You know what? Paizo is pretty darn cool for having diverse iconics. I was so happy to see the slayer iconic. He really pushed all the right buttons for me design-wise.
|
You know what? Paizo is pretty darn cool for having diverse iconics. I was so happy to see the slayer iconic. He really pushed all the right buttons for me design-wise.
I agree entirely. :)
I'm actually just very happy with every single one of the new Iconics. They're all very neat in one way or another.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You know what? Paizo is pretty darn cool for having diverse iconics. I was so happy to see the slayer iconic. He really pushed all the right buttons for me design-wise.
He is pretty cool. Quinn the Investigator is probably my favorite though. I love both his look and backstory.
|
Actually the guy who wrote the fist article was very racist in that article.
And the guy tore his arguments apart with actual arguments.
I despise social justice warriors.
So obviously your take is clearly unbiased and not all weighted to side with the person whose opinions coincide with your preconceived notions.
I especially love his comparison of being a Republican to the suffering of ethnic minorities. That's totally accurate and factually sound, and not at all ridiculous hyperbole that ignores very real societal issues in favor of being judged upon a political philosophy with well defined values that many people disagree with and you can choose not to make the focal point of a conversation.
But my absolute favorite part of his 'factual' account is when he had a made-up conversation with a fictional Social Justice Warrior caricature whose words he got to cherry pick.... gee, who left all of this straw laying around?
If someone had an interest in turning a critical eye to these pieces, they would see that both have their issues. But nope, it confirms a convenient outlook that doesn't require you to have to consider people different from you, so obviously it's a complete blowout!
Sorry those "Social Justice Warriors" bother you. How dare those jerks ruin your good time by trying to make things better for minorities or women? Dastardly!
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
So obviously your take is clearly unbiased and not all weighted to side with the person whose opinions coincide with your preconceived notions.
I especially love his comparison of being a Republican to the suffering of ethnic minorities. That's totally accurate and factually sound, and not at all ridiculous hyperbole that ignores very real societal issues in favor of being judged upon a political philosophy with well defined values that many people disagree with and you can choose not to make the focal point of a conversation.
It was a joke, more or less. He goes into a slightly more serious analysis of racism and stuff in other places in that article, but that was clearly just a one-liner not a serious comparison. Like the earlier comment about being physically fit.
But my absolute favorite part of his 'factual' account is when he had a made-up conversation with a fictional Social Justice Warrior caricature whose words he got to cherry pick.... gee, who left all of this straw laying around?
He, uh, never claimed it was factual. And, much as I'm actually a strong advocate of working to destroy subconscious and cultural prejudices (which are a serious problem), a lot of people who go on about them come come across precisely like that, especially when they talk about it on the internet. So...it's a caricature, but not necessarily a completely inaccurate one.
If someone had an interest in turning a critical eye to these pieces, they would see that both have their issues. But nope, it confirms a convenient outlook that doesn't require you to have to consider people different from you, so obviously it's a complete blowout!
Speaking as someone who's done this...I feel like Larry Correia's piece is absolutely too harsh, and probably too dismissive, and is clearly not precisely unbiased (though I feel like the context in his life makes all that understandable). On the other hand, the other piece is far more insulting in a couple of ways, at least as biased, and whiny as hell in a way that's unlikely to achieve anything good.
Your post actually comes off a lot more like Larry Correia's, for the record. :)
Sorry those "Social Justice Warriors" bother you. How dare those jerks ruin your good time by trying to make things better for minorities or women? Dastardly!
That's not precisely how the people who use that term (and I've never used it and never would, for several reasons) necessarily use it. It has more to do with the way that some people fight for those things than the actual fighting being done (EDIT: Hama probably defined what a lot of people mean by it even better.).
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm really not sure what that means unless it's: "Is offended by things I don't think he should be offended by."
Eh...more like "Offended by unreasonable things." There's definitely some overlap, but some things really are fairly unreasonable to be offended by.
Unless maybe when you're talking about someone you've observed through multiple offenses.
There are debatably multiple offenses within the article in question (see below).
For the person at tor.com, that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact he's mostly talking about his own experiences, not jumping in unasked to defend some minority.
