship.

We need to invest more in education.

We need to invest more in opportunity.

Black lives really matter.

Breaking cycles of passive bigotry is not going to be easy.

Breaking preconceptions ground into our minds by social inertia and hateful media depictions will be an order of magnitude higher.

Can we do it?

We can't afford NOT to.

Thank you Tonya and Draco. I applaud the moderation that took place removing some posts/replies, even if it left some without context. Since the posts that concerned me were deleted, mods can feel free to delete my 'questions for Lisa' post if they like. The removals answered my questions satisfactorily.

I also appreciate the overwhelmingly positive messages here, and throughout the official and unofficial Pathfinder communities I participate in, that are focused on the BLM cause.

Finally I respect Paizo's decision to make the statement they did, knowing it would cause disagreement or dissent among some in the community.

As a non-black European I can not say much about this, since I am not directly affected at all.

But I'm glad Paizo posted this.
The world is watching the US, and I hope, in the end, we can remember this as an example to follow. There are other places with systemic racism and violence.
Many of us support the cause, so, please don't lose hope.
Black Lives Matter.

Same here. Black Lives Matter

I hope you are doing better Freehold. I've been thinking of you, Anklebiter, BNW, and some other forum members a lot lately. For the last week I've been unable to sleep through the night. It's hard to admit that the events of so long ago are still affecting me negatively, but honestly, it's all a wake up call. So many people have been through much worse, and are going through much worse right now. We should remember that there are many people, (especially children!) who endure incarceration and suffer mistreatment on a daily basis.

I sit and watch the news, even though I was trying to ignore it while being sick the past week, and I see pain. Real, undeniable, pain. I see weak men in power abusing that power to continue oppression and hold onto the power they have gathered on the backs of the strong men and women they try to make weak with violence, denial of health care, basic education, family separation, and dehumanization.

I've seen these men and women speak out in many ways over my lifetime, trying to wake those with sleeping minds like mine to the horrors they have faced, begging for us to reach out, unite, and offer them the basic human dignity I achieved merely by being born white.

In the past few years, I've seen them being called unpatriotic and dangerous for daring to express the rights granted to every American by the very First Amendment written to the Constitution.

In the past month, I've seen heavily armed people gather to protest restrictions based on a health concern be treated with respect, dignity, and restraint.

Then, I've seen peaceful, unarmed protestors shoved, gassed, struck, injured, and arrested, because they were protesting for the rights of black people.

And I've seen people who hate black people perpetrate crimes during these peaceful assemblies in an attempt to get more people angry at the protestors and police more afraid and prone to overreaction.

I've seen a President threaten the use of The Insurrection Act of 1807, which apparently has been a popular tool in the arsenal of the continued suppression of black people throughout our history.

I see all this, I weep, I feel powerless.

I know I must change, even if I cannot change any other thing in the universe. It is the sole power I have, I will exercise it.

#BlackLiveMatter
#1stAmendmentExceriseIsNotInsurrection

An excellent view of Agents of Edgewatch in light of this.

Exactly, be Jim Gordon or Sam Vimes, not John C. Reilly in Gangs of New York or William Fitchner and Vincent D'Onofrio in Strange Days.

I wasn't very excited about Agents of Edgewatch before, but this thread has me thinking... A chance to play a Sam Vimes-type character and be an example of what the police should be does actually sound fascinating to my very liberal/semi-authoritarian self.

In any case, thank you very much for this post, Paizo.

I'm happy to see Paizo supporting this movement.

I support BLM and believe in the cause.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

An excellent view of Agents of Edgewatch in light of this.

Exactly, be Jim Gordon or Sam Vimes, not John C. Reilly in Gangs of New York or William Fitchner and Vincent D'Onofrio in Strange Days.

When AoE was announced a year ago, I had exactly this in mind and felt pretty positive about it. I especially thought uprooting corruption would have become a theme.

Clearly I didn't see 2020 coming, because 2020 is hindsight only, but I haven't seen much to make me believe that theme has changed on Paizo's side.

Thanks Paizo for your compassion, inclusivity, courage, and discernment. Especially in these turbulent times.

Hey, just as a heads up, the link I posted in my earlier comment seems to be down at the moment. I figured I would some more resource links in case any of you were still in need of one. You can go to the collected resources here, here, or here.