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Not Sure if this is the right spot
THIS IS A LONG POST ON IN-GAME RACISM.
LET ME KNOW IF I NEED TO MOVE IT
Okay, so, in light of all of this hubbub between Imps and Ophidians and Mitrines, we've had some interesting issues arise. Pertaining more to me (actually Ensidia) is racism! Due to people not liking the Impire, Imps of all types seem to be clumped into one group and stereotyped. Of course being the strong, outspoken woman that Ensidia is, she has something to say!
Specifically (after a few of her citymates said some harsh words about Imps as a whole) she said this:
"I will say this one thing, and then I will be silent. I am an Imp. I
allowed myself to be upset by words, yes, but it is much more than that. When you say 'Imps are tricksters', 'Imps steal', 'Imps are conniving', 'Imps cannot be trusted', 'Imps hold no loyalty',
you are not only talking about Imps as a race, you are talking about me, I, who am supposed to be your comrade. I, who am supposed to fight alongside you in battle regardless of the odds. I, who will stand by your side and defend your very breath against the Underking Himself if need be, and who will spill the last drop of blood from my body for any of you, regardless of whether you are Mimotesh, or Toz, or Xenia, or Kanivara. For people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in blood to say such cruel things about me, it hurts. I know when you speak of Imps in such a way you do not mean me directly, but at the end of it all I am still included. It is racism, and it is something that is most painful when it comes from those that you have to trust with your life. I do love you all, and if you do decide that the Impire must fall then I will not hinder you- I have said this. I only ask that when you choose your words, you think more wisely on which ones you select. When you speak of Imps, you speak of me, of Buphorix, of Ipz, of Ansidia, of Malcanthet, of Louse. All perhaps not your friends, but regardless your allies. That is all."
Something heartfelt and that I felt personally attached to due to racial issues I have had myself, and just as they are in real life- in the game the racism was DISMISSED.
Ensidia is overreacting.
Now I ask you all this. If you take 'Imp' and replace it with 'black' or 'latino' or 'hispanic' or 'chinese' or whatever race you can think of- and then you replace the stereotypes against Imps with sterotypes against that race, will you still dismiss it? I've had several people say that my roleplay of these issues is overdramatic, that I am exaggerating, that I am making Ensidia seem hysterical, but should she not be? I will give you an example of my every day life.
As a BLACK WOMAN, I am under the influence of thousands of sterotypes. All we do is live off of the government. All we do is push out babies. We don't want to work. We don't want to earn our money. We just want to get child support. We just buy steak and lobster with our foodstamps. We lie. We steal. I live in a BRIGHT RED state, and if I had a dollar for every time someone disparaged me because of the color of my skin I'd have every artifact in this game.
I feel as though I am portraying Ensidia's outrage correctly, as it is according to the outrage I feel myself every day. I have had 'friends' make jokes about black people and gangs, black people and foodstamps, black people with missing fathers, and as I type this I've actually started to cry thinking about it. Yet when Ensidia as an Imp faces these issues from people that are supposed to be her family, she gets dismissed. A God/Admin even hopped on a city NPC and had the audacity to say basically: 'we have all sorts of races here. Stop using your race as an excuse to get mad. Sit back and have a smoke, drink, go have sex'. That is what she was told to do to deal with her issue. And her citymates agreed! Not one person stood up for her out of all of the people- higherups, GODS, that were paying attention to the scene.
("Kid, this city's weathered a lot of storms. We've got Trolls as citizens, allies, and ones that raid us. We've got Humans all over the map. Races ain't pure protected ideals. Can't jus' hide behind it or use it t'try to shut down other folks. They's talkin' about an Impire that's bein' a road hazard. An organization, not all folks who look a kind of way under the sun."
"Sometimes jus' have to sit back an' have a smoke. Have a tipple. Go visit a girl or whatever y'like.")