He's apparently offended by a random person being dressed as a Nazi being outside the Con to the point he calls the entire con complicit in hate speech. That's not notably reasonable. And seemed to be offended that the convention center staff happened to be black...which is also not reasonable in context. And so on and so forth.
That's not a reasonable set of things to be upset about. Nor is extending his own experiences in gaming in a few groups (like most of us) to the community of 'people who go to Gencon', which is also unfair and potentially very insulting and offensive.
I really want to post more here, but I gotta sleep. I just want to know, how do the new posters in this thread feel about this statement?
"I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased."
I personally found it offensive for reasons stated on page 1. Do you find this statement acceptable? Why?
I also found this quote argument as very weak.
"Too many conversations on race and gaming die before they even start. I have seen more energy, debate, and engagement by gamers on the minutiae of rules and trivia than I have on the weighty topics of race and gaming. Gamers will spend endless days and millions of words fighting over the pros and cons of the Wacky Wand of Welding, but when a person of color brings up issues of race and diversity in the community, too many gamers roll their eyes and say, “Oh not again. Why do they have to be so politically correct? Can’t they just have fun?!”
Why is this weak? Because this example is not only vague and only includes a very negative response that he received without A.A. George attempting to understand the reason. The people who respond to this are not necessarily racist or uncaring of his cause. There could be a multitude of reasons for a negative response like this.
If he is bring it up with his friends, is it possible that those friends don't want to talk about it because they don't have to power to do anything about it? 2,3, and 4 refer to A.A. George's "here’s where you can start:" for getting racism out of gaming. I don't want to respond to number 1 because I did not listen to that series, so me making arguments at that point would be all kinds of dumb.
2.They probably cannot hire "people of color" into gaming jobs, considering that most gamers don't work at big gaming companies. 3.Considering that people often react poorly to those nerds that paint miniatures and pretend to be elves, maybe they are afraid of beign ostracized in their Church (SATANISM!), work, and neighborhood? I know I would be afraid of this.
4. Please explain to me what number 4 actually means. I don't see how rules systems are inclusive/exclusive. Does he mean games in which player attitudes are inclusive?
Also, a panel about racism in gaming at Gencon is voluntary. Something you willingly walk into. When you get to your LGS and want to play some pathfinder/40k/Warmachine/boardgames, I doubt that complex discussions on race and gaming are among the things you wish to discuss.
Maybe these people don't want to talk about it because their own group is super inclusive, and they don't understand the issue. Forcing someone who does not see the problem to listen to your views rarely breeds understanding.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, the first article was clearly pretty out there. A bit unreasonable. However, I don't think Correia's article is that much better. As other people say, throwing around SJW is usually just a way to fit someone in a box and then push that box off a cliff. And he was so dismissive of that quote (which is probably a bit misused, but that doesn't matter) which is actually a fairly important thing to consider.
I don't like either of these articles, really.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Both of the articles in question are terrible.
George's article is an exercise in purposefully shallow thinking, and while I can forgive Correia being dismissive of George's eminently dismissible argument, the fact that he decided to respond in the first place is awful. George is making some really horrible allegations about the con and the gaming community at large with literally nothing to back it up. No one is stopping him from feeling marginalized, but it's on him to identify why he feels marginalized, and is not incumbent on the rest of the gaming community to figure that out for him, because that's simply not possible.
George's article could have said meaningful things about gaming and race, but it didn't. Correia's response starts a "dialogue" that is really just bringing the level of discourse surrounding the topic down to the level of bickering.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really want to post more here, but I gotta sleep. I just want to know, how do the new posters in this thread feel about this statement?
I personally found it offensive for reasons stated on page 1. Do you find this statement acceptable? Why?
"I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased."
I don't find it offensive at all.
Too often (usually) well-meaning white people say, "I don't see race" as confirmation that they're not at all racist. But it is a rather ignorant thing to say for precisely the reasons he's pointing out. What he's saying is that it is used as a way to be able to ignore other cultures and experiences because, to you, there is no difference.
