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Good read. Some "nerd" cred is lost when he says that he got Super Mario Bros 2 on SNES.
Good read. Some "nerd" cred is lost when he says that he got Super Mario Bros 2 on SNES.
Count me as confused, why is that a "loss of nerd cred" and what would count as that anyways?
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Because Super Mario Bros 2 was a NES title, not an SNES title.
I'm not a gamer, and that was after my time in a manner of speaking...but looking it up and researching it a bit it appears it was originally released on NES, but then released under a slightly tweaked version for the SNES...so wouldn't that mean his story could be absolutely true?
In addition it also appears it was then released again on Super Mario All Stars which also included SMB 1-3
It was never released as a stand alone title on SNES. It was released as part of the All-stars bundle game, but anyone who got that game on SNES would have referred to it as Super Mario All-Stars.
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I grew up in a multi-ethnic, poor neighborhood (that has since been gentrified and "upscaled" and is now home to a ton of tech workers). When I was a kid, my friends were all colors and creeds - all that mattered to us was that we were all poor, and so we tended to stick together. Our moms would make sure we played together and everyone shared cooking nights and we had sleepovers and things were good. We were the same tribe.
When I was in class, I got called on more than many of my friends. If I got an answer right, I got a lot of praise, and even if I'd get an answer wrong, the teachers would encourage me and tell me that I'd get it next time. My brown and black friends? Not so much.
And you know what? Every time I'd get an answer wrong and still get praise, and they'd get one right and get half-hearted "well done" replies, I watched the fractures in our tribe grow. Fewer and fewer sleepovers happened. Less and less group play times. No more shared cooking nights. I had a friend who used to come over to my place to read comics and talk about Star Wars and computers and girls, and after I got an A on a paper and he didn't - papers we had worked on together, that should have earned us identical grades - he stopped coming over. To this day, the only reason I can think of as to why this happened is because of the color of his skin and an inherent educational-system bias due to that.
I watched a lot of bright, enthusiastic young men and women lose the gleam in their eye and I saw it get replaced with a sullen sadness and realization that the doors they hoped would get opened would in fact only open ONCE for them. And if they missed it, they were going to be left behind.
Of the kids I grew up with, I can count on one hand the number of black and brown kids who are either still alive or not in prison. On the other hand, all of the white kids - all of us, even the kids who were punks and bullies and just plain awful people - "made" it.
So I guess you could say this article really hits a chord with me. Not because I experienced what the author did, but because I watched the other side of the article play out among my friends as I was growing up. I'm really glad the author wrote this. I'm just sad he had to.
Powerful stuff jemstone. Thanks for your post.
I find it interesting that in the article he finds acceptance at the white school and discrimination when he is in his black neighborhood. Still I feel for him. Women have to deal with stereo typing from the media constantly. It is like there is this shadowy world of powerful men who control content.
I have very different experiences than jemstone it appears. I grew up first in a religious community then later in one of those prosperous lily white schools districts with only a few black kids. Those black kids were accepted and treated very well both by school staff and other kids. They all went on to college and white collar careers right along side their white friends. Well except for one boy who got himself killed in a traffic accident while showing off. Maybe there were some bad teachers at jemstone's school? And how on earth would a few bad teachers end the friendships between the parents?
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Resident coconut here. Won't believe how many times I hear how white I am for being nerdy. It's weird that sometimes, I feel like I have to project an image of the angry, hot-blooded Latino stereotype to sometimes get people off my back about it. It's like I feel this necessity to prove that I'm Hispanic to both my white nerdy friends and my Latin friends & family. It's not an attitude I am proud of, nor one I want to continue doing, but it is so ingrained in me that it'd be impossible for me to stop.
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Resident coconut here. Won't believe how many times I hear how white I am for being nerdy. It's weird that sometimes, I feel like I have to project an image of the angry, hot-blooded Latino stereotype to sometimes get people off my back about it. It's like I feel this necessity to prove that I'm Hispanic to both my white nerdy friends and my Latin friends & family. It's not an attitude I am proud of, nor one I want to continue doing, but it is so ingrained in me that it'd be impossible for me to stop.
