MaxVest made a point in his cblog about
racism in the gaming community..
This, along with another cblog incident (A Mexican user getting pissy at dtoid and an ensuing flood of childish "racist, only funny" idiocy) just a few days ago, led to this reply, which grew kinda big, so I decided to make God change his mind about me sucking and turn it into a blog post instead... so here goes...
Other than Angelsdontburn's "No, just retarded" fact in comment, which is true for a percentage of members in any community, gamers not excluded, I think that it's mostly a bad side-effect of the Net's power of anonymity and distance to kids that still don't grasp how society works.
So, when a kid doesn't get its ass kicked IRL for calling another kid a [insert racial (and sexual, and...) expletives here], but instead does it from the safety of his home on XBL, he's never gonna figure out the repercussions inherent in being a racist dick, ie. said deserved ass-kicking.
This quickly leads to more and more similar behavior, most often to sound as tough as that other guy in the chat room, and in the end you get a very very blurred line between humor and actual racism..
Personally, being white in a country that's barely as multicultural as the US or the UK, I don't really see the problem very often. Add the fact that I do most of my MP gaming in netcafes cause I prefer the closeness of LANs, and you can see that I'm not really all that affected by said "racism" than say, a man of any minority in the US playing Halo 2 in XBL.
Maybe it's because of lack of said exposure that even in a LAN event in a big netcafe, I'll make sure that a 12 year old kid calling me a cheating bitch for fragging his clueless ass gets a scare to remember at the very least. Yeah, it's SRS BSNS alright.
Call me old fashioned if you will, but I'm somewhat concerned about a generation of gamers and netizens growing up without learning the simple fact of life that what goes around comes around, specially when it's about being a total fucktard.
Of course, the issue of parenting plays a great part here too, as long as kids are concerned at least.. And when you let the TV or the PS3 babysit your kid, shit like that is bound to happen. But that's another long (longer, actually) topic, so we'll end the thing here..
So, over-reacting much? Not nearly enough? Do we strangle the dissing 12 year olds by their headsets, or do we go the effortless verbal abuse way? Everyone's doing it, amIrite?
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Racism is inevitable. Unless everyone becomes one color and everybody starts thinking the same way. So are stereotypes. If the majority of a race commits a certain crime more often than another race it guarantees a stereotype. If you hate being categorized then stop acting like 80% of your culture.
Over-reacting? Almost. I mean seriously the past week has been nothing but OMFG Destrutoid is racist! OMFG ur retarded! And I, for one am getting tired of it. Isn't this a gaming website? I know that the bigger issues get tossed around on here all the time, but this is just becoming ridiculous.
@ Bahamhut
If that poseter was true, that would be a KFC cup next to him. Not a mcdonalds one.
Um, people are dicks. That's the best response I have. It certainly doesn't help that some minorities (not naming names) have turned certain slurs into badges of honor that they freely and happily call one another, and now people of other races are using them like it's somehow more "okay" now. In general, people are just fucking stupid when it comes to racism. Racism has become such an easy, casual thing. It's too easy for your average punk kid to get into it.
Gah, it annoys the hell out of me. And people like these "Black College Football" game makers just keep the ball rolling by segregating the races, even though their intent may be good-natured. I'm not saying we should ignore race - I think cultural differences are awesome - but when we make color alone the difference between men, and we keep bringing it up and discussing it time and time again, then it will remain a problem. Deal with the racist shits, but don't make a big deal about it otherwise. GAH.
It's not that gamers overreact. Real gamers don't. It's the media and then some. Better yet, it's the retards. The damn mainstream overreacts about everything.
Thanks for reading! I think your point about oneupmanship (no, nothing to do with extra lives) is right on. I think much of what sounds racist/homophobic/misogynistic is simply the result of a person of mediocre intelligence and limited life experience fumbling around for a "nuclear" insult that cannot be bested.
At this stage of netvolution, we've all seen that unmoderated feedback can be corrosive to the point of uselessness -- hence, the almighty banhammer -- and are taking steps to make sure that user-generated content maintains certain standards. Hopefully technology will progress to the point where an antisocial minority won't be able to ruin things for the rest of us, but those with unpopular viewpoints will still be able to find a forum in which to express them.
You guys are honkies
Shut up cracker
sphinx I don't think anyone contests that, in fact most of us are so white we are clear. we are a bunch of nerds. not that black people can't be nerds. but white nerds are white.
I'm as Caucasian as they come, I said it for lulz
The terms being shouted out across XBL and the like I think are said more for the effect rather than having any real racial connotation. I feel the average XBL tard saying those things knows that it's a horrible thing to call someone, and uses it out of desire to provoke a reaction.
I find stereotype joke hilarious, simply because they're so ridiculous. My belief is the more people you get to laugh at those jokes so they can see what nonsense they really are, the easier it is to heal. People are far too uptight about race and sexuality. They focus on the differences, but when you actually look close there's much more about us all that's the same.