There's a reason Stephen Colbert mocks the "I don't see race" line in his conservative-pundit guise. It is a dismissive thing to say. (And too often used to justify ignoring very real racial disparities in hiring, education, and our criminal justice system.) To respect a person is to respect the whole person - that includes understanding how their experience differs from yours due to not being a member of the dominant culture. The statistics do not lie - being black in America is very different from being white. (Also being gay, Latino/a, a woman, or non-Christian, but one thing at a time.)
He, uh, never claimed it was factual. And, much as I'm actually a strong advocate of working to destroy subconscious and cultural prejudices (which are a serious problem), a lot of people who go on about them come come across precisely like that, especially when they talk about it on the internet. So...it's a caricature, but not necessarily a completely inaccurate one.
The factual claim was in response to Hama's post. Hama did call it a factual, well reasoned argument - which I did not find the response to be at all.
Also, I don't accept the 'caricature as not entirely inaccurate' argument. A personal anecdote: My greatest shame is that in my late teens and early twenties I was one of those MRA guys. I technically believed in equality for women, but I saw every argument as the work of feminazis trying to undermine men at every turn. Women should have rights, but if we weren't careful, these castrating man-haters would make all penetrative sex classified as 'Rape'.
The turnaround came when somebody finally asked me if I had ever, personally, encountered a feminist who was actually like that. When I had to really think of it --- no, no I hadn't. Not on the internet. Not in real life.
No, the only feminists like that I ever "encountered" were straw feminists and precisely that type of made-up caricature everybody just knew existed. Even the actual woman that were often singled out as being the perfect example of how those women REALLY exist- Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin - came across very different when you read them in context and not as clips cherry picked to sound terrible. Those marauding misandrists I'd been told about existed only in the heads of my fellow men's activists.
Worst of all, because that was how we saw the opposition, the things we said truly were vile. You can justify so much when you just know the other side is ten times worse. And once I was out, I saw it in so many other groups that had picked sides in the so-called culture "war" - because all is fair in love and war, after all.
So I ask you - How often have you actually encountered these kind of "SJWs", and how often has that encounter been second hand through people complaining about them? I'm betting if you really stop to think about it, most of that awareness we have of those sort of people is through news stories that thrive on drumming up controversy (Don't get me started on the infamous "Some are saying..." 'news' pieces) and people like Larry Correia that want to make a point.
I do not accept that any caricature is accurate, because I have had it demonstrated to me firsthand how blinding and dangerous that sort of thinking is. If there is a group or individual this guy thinks is wrong, he needs to argue with that group/individual. His issue is with the tor.com writer's assessment of GenCon and gaming - so that is the argument that should be had.
Also, this thread's title is misleading . . . it's true he DID say that, but it was a minor point in an article with a very different main thesis.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Both of the articles in question are terrible.
George's article is an exercise in purposefully shallow thinking, and while I can forgive Correia being dismissive of George's eminently dismissible argument, the fact that he decided to respond in the first place is awful. George is making some really horrible allegations about the con and the gaming community at large with literally nothing to back it up. No one is stopping him from feeling marginalized, but it's on him to identify why he feels marginalized, and is not incumbent on the rest of the gaming community to figure that out for him, because that's simply not possible.
George's article could have said meaningful things about gaming and race, but it didn't. Correia's response starts a "dialogue" that is really just bringing the level of discourse surrounding the topic down to the level of bickering.
I think when you insult an entire community of people and call them racist without real evidence or logical thinking, you deserve to be dismissed the way Correia did.
The truth is, there is an absence of minorities in the gaming community. But its less about the fact that gamers or gaming is racist, and more about the fact that the larger issues of racism, race, and inequality have lead to it.
The best point correia makes is that gaming in general, is an upper middle class activity. Gaming costs money, a lot of money. Gen con in particular represents a cross section of gamers who not only have the resources to game, but also the disposable income and time to take a flight, buy a hotel and spend 4-5 days on their hobby. Sure some people pinch pennies and save all year to make it to gen con, but most families arent going to prioritize such things if they have trouble making rent.
Most upper middle class and wealthy people in this country are white. Until relatively recently, that really meant white male. The demographics are shifting, slowly, but there are still lots of problems in that area, and many of them are about race and racism. Those need to be solved.
Obviously its just my opinion, but if we eliminated the wealth gap, you would see alot more minorities at things like gencon.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
When I say that I don't see race, by that I mean that I honestly don't care what someone's skin color is, and I treat everyone equally well.