Have you read any of Gloria Anzaldúa's essays? She discusses her life as a chicana academic and lesbian in the 60's and 70's. Particularly interesting (to me) was her discussion of nepantilism, which she describes as a tension between multiple cultural heritages which gives her a unique identity.
I wrote a paper about her collection of essay's "borderlands" which compared her struggle for identity to that of earlier Chicano authors. Earlier authors, particularly Rudolfo Anaya, seemed to describe a search for a resolution between two worlds (which I compared to a chord struck in a major key) while Anzaldúa describes seeking that tension and creating identity from the rough edges that don't interlace well (which I compared to a chord struck in a minor key.)
At any rate, her essays and life are fascinating.
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Interesting. I've never heard of her before, but hey, I can give that a look.
Anger issues aside, I am such an opposite to everyone in my family that I have little in common with most of the people older than me. My cousins are in the same boat as I and we get along, and my dad is pretty nerdy, though he is a lot more conservative than I. But you can imagine how well I get along with the other people in my family as an atheist Latino that is dating a transwoman and plays D&D and video games ;)
At least I can cook better than all of them. I make better Puerto Rican dishes than my family that's actually from the island :)
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Resident coconut here. Won't believe how many times I hear how white I am for being nerdy. It's weird that sometimes, I feel like I have to project an image of the angry, hot-blooded Latino stereotype to sometimes get people off my back about it. It's like I feel this necessity to prove that I'm Hispanic to both my white nerdy friends and my Latin friends & family. It's not an attitude I am proud of, nor one I want to continue doing, but it is so ingrained in me that it'd be impossible for me to stop.
I guess I'm the black version of that. But its weird- my family is from panama, and I grew up hearing(although not necessarily speaking) spanish in the house regularly, and being considered "american" by everyone older than me in my family, but when I left the house, I was just another black guy. It wasnt' until I was married that I felt like a foriegner, as I didn't grow up eating typical southern fare, and we often argue about the importance of porridge(me) vs. grits(her) for breakfast, for example.
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Haha as a Latino raised by a New York-Rican and a Puerto Rican straight from the island, and raised in South Carolina, I feel that. I have a noticeable southern drawl compared to my family and I don't speak Spanish. Though that hasn't stopped some employers or other people asking questioning my citizenship. I'm the whitest Puerto Rican to friends and family, and to strangers, I'm just some brown man that washed up on Florida beach. Or hopped the border. I had one maintenance employer threaten to go to INS to deport me if I didn't do extra work for no extra pay. You can imagine his surprise when I spoke perfect English and showed him my driver's license. I got paid extra for that one :)
Though I think it's the South Carolinian in me, but clearly, grits is the superior choice ;)
Fascinating posts people! Yeah, gamers are not just white nerds now. It has broadened right out, and that is certainly a good thing.
Maybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Maybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Imagine oatmeal, but with ground corn. Served with salt. Not sugar, like most Northern folks do :p
Grit is chewy.
Maybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Polenta.
I have very different experiences than jemstone it appears. I grew up first in a religious community then later in one of those prosperous lily white schools districts with only a few black kids. Those black kids were accepted and treated very well both by school staff and other kids. They all went on to college and white collar careers right along side their white friends. Well except for one boy who got himself killed in a traffic accident while showing off. Maybe there were some bad teachers at jemstone's school? And how on earth would a few bad teachers end the friendships between the parents?
The teachers do sound like they were bad, but I would hazard that your neighborhood was far more affluent than his.
Imagine oatmeal, but with ground corn. Served with salt. Not sugar, like most Northern folks do :pMaybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Or awfulness.
Maybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Take Cream of Wheat. Only put in butter and salt. And a little corn meal for flavor...and that's about as close to a description of grits I can get without you actually eating grits.
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I know very little about the politics of racism in the US, but just from reading the linked article and Jemstone's own heartbreaking post... it sounds like quite a lot of the problem comes from poverty. In seedy neighborhoods (many of which, due to earlier racism, are composed mostly of various people of various colors) there's a higher of a racist, tribal minded environment, from which it could be really difficult for a child to extract herself.
