A question about racist comments
Something I have noticed that I find a bit odd.
If I or most people I know see someone in game call another by a racist name we report it and Anet responds with a ban.
and this is the way it should be.
But GW2 is FULL of racism and nobody is bothered by it infact most people laugh at it.
examples.Take the Asurans for example
“Bookah” is a large, loud, bellowing, and dumb imaginary creature that the Asura used to frighten their children. Since their surfacing, they use the term to refer to those they view as inferior beings, which to them is almost everyone who is not an Asura.
This is a derogatory term that they assign to the races they deem beneath them.
also several people in the game seem to have adopted and accepted calling Sylvari “Salad Heads”
Even members of the lionguard in this latest living story use it.
“You think salad boy can make good on his threat?”
The char and norn both have been known to make other racist comments against humans and other races
I Still have difficulty on how to react to this. On one hand I tend to wish to say its a game and its their culture. but on the other it was created by humans and is thereby an extension of ours. If I was “magically” transported to Tyria I would no sooner call a sylvari a Salad head than I would call a ….. and this is my point I even refuse to pick a race and term to use in an example here. but yet I fear the day when I watch my own toon call someone a name in some cut scene.
It makes the world more believable. You yourself may not hate Sylvari or Charr, but in the lore some do and they express that. Prejudices add depth and conflict to the setting – something necessary to keep us engaged. I’d much rather see characters who have deep seated anger to each other and forced to work together than see the super sugar coated diversity crap.
If you find yourself being offended by the in-lore racism then you need to evaluate your sensitivity levels. To put it bluntly, stop being so darn sensitive. Your stress level will go down and you will be able to see things clearer. They are just words. That’s it. Literally, nothing happens when a Sylvari is called something relating to a salad bar. The same way it is is in real life. They’re just words.
If you can’t accept this, I’m sure there are some free kids’ games where your sensitive tastes can be left intact.
If for example… this game were to make people who chose avatars of certain skin shades have a max level lower than others, or weaker stats, or not allowed to join guilds… that would be real world racism.
By that definition, playing Dungeons & Dragons, which has all of the things you listed and more, is real world racism.
Yet having say, females of a certain “race” in a game especially humans have less physical carrying capacity is just a fact of genetics and species morphology. They are the lighter (usually) half of the human being or targeted race in question (Read up on sexual dimorphism). Its just biological facts of life, but lesser intelligence stat or w/e because you think women are stupider than men (they are not and some games do reverse sexism like Sega’s Phantasy Star Series making humans the average race and females slightly better in terms of mental power compared to attack power and health) is wrong.
Maybe I severely misread you…
What I have quoted appears to be trying to defend the racism in D&D because of misogynist theory…
A racism which works via applying ‘real-world stereotypes of ethnic groups’ to its fantasy races. Stereotypes which were taken from the arguments made during and for the purpose of promoting historical REAL WORLD genocides’…
…and the quote seems to justify it because of misogynist theory?
Or is the quote arguing that sure, misogyny is all fine and good, but racism is not?
First these things are unrelated, and second it is unwise to defend the presence of one evil by arguing for another…
Either way… that’s bad mojo. I’d recommend steering clear there on both counts.
And you do NOT want to start debating biological gender differences… That is off-topic and will just land us in inflamatory waters.
Right now, up to this point, a thread which has every potential of turning into a flame war on the level of getting a LOT of people banned, has managed to stay civil. Lets not cross the water here.
http://kichwas.wordpress.com/ – GW2 Blog Presenting the Opposing View
JAH Bless – Equal Rights and Justice for all.
Justice And Honor – Tarnished Coast.
JAH Bless – Equal Rights and Justice for all.
Justice And Honor – Tarnished Coast.
(edited by Kichwas.7152)
This thread has proven to me at least that the ban on words has become ridiculous. A person has to say N-Word or obfuscate in some other way just because someone might be offended by the real word.
Honestly, it is ridiculous in the extreme that the same PC bullpuckey is infiltrating a game. The Asura calling a human Bookah is 100% appropriate given the structure of the game and the various races. The very fact that someone might be remotely concerned about a word like Bookah used in a game tells me that people concern themselves with words far too much.