Personality matters, demeanor matters, behavior matters.
As for culture, I refuse to accept any culture I personally deem bad.
So, while I may accept someone on their own merits, if the culturevthey hail from.is bad, I'll never accept it.
The best point correia makes is that gaming in general, is an upper middle class activity. Gaming costs money, a lot of money. Gen con in particular represents a cross section of gamers who not only have the resources to game, but also the disposable income and time to take a flight, buy a hotel and spend 4-5 days on their hobby. Sure some people pinch pennies and save all year to make it to gen con, but most families arent going to prioritize such things if they have trouble making rent.Gaming costs pocket change compared to many other leisure activities. Like going to the movies for example. :)
You can play for hundreds of hours off a couple of moderately expensive books - and split the costs among the players. Or you can be a completist and spend thousands of dollars a year on gaming books, miniatures and other gear. These days you can even play just off the SRD and buy nothing at all. (You'll need internet access, but that can't be counted as a gaming only expense.)You can travel to conventions or just play at home. Now obviously attendance at Gencon will skew towards the higher income, but if that's the main factor you'd expect to see a higher percentage of minority gamers at local conventions. Which in my very limited experience isn't true. Anecdotal, of course, but I don't think anyone has done actual research.
I'd love to see actual research. I doubt we will any time soon but certainly it would be interesting to see actual numbers. Things like diversity of race and income levels at local and big conventions and in the gaming community in general.
And its true that there are ways to game without spending tons of money. However, I dont think I am making some sort of great leap to say most gamers spend way more then a low income household could on a leisure activity. In addition gaming also represent a high level of education. Mostly because it is a leisure activity that in general involves lots of critical thinking and reading. I dont think anyone would have to look very hard to find studies that show kids in poor neighborhoods read less, or not at all.
I went to school in what were poor, primarily minority schools. I am white. I integrated well enough, I've always been an athlete. I was the white kid that played on the big basketball court in gymclass or in the school yard. I made many friends in those schools, many of which I still have today. I was never able to convince any of my minority friends to play magic the gathering or dnd with me and those I played with at school. Obviously this was some time ago, and its an anequedote, but I certainly had the impression that even those of my peers who were intelligent and probably would have enjoyed playing with the nerdy white kids, there was severe social pressure not to. The very idea of a leisure activity that was literally reading based was frowned on.
Even kids who had disposable income, either from jobs or from their families, chose to spend that money in other areas. It was a social pressure thing, the new jordans were more important then 'nerdy books' or whatever gaming material my primarily white gaming friends picked up from our local comic book shop (which by the way was a 40 minute bus ride away from our school in a primarily white neighborhood).
This is ofcourse just one persons experience, in one neightborhood. But the apparent narrative is similar in every example I've become aware of. And whether its accurate or not, the narrative in our cultural conciousness influences what we see and what we expect.
If you raise the income and education levels of minority families, I truly believe much of that would change. It wouldnt be an issue for a kid to go buy the new dnd redbox or its equivalent, or blow some money on magic cards. And it wouldnt be an odd thing to see a kid in a minority neighborhood with his nose in not just a gaming book, but the host of fantasy, sci fy novels and comic books that inpire us.
With more minority gamers, more of them will become designers, authors and artists in the industry, and you would see better diversity both in the industry as whole and at specific events. And probably most importantly, flgs or whatever ends up being the avenue of hte future for gaming purchases would thrive in minority neighborhoods. Because I think for most our friendly local gaming store or comic book store is where we got our real entry in the gaming world. And those stores definately depend on people spending more then pocket change on gaming material.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really want to post more here, but I gotta sleep. I just want to know, how do the new posters in this thread feel about this statement?
I personally found it offensive for reasons stated on page 1. Do you find this statement acceptable? Why?
"I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased."I don't find it offensive at all.
Too often (usually) well-meaning white people say, "I don't see race" as confirmation that they're not at all racist. But it is a rather ignorant thing to say for precisely the reasons he's pointing out. What he's saying is that it is used as a way to be able to ignore other cultures and experiences because, to you, there is no difference.
