Cultural Appropriation in role-playing games (draft)

[Celebrim]

Is that the revised version?

Because I'm having a hard time noticing significant differences in wording or tone.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am not certain how else to refer to actions such as college black face parties and the antics of the Red Skin fans.

Even if that is the case, Cultural Appropriation is a much broader term than just those kinds of things though. You are using it in your own essay to lump in all manner of cultural borrowing, not just things like black face and using racial slurs for team names. This is why I am making a distinction between invoking racially insensitive stereotypes and being racially/culturally insensitive versus cultural appropriation. The latter is this vague and highly academic thing that folds so much into itself (everything from borrowing musical styles to clothing, to borrowing culture with the aim of ridiculing the source) that I think it is confusing and just chills attempts to have genuine exchange. Whereas the former focuses on all the bad things that can arrive from appropriation without throwing out the baby with the bath water. I want to live in a world where people can borrow music, clothing styles, functional technology and other things from one another. It would be great if that were done in a sensitive fashion.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I see you left in, "Only God knows someone’s actual intent and he does not exist – the rest of us have to cope with the person’s excuses and mealy-mouthed assertions about the best of intentions. "

Yes, yes I did.

Is that the revised version?.

Yes, yes it is.

 

[Kichwas]

Going to quote some things out of order here...

A term employed in feminist and minority critiques of all kinds of media is agency. According to Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, agency is the capacity, condition or state of exerting power. It is about the capacity of a character, or characters, to make decisions and pursue those decisions.

Players and game masters running games set in a minority culture, be it a pastiche or a direct translation, are not actually granting that culture or its people agency. They are fulfilling a power fantasy, complete with otherising, the appeal of the exotic and quite probably brown-face or a variant of brown face play.

Representation does in fact matter but white people have historically failed to adequately represent anyone but white people. Why should white people be granted an infinite series of mulligans to screw-ups allowing then try again? Why should the minorities accept this as a non-negotiable fact of life, like gravity?

This is not to encourage or condone erasure – the disappearance of minorities from gaming, either as players or as characters.

I'm one of those minority gamers who is more or less now an ex-gamer. I left this hobby roughly 10 years ago after some incidents with a couple of gaming groups and some rather rough conversations in a number of online forums all convinced me that the place was just too unfriendly to minorities. I keep popping back in from time to time to see if anything has changed because, like a lot of you - as a child of the 70s RPGs were the spark that lit the fire in my mind and got me active on so many things... And for a few years they were also the only space where I was around white people and not scared of them or feeling I had to talk in code...

While I see some hopeful signs, reading some current topics I also see the same kind of backlash I was reading a year ago in regards to women. The angry gamer ranting at the world being multicultural, it seems, is still out there. But I'm hoping its not as prevalent and some internet blogs can imply.


Quoting out of order:

Randa Jarrar in a column written in 2014 for Salon asserts
...
“Many white women who presently practice belly dance are continuing this century-old tradition of appropriation, whether they are willing to view their practice this way or not.”

This has been going on for a century or more, however, that long history does not make it morally acceptable for bored white women to wear the trappings of a minority

and:

After time away I am writing new episodes for my video-podcast series on RPG reviews and issues. Here is a draft of the script for the next episode, which will probably be somewhat controversial.


The name of the Washington Red Skins is cultural appropriation, as are college black face parties and most of the music by Katty Perry. They are a sports team employing the pejorative name and warrior symbolism of a Native American tribe, college s acting like s and a rich white woman pop-musician assuming the musical traditions of minority groups. All without so much as a thank you.

I'm a little uncomfortable with what seems to be the idea that anyone "not of the right race / background" who moves into a space is appropriating. That is NOT always the case. It is not so "black and white" as that. And it is even possible to "appropriate" from one's own race... Let me give examples from the 'scene' I now inhabit.

It is not always appropriation when one "crossed the culture and racial lines". And sometimes it IS appropriation when one acts within what the outside sees as their own race.

Three musicians of recent times come to mind here. I'm guessing many here won't know them by name, so I'll explain them. They just happen to be three I've been pondering recently, and some of them come from the Rastafari world that I've landed in in the decade since I left RPG gaming.