A word only has as much power as you give it over you. That is why most people couldn’t care less what ‘names’ they are called. They laugh and say, “Yeah, whatever” and go on with their day.
Coming from a black guy, well “mulatto” really: It’s funny… I live in Maryland about 5 minutes outside Washington, DC – a solid “blue” area. These rich, educated, seemingly enlightened, vegetarian, “politically correct” Democrats with their alphabet soup of no-no words are often the most racist and closed-minded people when you you really start picking their brains.
They’ll be quick to say “DON’T SAY THE N, B, G, F, H, or T words! Waaaaah they’re offensive!” but then they’ll be the first to look down their nose at the family speaking Spanish in the grocery store, have a “talk” with Becky when she brings a soul brotha home for dinner, or not sit down next to the Mexican dude on the Metro. These people will thing they aren’t bigots because they have Nat King Cole and John Coltrane on their iPods and like Morgan Freeman on “Through the Wormhole.”
Often I have found, in my experience, the ones who are so quick to charge something as offensive are the most offensive ones.
(edited by Sarabande.8260)
I’m glad someone bumped this thread, it’s hilarious.
I’m glad someone bumped this thread, it’s hilarious.
I am shocked it hasn’t been deleted. It will be very, very soon.
If for example… this game were to make people who chose avatars of certain skin shades have a max level lower than others, or weaker stats, or not allowed to join guilds… that would be real world racism.
By that definition, playing Dungeons & Dragons, which has all of the things you listed and more, is real world racism.
Yet having say, females of a certain “race” in a game especially humans have less physical carrying capacity is just a fact of genetics and species morphology. They are the lighter (usually) half of the human being or targeted race in question (Read up on sexual dimorphism). Its just biological facts of life, but lesser intelligence stat or w/e because you think women are stupider than men (they are not and some games do reverse sexism like Sega’s Phantasy Star Series making humans the average race and females slightly better in terms of mental power compared to attack power and health) is wrong.
Maybe I severely misread you…
What I have quoted appears to be trying to defend the racism in D&D because of misogynist theory…
A racism which works via applying ‘real-world stereotypes of ethnic groups’ to its fantasy races. Stereotypes which were taken from the arguments made during and for the purpose of promoting historical REAL WORLD genocides’…
…and the quote seems to justify it because of misogynist theory?Or is the quote arguing that sure, misogyny is all fine and good, but racism is not?
First these things are unrelated, and second it is unwise to defend the presence of one evil by arguing for another…
Either way… that’s bad mojo. I’d recommend steering clear there on both counts.
And you do NOT want to start debating biological gender differences… That is off-topic and will just land us in inflamatory waters.
Right now, up to this point, a thread which has every potential of turning into a flame war on the level of getting a LOT of people banned, has managed to stay civil. Lets not cross the water here.
Its more of me pointing out the necessary evil… not condoning it or defending it. I’ve even admitted to making the fallacy that other developers made or try to make and more than willing to throw it out entirely and start back at nothing. Its wrong yes, and Anet doesn’t go that route with the races , we are all equal weighted in stats (all lv 80s regardless of race and gender have 916 in each stats before armor and other factors.)
If I cared to release my mechanics that were on paper i kinda went the same as GW 2 with base stats, etc. Each race on its own has no difference in max stats by level but racial bonuses or penalties is where things get ugly. Which is what you see inmost games.
I quote myself and will bold where you may have misread me, “Its just biological facts of life, but lesser intelligence stat or w/e because you think women are stupider than men (they are not and some games do reverse sexism and racism like Sega’s Phantasy Star Series making humans the average race and females slightly better in terms of mental power compared to attack power and health) is wrong.”
I said, I think this practice even used now by some popular mmos is wrong in teh quote.
And to further this:
GW 2 did not make any penalties or bonuses based on your race choice which is one of the things straying away from traditional mechanics and totally throwing out such scathing manufactured racist or sexist mechanics and themes all the way down to character creation. Which I believe is a fresh start for the MMO and RPG Genres. They said this in their manifesto and in their planning for our game mechanics wise.
Yet as we all know by lore standards, a charr and a norn can totally out-compete a human, a sylvari, and definitely an asura by a long-shot in an Olympic competition.