There's a reason Stephen Colbert mocks the "I don't see race" line in his conservative-pundit guise. It is a dismissive thing to say. (And too often used to justify ignoring very real racial disparities in hiring, education, and our criminal justice system.) To respect a person is to respect the whole person - that includes understanding how their experience differs from yours due to not being a member of the dominant culture. The statistics do not lie - being black in America is very different from being white. (Also being gay, Latino/a, a woman, or non-Christian, but one thing at a time.)
He, uh, never claimed it was factual. And, much as I'm actually a strong advocate of working to destroy subconscious and cultural prejudices (which are a serious problem), a lot of people who go on about them come come...
I've encountered quite a few SJW. One lambasted her social circle at college and ended up quitting the school because hir friends argued that the NY legislature taking a few extra days to hammer out details on marriage equality to prevent lawsuits was a good thing (requirements that specify religious groups cannot be forced to perform marriages). Ze has now joined a likeminded group in the Boston area who all are equally rediculous in their views. One I've actually argued with that there are no physical differences between men and women.
I've encountered quite a few SJW. One lambasted her social circle at college and ended up quitting the school because hir friends argued that the NY legislature taking a few extra days to hammer out details on marriage equality to prevent lawsuits was a good thing (requirements that specify religious groups cannot be forced to perform marriages). Ze has now joined a likeminded group in the Boston area who all are equally rediculous in their views. One I've actually argued with that there are no physical differences between men and women.
Wait, no physical differences? I assume this was in regards to muscle mass and height and not... other things right?
|
|
I don't find it offensive at all.
Too often (usually) well-meaning white people say, "I don't see race" as confirmation that they're not at all racist. But it is a rather ignorant thing to say for precisely the reasons he's pointing out. What he's saying is that it is used as a way to be able to ignore other cultures and experiences because, to you, there is no difference.
There's a reason Stephen Colbert mocks the "I don't see race" line in his conservative-pundit guise. It is a dismissive thing to say. (And too often used to justify ignoring very real racial disparities in hiring, education, and our criminal justice system.) To respect a person is to respect the whole person - that includes understanding how their experience differs from yours due to not being a member of the dominant culture. The statistics do not lie - being black in America is very different from being white. (Also being gay, Latino/a, a woman, or non-Christian, but one thing at a time.)
For the record, I'm cool with complaining about the 'I don't see race.' thing. I also understand Correia's objections to that argument (especially as a non-white guy who might be inclined to say that), but I don't object to it.
Some of the other s!+! he said? That I object to.
The factual claim was in response to Hama's post. Hama did call it a factual, well reasoned argument - which I did not find the response to be at all.
I found it pretty well reasoned, though overly harsh and sarcastic.
Also, I don't accept the 'caricature as not entirely inaccurate' argument. A personal anecdote: My greatest shame is that in my late teens and early twenties I was one of those MRA guys. I technically believed in equality for women, but I saw every argument as the work of feminazis trying to undermine men at every turn. Women should have rights, but if we weren't careful, these castrating man-haters would make all penetrative sex classified as 'Rape'.
The turnaround came when somebody finally asked me if I had ever, personally, encountered a feminist who was actually like that. When I had to really think of it --- no, no I hadn't. Not on the internet. Not in real life.
Really? I'm a feminist, and am fairly serious about it (plus I think a lot of MRAs are more than a bit problematic), but I sure as hell have run into 'feminists' like that on the internet, and even in real life (though the ones in real life were less extreme than some of the s@~! I've seen on the internet).
There's a blog post (or something like that) I recall called 'Firefly, A Rapist's View of the World' that leaps immediately to mind...
No, the only feminists like that I ever "encountered" were straw feminists and precisely that type of made-up caricature everybody just knew existed. Even the actual woman that were often singled out as being the perfect example of how those women REALLY exist- Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin - came across very different when you read them in context and not as clips cherry picked to sound terrible. Those marauding misandrists I'd been told about existed only in the heads of my fellow men's activists.
I think a lot of communities have something of an echo chamber effect where they demonize groups that disagree with them...but by the same token, just about every group also has extremists who believe some messed up stuff in one way or another.