Eminim, Jah Sun, and Snoop Dog.
Only one of those who is regularly accused of appropriation is Snoop, in his facade as Snoop Lion. Eminim not only raps, he exists in the "ghetto persona" the "white world" (for lack of a better term) thinks of as rap (as opposed to Artists like KRS-One, Arrested Development, and Mystic - demonstrating that rap/hip-hop is not a "ghetto thing"). But its real for him - he is speaking to his culture and his existence - at least as it was before he made it big. And everyone can see it.

Now I'm guessing almost none of you have ever heard of Jah Sun. He's a Northern California white dude who basically has the "ethnic features of an RPG-Gamer stereotype - a bearded pale white guy with a little too much belly on him". And you will find him all over Rastafarian Reggae music these days because he's a genuine convert to the faith and is regularly featured alongside radically religious Rastas.

So then we get to Snoop Dog/Lion - who if one judges by appearances seems the "legit article", but before he even made it off the island Rastas were calling him out as a fake... Accusing a black man, of appropriating black culture, from the very groups that created the very music culture that is his real culture (Hip Hop / Rap was heavily influenced in its birth by Jamaican ex-pats. I forget the guy's name, but one of the first major behind-the-scenes figures was a former Reggae DJ who'd moved to the US) (This is very different from another African American who is seen as the real deal in Rasta circles: Tarrus Riley).

Oh and there's salvation for Katty Perry, should she choose it. Its called Alborosie... An Italian reggae-boy-band singer who vanished at the end of his teens and turned up some years laters working in the studios in Jamaica, with a LOT more hair, and a whole lot of religion. Katty Perry could take the life-steps to become the genuine article of the genre she sings from.

- Crossing over isn't appropriation if you are genuine and manage to convince your adopted group. It worked for the Biblical Paul.
But people can smell an imposter, just ask Bunny Wailer about Snoop...
- I also hate calling this Crossing Over because Eminim didn't cross, he was born into that world, but just not the color 'the outside world' presumes is that world... But I don't know the "proper word" for what I'm trying to convey...

******
TLR version: Appropriation is when you take something for your own benefit without truly engaging it. Crossing-Over, which I lack a better word for (anyone got one?), is when you truly enlighten yourself on something, embrace it, and represent it so well those you got it from recognize you as brethren. Only the "smell test" of human intuition can really tell them apart if the appropriator is trying to hide it.
******

Morally and ethically, intent counts for less than we might wish. Only God knows someone’s actual intent and he does not exist – the rest of us have to cope with the person’s excuses and mealy-mouthed assertions about the best of intentions.

Actually I think the conveyance of intent is nearly everything. This is pretty much exactly why Snoop Dog was accused of appropriating, and Jah Sun has been accepted.

In the modern world there is a term, the 'nopology' - and this is exactly why Monte Cook Game's response to their fiasco in 2014 fell on deaf ears with those protesting it. The 'nopology' comes across to those it is sent to as "we are sorry you have issues"... or "I'm so sorry you're too stupid to be treated with respect." And this is all about "Conveyance of Intent" - not exactly just intent, but your ability to communicate that intent.
Monte Cook's 2014 response just had so many caveats mentioned in it, that it read like a nopology.

This is why we get told as children to just say you're sorry when you got punished for something... and it often gets followed up with "don't make excuses or talk back"... explaining your apology usually just digs a ditch under your feet...

If someone is pursuing writing about real world minority cultures, then there are bare minimum factors of which they need to be aware and which they should pursue. First, the intentions of the writers, artists and other creators involved are at best invisible and at worst irrelevant. Seek out as many people from the culture you are attempting to represent and get their permission for the endeavor, be patient, be willing to walk away from the project if it is not working out – the minorities owe the majority nothing, except at best obeying the letter of the law.

Research and gaining true insight yes. Hiring the "token brown staffer" so you can check the box on the form, no. If you are going to engage with a community, be very careful not to let your own voice talk over them.

It is really not as hard as it might first seem to 'cross that line' and 'get it' with multiculturalism. I live in the Bay Area, and I see people who are capable of handling and representing diversity all the time, themselves from all kinds of backgrounds. Sometimes the internet baffles me and I have to remind myself that around the world - most people are not yet living in a 'globalized' community.