Ever notice that we all move at the same speeds in game but it looks like the bigger and smaller races look like they could cover more/less ground and move faster/slower?
Most games can just be completely correct with biology or physics, where group A is better than group B by virtue of biology.morphology (aka humans with size and lifting capacity example I used) or made up biology inherent to that fictional in-universe standard of a certain race and leave it at that and be unfair by what you are , but yes, there is a line drawn to where you can say oh I don’t like that race or being so I’m going to cut its stats because I hate them, etc. Hence what I said that females may be made weaker or stronger by non facts and pure misogyny or sexism or reverse sexism for favor of females over males then going down the line for each race by bonuses or penalties. D&D is so outdated and out of touch that in fact, its garbage.
(cont.)
Yumiko Emi Ishida 80 Ele, Hikari Kyoko Ishida 80 Guard TC-NA. Active RPer of NA megaserver.
Sega does this a lot (the former above). And other games make females the caster (or glass cannon class) or something weak and useless or relegated to a healing role (other traditional rpgs).
I was only stating how certain methods are used not being in favor of one or another. Here I elaborated further to say GW 2 was good on making sure we didn’t end up in any of these pitfalls. Everyone seems to be equal here at least mechanics wise. Lore and socially in-universe? Not so much!
As in my case and my plans… I’ll re-look into things to avoid these development traps. Only using facts and not prejudices or making up new ones to justify ones in real life.
Yumiko Emi Ishida 80 Ele, Hikari Kyoko Ishida 80 Guard TC-NA. Active RPer of NA megaserver.
(edited by Yumiko Ishida.3769)
I’m glad someone bumped this thread, it’s hilarious.
I am shocked it hasn’t been deleted. It will be very, very soon.
You know, I don’t really think it will. And I’ll tell you why. The discussion has been pretty civil and intelligent (for the most part). I think the OP was asking why people aren’t feeling the same level of outrage over racism toward their character as opposed to racism toward their person IRL. I don’t think that’s a silly question on the grounds that it has opened up a somewhat honest discussion on racism as a subject in literature, games and modern society. Reminds me of a discussion I participated on what it means to be human during a college Seminar on “The Human, Superhuman and God in Science Fiction” where we discussed the humanity and inhumanity of Frankenstein’s monster.
I just wanted to end with a response to one of the OPs original assertions:
“But GW2 is FULL of racism and nobody is bothered by it infact most people laugh at it.”
You know, some of the obvious attempts to cut at the self worth of other races like the Char calling humans “meat” don’t faze me as much. This goes back to someone’s earlier assessment that said, more or less, that people exhibit different levels of intolerance. However, I feel a chill whenever I think about the not so cold war going on between the Skritt and the Asura.
The Asura are very proud of their intellectual prowess and the power that offers them. Even so, at least from the narrative running in game, the Asura are very frightened of what the Skritt represent. The Skritt are deemed to be a lesser race by the Asura (even called a lesser race in the personal story dialogue at some point…) but pose a vague threat on levels even the Asura are still figuring out if they were to ever put their collective intelligence together for a higher purpose.
This leads to experimentation on the Skritt that you see in Metrica province that you get to participate in to test their intellectual limits. The Skritt go so far as telling you that the Asura conducting the experimentation are the good guys. Given the entire race’s history with the Skritt, if I were a Skritt, I’d be wary of calling anyone experimenting on me for just that reason a good guy.
(edited by nightwulf.1986)
Some day we will all be playing with stick men on nothing but a white screen
… and people will still complain about the color of the stick men.
Why the screen gotta be white bro?!
The majority of the comments in this thread make me even more disappointed in and ashamed to be part of the human race. Lost a lot of hope for our species today.
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Agreed. Question: Is this reportable if another player calls me a Salad head or Bookah in chat? I take great offense. What if people RP and they pretend to be their character? This is very out of line and should be stopped and bannable.
The majority of the comments in this thread make me even more disappointed in and ashamed to be part of the human race. Lost a lot of hope for our species today.
Hmm, that’s all it took for you today? Consider yourself lucky, then. I lost a “lot of hope for our species” when I discovered internet gore at about 12 years old, and when I saw a man’s head mushroomed out from a gunshot wound at the morgue at my mom’s job.
Wanna REALLY lose all hope? Read some history books.