Worst of all, because that was how we saw the opposition, the things we said truly were vile. You can justify so much when you just know the other side is ten times worse. And once I was out, I saw it in so many other groups that had picked sides in the so-called culture "war" - because all is fair in love and war, after all.
That's certainly a thing that can happen. I'm not sure it's a thing that's happening here, though.
So I ask you - How often have you actually encountered these kind of "SJWs", and how often has that encounter been second hand through people complaining about them? I'm betting if you really stop to think about it, most of that awareness we have of those sort of people is through news stories that thrive on drumming up controversy (Don't get me started on the infamous "Some are saying..." 'news' pieces) and people like Larry Correia that want to make a point.
Larry Correia has the great virtue from this perspective of actually linking to the people he's b&~$@ing about and what they actually said. And...yeah, having read through his blog and the things he linked to, a lot of the people in question really did say some seriously messed up stuff. Honestly, the guy in the article we're discussing isn't that bad compared to what a lot of them say (in many cases about Larry Correia specifically). So...I haven't dealt with a lot of people who are like this (but then, I don't use the term), but all evidence suggests that Larry Correia actually has. Which makes his attitude pretty understandable, if still not ideal.
I do not accept that any caricature is accurate, because I have had it demonstrated to me firsthand how blinding and dangerous that sort of thinking is. If there is a group or individual this guy thinks is wrong, he needs to argue with that group/individual. His issue is with the tor.com writer's assessment of GenCon and gaming - so that is the argument that should be had.
He does, mostly. I really don't se a problem with an occasional caricature to explain a point one is making in an argument. It can result in badness if taken too far but it doesn't inherently and necessarily do so.
Also, this thread's title is misleading . . . it's true he DID say that, but it was a minor point in an article with a very different main thesis.
Possibly true, but it's still nice to hear. :)
I've encountered quite a few SJW. One lambasted her social circle at college and ended up quitting the school because hir friends argued that the NY legislature taking a few extra days to hammer out details on marriage equality to prevent lawsuits was a good thing (requirements that specify religious groups cannot be forced to perform marriages). Ze has now joined a likeminded group in the Boston area who all are equally rediculous in their views. One I've actually argued with that there are no physical differences between men and women.Wait, no physical differences? I assume this was in regards to muscle mass and height and not... other things right?
all of the above.
A lot of minorities have a lot of pride in their communities and culture. Saying you "don't see race" may very well make them feel like you consider that to be meaningless.
Given how many times he said Tor.com, I feel like Correia has issues with that website/publisher, or possibly the author of the article he's responding to. I think the established RPG companies (yes, I mean most of the GenCon exhibitors) are more inclusionary than exclusionary, and beyond that, I don't know what to tell you.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
A lot of minorities have a lot of pride in their communities and culture. Saying you "don't see race" may very well make them feel like you consider that to be meaningless.
You walk into your LGS. YOU SEE A DUDE! He is a slightly different skin color than you. You don't know him and have never seen him before.
In this situation, is it appropriate to ask him what his unique culture is? At what point is this okay. After you've known him for a while, sure. But it seems outrageous to expect a person to immediately try to find out what a person's culture is. Especially at a place like gencon where you will be surrounded by hundreds of people who probably have a different culture than you.
Also, I'd prefer that all people "not see race." Culture is more than race, and assuming that someone is of a certain culture based on their appearance is completely ignorant and sometimes even offensive. Heck, guessing race by appearance can be pretty racist. Seeing race is a bad thing, because often people are wrong.
I don't consider anyone's culture meaningless. It is just that assigning one to someone without asking is the wrong way of going about it. I also don't get offended when people think that I am white or Mexican when I am in fact Tunisian. I do think it is funny though that they try so hard to assign me to a culture based on my appearance that they always get it wrong. One person in my entire life guessed my continent of origin, but then guessed the wrong country. Who can actually recognize a Tunisian?
I do the opposite. I don't put a culture on anyone until they willingly tell me. That does not make me ignorant of people's culture, or mean that I have a lack of respect.
Also, I don't get pride in anything but your own accomplishments. Why should anyone be proud of something they had no influence over?