 

[Bagpuss]

I am not certain how else to refer to actions such as college black face parties and the antics of the Red Skin fans.

Okay but can you give an example of where cultural misappropriation has been used clearly as hate speech in any RPG?

And how does "black face" fall into cultural appropriation? People of colour don't black up as part of their culture, "black face" is just straight up racism.

 

[delericho]

Wheaton's Law is misattributed, I think. Proper credit to Jesus, at least. Ghandi. MLKjr.

I don't know about the other two, but I'm reasonably sure Jesus didn't say "don't be a dick". Or, at least, his biographers didn't think it worth recording if he did.

 

[Bagpuss]

“A deep understanding of cultural appropriation refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.”

This I don't agree with, it's like how feminist have tried to redefine racism and sexism, so it only works one way.

Racism, sexism and cultural appropriation are wrong no matter which direction it occurs in.

That being said, I think you have to be careful about calling it hate speech, as what you want to call appropriation might just as well be just part of cultural exchange, or just an interest in another culture.

 

[Bagpuss]

Is that the revised version?

Because I'm having a hard time noticing significant differences in wording or tone.

Yeah I copied both versions into word and ran the compare feature on it to spot the differences. Some are minor edits, some tone down the language a little (like "Cultural approriation is hate speech" becomes "can be a kind of"), one seems to change the meaning of the paragraph all together and doesn't make sense to me.

"Direct translation of a real people and culture is exactly what it sounds like – an attempt to fictionalize a real world people, their culture and frequently their religion. Examples include White Wolf’s [-]books that asserted the Rom people possessed actual magical powers and that Mexico City and Transylvania were home to most of the puerile evil in the world – which has an interesting subtext about the people living in Transylvania and Mexico City.[/-]regional source books, which provide details for places such as New York City, Hong Kong and Chicago."

Bold is added. Seems to completely change the meaning of the paragraph. Removing sorucebooks that probably are worth considering as cultural appropriation and replacing them with New York City and Chicago, which most people would think are about the dominant culture, but also Hong Kong? Not sure what that sentence is trying to say now.

Stuff about Taylor Swift has been added, and to be honest, I don't know why we are getting so many examples of other media in what is a topic meant to be about RPGs.

 

[Bagpuss]

They are only fulfilling a power fantasy, complete with otherising, pursuing the appeal of the exotic and quite probably brown-face or a variant of brown face play.

I'm curious do you have a problem with gender-swapping in roleplaying? IE: Man plays a woman, or woman plays a man?

I mean half the fun of roleplaying is to play a character different from yourself, so why not an Japanese samurai or African-American woman?

 

[Shasarak]

For my whole childhood I was raised with the cultural heritage of a Scot. I thought, childishly, that to some extent things about Scots were things about me, and conversely I was in some way entitled to being called Scottish by right of my birth. I had a proud Scot heritage, from the Wallaces, Burns, and Reynolds in my ancestry. Problem is, it was all based on a lie. When my family traced back its ancestry, it turned out that we were descend from two brothers who immigrated to the United States back in the 18th century. The brothers knew that in 18th century America, Irish people would have more limited opportunities that more privileged races like English and Scots, so they decided that they could pass themselves off as Scots. The told everyone that they were Scots, and were accepted into high social circles where they married well and were successful businessmen. They told their own wives they were Scots and not filthy Irishmen. They definitely told their wives parents. They told their children they were Scots. And they told their children, and they told their children. Their ancestors were still telling this to people to avoid anti-Irish discrimination in the mid-20th century, long after anyone remembered that it was a lie. In fact, I'm positive that some of my ancestors probably would have never agreed to marry a filthy Irishman. Irony, huh?

So what am I, a Scot or an Irish? Does the question or its answer even have meaning? Is either in this context even really 'a thing'? And regardless of the ancestry, would my inheritance of the heritage give anyone else a veto power over being inspired by the culture, art, and history of either nation? And what about growing up in Jamaica? Does speaking Petwa, and eating patties, box drink, and spice buns for lunch make me Jamaican enough to appropriate the stories of my childhood without asking permission?

Well the good news is that a lot of Irish came from Scotland, so you still have a chance!