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I know very little about the politics of racism in the US, but just from reading the linked article and Jemstone's own heartbreaking post... it sounds like quite a lot of the problem comes from poverty. In seedy neighborhoods (many of which, due to earlier racism, are composed mostly of various people of various colors) there's a higher of a racist, tribal minded environment, from which it could be really difficult for a child to extract herself.
Poverty can be part of it but there are plenty of people who are not poor and who dont live in seedy neighborhoods who are pretty racist as well. Racial politics in the US is fairly complicated to the extent that people really dont like talking about it very much. These days it seems that people either seem to think that there is no racism or the side that talks about their experiences with racism is racist and if they stopped talking about it it would go away. Or you have the people who see racism in everything and use it as a cudgel as opposed to a scalpel.
I used to be fairly hopeful when I was younger. Hopeful that things would get better in this country. But now I'm fairly cynical and have a fair amount of contempt for humanity in general in my heart.
I went through alot of what the person in that article went through in terms of being kind of scorned by my peers for liking what I liked as opposed to what everyone else liked. I was constantly being told that D&D was a white boy's game or that I wanted to be Japanese and was ashamed of being black because I liked anime and at one point collected anime art books (even though the people saying these things to me thought that the art is those books were great). And don't get me started on my almost obsessive love for comics. It wasn't as much that I read comics. It was that I read them and took care of them and didn't treat them as disposable product.
It was later as I started going to cons and fan events that I began to notice that I WAS the odd person out. At the time all I wanted to do was blend in. I didn't want to be noticed for what I looked like. I just wanted to play. Sometimes it worked out great. Other times (especially when it came to FRPG's) it didn't. I'll never forget the time that I had to explain to a GM that my Half-Elf Ranger PC was dark-skinned and he just couldn't wrap his head around the fact how that could happen. He could fathom that an elf would be attracted to and be intimate with a dark skinned human to produce a child. He couldn't do it. Was it magic? Nope. Was the human in disguise as an elf? Nope. Was it rape? What?!? NO!! I left that game eventually and I want to say that was the only time that that sort of thing happened but it wasn't.
Overall my experiences (aside from Organized Play) have been positive but I'd rather run games than play in them because mostly I dont trust a lot of people to run games for me. And the games that I run I want EVERYONE to feel comfortable at my table. I will say this much I think that I've introduced a fair amount of black and brown folk both male and female to RPG's. It's just the best feeling to see it click in someone's eyes and see them "get it". So even if I still get called an Oreo for liking what I like, it will have been worth it.
Or awfulness.Imagine oatmeal, but with ground corn. Served with salt. Not sugar, like most Northern folks do :pMaybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Wow.
Hate's Whedon. Hates Grits.
Just one more thing and I think it might be best we never meet in person! Otherwise it could end up like the very end of Rocky III!!!
(Here's where he says that he hates ROCKY III...)
Or awfulness.Imagine oatmeal, but with ground corn. Served with salt. Not sugar, like most Northern folks do :pMaybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Wow.
Hate's Whedon. Hates Grits.
Just one more thing and I think it might be best we never meet in person! Otherwise it could end up like the very end of Rocky III!!!
(Here's where he says that he hates ROCKY III...)
I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
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I am stoically neutral to Rocky III.
Or awfulness.Imagine oatmeal, but with ground corn. Served with salt. Not sugar, like most Northern folks do :pMaybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Wow.
Hate's Whedon. Hates Grits.
Just one more thing and I think it might be best we never meet in person! Otherwise it could end up like the very end of Rocky III!!!
(Here's where he says that he hates ROCKY III...)
I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
My dad was from the south so needless to say I was raised with grits as part of our breakfast staple. When made right especially with cheese mixed in? It's HEAVEN.
Or awfulness.Imagine oatmeal, but with ground corn. Served with salt. Not sugar, like most Northern folks do :pMaybe it's because I am a northern girl... but what are grits and what do they taste like?
Wow.
Hate's Whedon. Hates Grits.