I don't feel like I am overreacting, and thusly I feel like Ensidia kept her cool more than I would have when faced with such odds. I am sure everyone else will feel that I am overreacting, that I am crazy, and that I am twisting words around (mostly because the majority of the playerbase hasn't had to deal with such issues. Let's be realistic), but I wanted to put this out there. When we play Aetolia, we are roleplaying. We are supposed to make our actions in the game as realistic as possible. So when you attack me on a personal level for how I demonstrate my extremely passionate PC, you are in the wrong. She is being faced with racism right now, her people are in a civil war. Her city has turned on her (in her eyes) because of her race.
She is applying the warpaint that she is being forced to don to defend not only her race, but herself from people that are supposedly her friends.
I ask that you all take this into account before you judge my roleplay or my character.
LET ME KNOW IF I NEED TO MOVE IT
Okay, so, in light of all of this hubbub between Imps and Ophidians and Mitrines, we've had some interesting issues arise. Pertaining more to me (actually Ensidia) is racism! Due to people not liking the Impire, Imps of all types seem to be clumped into one group and stereotyped. Of course being the strong, outspoken woman that Ensidia is, she has something to say!
Specifically (after a few of her citymates said some harsh words about Imps as a whole) she said this:
"I will say this one thing, and then I will be silent. I am an Imp. I
allowed myself to be upset by words, yes, but it is much more than that. When you say 'Imps are tricksters', 'Imps steal', 'Imps are conniving', 'Imps cannot be trusted', 'Imps hold no loyalty',
you are not only talking about Imps as a race, you are talking about me, I, who am supposed to be your comrade. I, who am supposed to fight alongside you in battle regardless of the odds. I, who will stand by your side and defend your very breath against the Underking Himself if need be, and who will spill the last drop of blood from my body for any of you, regardless of whether you are Mimotesh, or Toz, or Xenia, or Kanivara. For people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in blood to say such cruel things about me, it hurts. I know when you speak of Imps in such a way you do not mean me directly, but at the end of it all I am still included. It is racism, and it is something that is most painful when it comes from those that you have to trust with your life. I do love you all, and if you do decide that the Impire must fall then I will not hinder you- I have said this. I only ask that when you choose your words, you think more wisely on which ones you select. When you speak of Imps, you speak of me, of Buphorix, of Ipz, of Ansidia, of Malcanthet, of Louse. All perhaps not your friends, but regardless your allies. That is all."
Something heartfelt and that I felt personally attached to due to racial issues I have had myself, and just as they are in real life- in the game the racism was DISMISSED.
Ensidia is overreacting.
Now I ask you all this. If you take 'Imp' and replace it with 'black' or 'latino' or 'hispanic' or 'chinese' or whatever race you can think of- and then you replace the stereotypes against Imps with sterotypes against that race, will you still dismiss it? I've had several people say that my roleplay of these issues is overdramatic, that I am exaggerating, that I am making Ensidia seem hysterical, but should she not be? I will give you an example of my every day life.
As a BLACK WOMAN, I am under the influence of thousands of sterotypes. All we do is live off of the government. All we do is push out babies. We don't want to work. We don't want to earn our money. We just want to get child support. We just buy steak and lobster with our foodstamps. We lie. We steal. I live in a BRIGHT RED state, and if I had a dollar for every time someone disparaged me because of the color of my skin I'd have every artifact in this game.
I feel as though I am portraying Ensidia's outrage correctly, as it is according to the outrage I feel myself every day. I have had 'friends' make jokes about black people and gangs, black people and foodstamps, black people with missing fathers, and as I type this I've actually started to cry thinking about it. Yet when Ensidia as an Imp faces these issues from people that are supposed to be her family, she gets dismissed. A God/Admin even hopped on a city NPC and had the audacity to say basically: 'we have all sorts of races here. Stop using your race as an excuse to get mad. Sit back and have a smoke, drink, go have sex'. That is what she was told to do to deal with her issue. And her citymates agreed! Not one person stood up for her out of all of the people- higherups, GODS, that were paying attention to the scene.
("Kid, this city's weathered a lot of storms. We've got Trolls as citizens, allies, and ones that raid us. We've got Humans all over the map. Races ain't pure protected ideals. Can't jus' hide behind it or use it t'try to shut down other folks. They's talkin' about an Impire that's bein' a road hazard. An organization, not all folks who look a kind of way under the sun."