I think I will disagree with you there, but that is an off-topic discussion so I won't get into it. I do not think your statement is offensive though (I have not used the o-word so many times in the same 24 hour period in my life). It is a matter of preference that I can respect.
|
|
Also, I don't get pride in anything but your own accomplishments. Why should anyone be proud of something they had no influence over?
The reason you don't "get it" is because you are not a member of a group that has historically been discriminated against or told that part of you makes you inferior to the dominant group.
That pride is not the word as you would use it. Pride is refusing to accept a cultural attitude that your race is something to be ashamed of, or that you should change aspects of yourself to appease those in power.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Also, I don't get pride in anything but your own accomplishments. Why should anyone be proud of something they had no influence over?The reason you don't "get it" is because you are not a member of a group that has historically been discriminated against or told that part of you makes you inferior to the dominant group.
That pride is not the word as you would use it. Pride is refusing to accept a cultural attitude that your race is something to be ashamed of, or that you should change aspects of yourself to appease those in power.
Disagree with his statement as much as you want to. I disagreed with it too. But considering that Hama did not state what culture he identifies with, or what geographical location of the world he originates from, you should probably retract that statement where you guessed his race.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
The context of his earlier posts - especially his most recent response to Paladin of Baha-who? - would strongly imply that he is white.
You are assigning a skin color and cultural identity based off a person disagreeing with you and claiming that he does not need his culture to be proud of himself. You are currently engaging in stereotyping.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm a Serb. Trust me I know something about discrimination. And yes, I'm white.
Refusing to accept that you are inferior, or that you should be ashamed of a geographic accident or melanine content in your skin and a bit different skull structure is not pride. It's common sense.
People who think they are better because they are of a certain skin color and facial features are entitled pricks.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is a problem Americans tend to assign their cultural and racial baggage, to the rest of the world. There is an attitude what happens in the US applys everywhere else.
When you accuse a Serb or a Hungarian, or a Croat or a Greek of being privileged because of their skin colour you are being very ignorant of thousands of years of occupation and oppression and slavery. But hey they are white and everything must be easy and good for them because that's how it is in the US.
My comment relates only to Adams assumption that Hama is white so that auto = privilege.
Ask the Japanese about their privilege over the Anu or resident Koreans, or any non Han Chinese or the Hutu and Tutsi, or Fijians and Indians, or Brahmin and Dalit.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
But as you say, 'All Larry saw was a bunch of gamers' and 'All a person looking for racism saw was racism'. Would you agree that the truth was almost certainly somewhere in between? That there would likely have been some incidents of racism, while more people were around enjoying themselves?
Errr, no. Just because you have two competing viewpoint does not mean you should immediately assume that both are equally valid and decide that the truth is somewhere between them. To show you the fault of such thinking, let's pretend that a third person, call him Bob, would have gone back from the con, and written an article in his home about how everything there was a cover-up for devil worship. He would even link to a picture of someone in the custom of a fiend or something. Clearly, Bob would say, there are signs of devil worship everywhere in GenCon - I've been there and seen it myself!
Now what do you do? how do you fit this in with the other two views? is GenCon somewhere in the middle between awesomeness, racism and devil worship? No, because Bob is clearly crazy and his opinion has no real weight. It is not comparable to the other two.
Coming back to the issue at hand, one person seeing racism and another not seeing it does not mean much. Sure, maybe if you did a detailed survey with a couple dozen random people, statistics would ensure you'll be able to determine how many people saw racism and how many didn't.
As for my opinion on the whole matter - I don't take the article about racism seriously. As Correia pointed out in his response, a lot of the claims for racism were unfounded, and the attitude of "not being aware that you are the majority is a form of racism" is just absurd. I do not particularly care for Correia's snappy style, and see it as something that weakens his arguments, but it's not going to stop me from thinking he is more in tune with reality.
My comment relates only to Adams assumption that Hama is white so that auto = privilege.
Ask the Japanese about their privilege over the Anu or resident Koreans, or any non Han Chinese or the Hutu and Tutsi, or Fijians and Indians, or Brahmin and Dalit.
Yeah, I get that, though it was actually EntrerisShadow, I think.
Race and privilege plays out differently in different cultures. And Americans do tend to be blind to that and to assume that it is all about them.