Just one more thing and I think it might be best we never meet in person! Otherwise it could end up like the very end of Rocky III!!!
(Here's where he says that he hates ROCKY III...)
I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
My dad was from the south so needless to say I was raised with grits as part of our breakfast staple. When made right especially with cheese mixed in? It's HEAVEN.
That's what my wife likes....
Mmm, grits and cheese. My second favorite breakfast southern dish, surpassed only by biscuits and gravy with sausage...
My group of friends are really cool and don't give two damns about my race. On conventions, it has be a very rare occasion that race comes up. I go to Megacon a lot and it has quite the diversity there, so I'm lucky. Haven't been called a coconut in years. I just have one person that introduces me as the whitest Latino he knows, but it doesn't bother me since we joke around like that.
Now I want to try grits. I wonder if I can find a place that serves it.
I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
I just had shrimp and grits with smoked stewed tomatoes and mushrooms for brunch. :)
Now I want to try grits. I wonder if I can find a place that serves it.
I believe the Bob Evans chain does, as does the Cracker Barrel chain.
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I just had shrimp and grits with smoked stewed tomatoes and mushrooms for brunch. :)I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
Most excellent. I just made some Eggs in Purgatory and am reading some Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Cause nothing says classy like eating Italian food and reading manga :)
I believe the Bob Evans chain does, as does the Cracker Barrel chain.Now I want to try grits. I wonder if I can find a place that serves it.
Thanks that's a big help.
I believe the Bob Evans chain does, as does the Cracker Barrel chain.Now I want to try grits. I wonder if I can find a place that serves it.
Thanks that's a big help.
I'd go with Cracker Barrel. I don't like Bob Evans all that much. Barrel has better grits imo.
I just had shrimp and grits with smoked stewed tomatoes and mushrooms for brunch. :)I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
bleah.
bleah.I just had shrimp and grits with smoked stewed tomatoes and mushrooms for brunch. :)I had no idea you liked grits.
There is only one place I will eat grits from, and that's waffle house. And only if my best friend is there, glaring at me the whole while. I will compliment the grits and thank the staff for them.
You culinary philistine :p
Sok, the South has a lot of other good food to offer. Like Low Country style Mustard BBQ with pork. So good you'll slap yo' mama ;)
Had a GF from Shrevport and she loved grits. Dont buy the instant grits they are terribad.
Amen to that. Instant anything is a terrible culinary stillborn as far as I'm concerned :)
Now this is a grits thread, lol.
You should all be eating corn meal porridge.
I'd rather eat spaghetti-os :p
Currently getting in touch with my heritage and eating my homemade Puerto Rican style rice and chicken. Everything is homemade, including the Puerto Rican style sofrito, adobo, and sazon. Made from brown rice and in the same manner as a pilaf. Very delicious.
I'll never forget the time that I had to explain to a GM that my Half-Elf Ranger PC was dark-skinned and he just couldn't wrap his head around the fact how that could happen. He could fathom that an elf would be attracted to and be intimate with a dark skinned human to produce a child. He couldn't do it. Was it magic? Nope. Was the human in disguise as an elf? Nope. Was it rape? What?!? NO!! I left that game eventually and I want to say that was the only time that that sort of thing happened but it wasn't.
He seriously made those question? that is awful.
From where I am manga, comics, elves, european chivalry, everything is foreing, in that regard I do not think anyone woudl feel diferent from anyone else.
Now I want some cheese grits and fried flounder D:
I'd rather eat spaghetti-os :p
Currently getting in touch with my heritage and eating my homemade Puerto Rican style rice and chicken. Everything is homemade, including the Puerto Rican style sofrito, adobo, and sazon. Made from brown rice and in the same manner as a pilaf. Very delicious.
Sounds delicious.
I put sofrito in almost everything, but due to the ugly baliwick of carribean and hispanic nuances, my mother did not teach me any traditional panamanian meals. So for the most part, sofrito ends up in my beans. Which I eat on top of rice, like a civilized person.
Now I want some cheese grits and fried flounder D:
Please do not kill my love of fish.