"Sometimes jus' have to sit back an' have a smoke. Have a tipple. Go visit a girl or whatever y'like.")
I don't feel like I am overreacting, and thusly I feel like Ensidia kept her cool more than I would have when faced with such odds. I am sure everyone else will feel that I am overreacting, that I am crazy, and that I am twisting words around (mostly because the majority of the playerbase hasn't had to deal with such issues. Let's be realistic), but I wanted to put this out there. When we play Aetolia, we are roleplaying. We are supposed to make our actions in the game as realistic as possible. So when you attack me on a personal level for how I demonstrate my extremely passionate PC, you are in the wrong. She is being faced with racism right now, her people are in a civil war. Her city has turned on her (in her eyes) because of her race.
She is applying the warpaint that she is being forced to don to defend not only her race, but herself from people that are supposedly her friends.
I ask that you all take this into account before you judge my roleplay or my character.
-1
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
You want to know why nobody backed you? It's because you're incorrect that everyone's talking about Imps. They're not. They're discussing the Impire, a faction of Imps, a -fraction- of the Imp population. They do not represent all Imps.
Do the Crips and Bloods represent -you-? No, they don't, and it's utterly fallacious to state otherwise.
Do the actions of the Ute and the Sioux represent the Comanche? No, they don't, and it's utterly fallacious to state otherwise.
If you had read what was being said instead of dogwhistling, you'd get that nobody was talking about Imps as a whole. They were talking about -ONE- group of Imps, the Impire. Not the Sehal Imps, not the Imps anywhere else... and certainly not the race as a whole.
As for donning warpaint... sweetie, no, you do not get to appropriate -MY- culture in an attempt to defend yours.
Yep.
And I'll say to you, sing you were one of the main ones inciting the racism, HER ISSUE WAS NOT WITH PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THE IMPIRE. Even as stated in my snippit I posted, it was people saying 'IMPS'.
When people say BLACK it doesn't matter if they only mean one person. They used the whole group. When people say INDIAN, it doesn't matter if they're talking about one Indian, they've just used a term that describes all of India.
Also, 'sweetie', you think Native Americans are the only ones that had warpaint? You're incompetent for that one.
Keep your hateful comments to yourself next time, because you don't know what you're talking about, 'comanche'
Our ally is Bloodloch, which contains a guild created through the slaughter of an entire village- not just the men, but the women and children too (Carnifex). As a side note, many prominent Spireans were Carnifex before the guild changed to BL-only. It also contains a group dedicated to the eradication of life to purify the earth (or who knows I lose track of what the Teradrim are doing these days), as well as the last bastion of a once-mighty empire that, you guessed it, slaughtered and tortured and maimed everyone to spread Despair (Indorani). Oh and they're necromancers who make deals with devils. And finally, we have the vampires. Who literally have sex slaves chained up, in several places. Who impregnate said slaves to make more meatbags to eat. Who torture for funsies.
Shadow side is, at best, self-serving and at worst a walking atrocity. You're welcome to be upset IC about your race being killed. You're welcome to push back against it, too. But crossing the OOC line to compare a roleplaying game's handling of race is absurd. A version of Toz has ripped the soul out of a baby, stolen children, slaughtered entire villages, beat dogs, killed a pregnant woman, and served as an enforcer for the Carnifex guild for RL years. This iteration has lead Spirean fighting groups, killed lots of people, and done some pretty not nice things too.
Spinesreach is not the good guys. Spinesreach does not have to care about your race, or their race, or anyone else's race. Even if this event were all of the imps in the world up on the chopping block, it would be entirely valid of Spinesreach to laugh and swing the axe themselves, because Spinesreach is the frozen north and always, always, always looks out for number one.