OTOH, the original articles are both talking about race in a specifically US context. And some of Hama's comments echo US white racist rhetoric. I guess the lesson might be that commenting on another countries racial issues is a mine field?
Yes a mine field on a hair trigger. Hama was not sensitive to that. He tends to use the same set of my world should apply everywhere else values as some Americans (everybody actually) do.
My apologies to Adam if I got the wrong person.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe it's just that I am not really sensitive to discrimination coming my way, so I don't really tolerate when someone else is being (what I assume) overly sensitive to stuff.
I've been called a baby eater, a terrorist and a Croat killer in the past, and that was nicer stuff.
I've also been refused service on the basis of me being a Serb in several countries.
I've also been kicked out of a bakery because I asked for bread and made the cardinal sin of using the Serbian word for it and not Croatian.
Did it bother me? Maybe a tiny bit. But I tend to feel sorry for bigots, in their small, pathetic worlds.
They don't deserve my time or attention.
|
|
er... I didn't say it's somewhere in between because any two views must mean the truth is in the middle. I said it's likely in the middle because I believe it's most likely that most gamers at Gencon are having a good time, but there probably would have been incidents of racism now and then. That's not saying that racism is a systematic part of Gencon, merely that I wouldn't automatically disbelieve someone who claimed to have experienced racism at Gencon just because I hadn't.
Seriously, nothing I said is indicating I think two opposing positions must inherently be equally valid, I think the positions in each article in question are pretty poor to be honest. My argument is that the truth in this case is probably neither extreme.
Well, I misunderstood you then. I think if you'll re-read the post I was replaying to you'd see that it could easily be understood that way I thought it was. No offense meant, anyway.
As for racism in gencon, the problem is that the kind of racism that the guy from the first article was complaining about was just... not really racism. He perceived it as such, obviously, but I don't consider it to be so. Obviously in a crowed of such a size as the one in gencon you will always get racists just by law of large numbers, but that does not in any way mean that gencon is more racist than, say, a convenience store.
|
|
It's like accusing a dude for hiring predominantly black and Hispanic people to work in his store of racism.
And he did it because, they work well, are honest workers and live near the store so that in a pinch he can call on someone. He respects them and pays them their just wage.
But noo he's a racist because he's putting them in a subservient role
Wake up.
|
|
The context of his earlier posts - especially his most recent response to Paladin of Baha-who? - would strongly imply that he is white.You are assigning a skin color and cultural identity based off a person disagreeing with you and claiming that he does not need his culture to be proud of himself. You are currently engaging in stereotyping.
Actually, I based it off to how he responded to earlier posts specifically talking about minorities. The grammatical syntax he used indicated being separate from the subject being spoken of in previous replies. It's based on context clues, not stereotyping based on his political outlook.
But I love how many people were eager to agree with your assumption.
In fairness, in the tor.com article it wasn't racism just because the convention hall staff were minorities, but because of the contrast between the majority minority facilities staff and what he perceived as the overwhelmingly white attendees.
Now, I wasn't there so I can't comment on his perception of the attendees and I don't think I'd draw the same conclusions, but it's not quite the same as "it's racist that the staff was minority". I've seen that kind of thing in other circumstances and once you notice it, it is disturbing. And I can imagine how much more so it must be when your appearance matches the staff, not the guests.But that's a distinction that Correia slid right over.
Mind you if anything, it's not racism on Gencon's part or even on the convention center's part, but just a reflection of the racism in society that traps some in situations where such jobs are the best they can get.
Its perfectly fine to see the a bunch of minorities working as janitors/food servers/security guards etc and a bunch of white people with enough disposable cash to fly to indianapolis for 4 days to indulge their hobbies and see a reflection of a biased and racially unfair society.
Its fine to comment on that fact.
Its not ok to say that those people at that convention and the community they are involved in are themselves racist because of it.
If the article had framed it the way you did, it wouldnt have gotten th reaction. He assigned societie's racial bias specifically to gencon, when gencons lack of diversity is more a symptom of the greater ill then anything else. And in the process, he insulted alot of people, including Correia.
Is it a bad thing that many minorities cant do better then minimum wage jobs despite genuine effort to make their and their families lives better? Yes, it is. Does that make someone racist for picking up a burger at McDonalds? No.