But this event isn't that. This event is, if you want to try to use weak real-world examples, an ISIS caliphate but cuter. They're a group who ripped the souls out of pixies and enslaved them, declared themselves a Holy Empire and started placing traps (IEDs) and lobbing explosions at diplomatic meetings. They're tiny little terrorists if you look at anything they're doing, and that's FINE. That's Aetolia, it's dark and grim and there aren't always clear-cut good guys. But just like ISIS doesn't represent anyone as a whole, neither does the Holy Roman Impire represent all imps. And the opinions voiced on CT are valid, IC reactions to your valid IC beliefs.
I have no problem with you sniping at me on CT, and I'd have sniped back if RL didn't pull me away. I can handle IC flak and I welcome it. But to make this out to be some sort of real life racism parallel is patently absurd, unless you go out and murder hobos over oil on the regular or something - Aetolia != real life.
EDIT: Also, when dealing with homogeneous groups, it's faster to say imps than THAT HOLY IMPIRE OVER YONDER AT COORDINATES 123141. Mitrine, Ophidians, Imps. Short, sweet, you get the gist. The Grecht are up north, there are Trolls in the Manneseh swamp, and Kelki in the Forgotten Dome. We tried to correct that misunderstanding several times on CT but - and this was an unfortunate assumption on my part - I assumed you were twisting and misunderstanding on purpose OOCly to convey IC outrage. That seems to not be the case.
The three main thoughts I have about how this related to aetolia:
1 - remember that In aetolia, races aren't "races" like humans IRL, races are literally different species of different kinds of mostly-bipedal humanoids. There are some hard and fast legit lore to different species.
2 - your character doesn't need to be reasonable ICly! If you think your character is behaving according to their personality ICly, then keep on keeping on. If an older player comes to you OOCly and tries to explain to you that the way you're acting isn't in line with typical IC standards are, they're probably just trying to be helpful and make sure you get the most out of the game and you can just tell them "Thanks for the tip, but this is how my character would react" and keep with it. This goes the same the other way. If someone else's character is a racist jerk toward Atavians, your character's heartfelt plea isn't going to make an impact, but for some others, it will.
3 - Everyone in aetolia is under a buttload of stereotypes. The different cities, species, wealth, guild, god, etc. All these things in aetolia come with stereotypes, it's part of the richness of the world.
You have blown it way out of proportion and from what I have seen have taken this further than needed to be in the first place. You fail to include personal attacks you launched against other spirean citizens, while claiming racism? No one can see your actual race behind a computer in an IRE game. No one was even lumping you into it.
Now that said, you had every option to rectify the issue before going off on a warrior woman rampage. Pick your hills to die on. I can't tell you the sheer amount of crap I have dealt with, however much of my problem was my OWN doing.
What I am trying to say is no one singularly pulled YOUR character in and said anything negative about her. You are as I said free to voice your opinions and complaints, but do so constructively if you don't give anyone a chance to fix it before blowing a gasket, you're going to run out of gaskets to blow.
Everyone keeps going back to the 'oh, there are a million races and spinesreach is 'evil' blah blah blah portion, which has nothing to do with the issue at hand! There are a million races in real life, but that doesn't mean racism does not exist. If I say 'all white people are racist', isn't that racist? And then use the excuse 'well we have lots of races so what I said isn't racist', doesn't that seem absurd? Yes, I am comparing IG racism to OOC racism because it's the same thing, but 'cuter' as Toz puts it. And while we're on the topic of Toz, I would like to respond NON-CONFRONTATIONALLY about the Imps and the Pixies. IGly siding with the Ophidians, okay, but didn't they slaughter the beast cultists?
And as I said, I wasn't sure where to put this. If you'd like I'll repost in Harpy's head, but this is an OOC issue with IC goings-ons. Really I have no clue where it belongs. As Kanivara gracefully demonstrated, I have been OOCly attacked for my IC views and opinions, so I assumed that overall this post would be better in the OOC section. I am not attempting to incite some sort of funky race war, as I'm sure I'm outnumbered on that front. :} I'd lose horribly.
Let me expand on this before I put my own foot in my mouth. If I say 'white people are racist' even if I am only talking about, say, Benedicto, I did not single out Benedicto (not sure what race he is!! Just using an example!!), I instead used white people as a whole to express my frustration towards one person or group, which is never okay.