D&D 5E 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

[Shasarak]

Sarcasm aside, history has taught us that white people have spent an awfully long time doing an awfully large collection of bad stuff awfully effectively, and that maybe with chattel slavery, multiple cases of genocide and the oppression of most of the glob in our comparatively recent rear view mirror, a good dose of humility might be in order.

Just a thought.

The only reason someone may imagine that "white" people have some kind of monopoly on oppression is because they have only ever studied "white" history.

 

[Mouseferatu]

It's far too complex a topic for this thread/board, but there are actual historical differences between how American slavery was practiced and how it existed elsewhere in the world. (Not saying it was in any way okay elsewhere, of course, but one can at least argue that what we had was even worse.) It's truly fascinating to read up on.

 

[IlluminatedSeraph]

Africans frequently enslaved each other, Egyptians had slavery, as well as Romans. Slavery was pretty much everywhere back then. It is just that white people cover a decent portion of the world, and control a number of important resources. This makes them historically important, so their actions are much better documented than most places back then.

This is taking the general shape of a derailment, so I'll keep this brief - Africans, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks (most of the ancient world) had a variety of types of forced labor and bondage which went under the name of slavery. They varied quite a bit, but if you're trying to compare them to chattel slavery as practiced against Africa by the 'civilized' Western world, there just isn't any comparison to be had - none of them are a match for the indiscriminate application based on race (rather than, say, debt or capture in war), the perpetuity unto the last generation and the brutally oppressive death counts in service to the economic engine. That isn't to excuse or deny the awfulness of other historical examples, but chattel slavery was in a horrible league of its own and the deflection of that horror by comparing it to other historical examples is either ill-informed or actively mendacious.

I'm not going to get more into that now (again, derailing), but (Lanliss) please feel free to IM me if you want to continue the conversation with citations and class reading.

 

[Lanliss]

It's far too complex a topic for this thread/board, but there are actual historical differences between how American slavery was practiced and how it existed elsewhere in the world. (Not saying it was in any way okay elsewhere, of course, but one can at least argue that what we had was even worse.) It's truly fascinating to read up on.

I was simply establishing that it was not just white people being horrible to their fellow man. As I said in a post up thread, pretty much the entire human race in the past was horrible, and equality of any sort is relatively recent as far as I know.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I was simply establishing that it was not just white people being horrible to their fellow man. As I said in a post up thread, pretty much the entire human race in the past was horrible, and equality of any sort is relatively recent as far as I know.

Heh. Sadly, not remotely an inaccurate assessment of humanity in general.

 

[Lanliss]

Heh. Sadly, not remotely an inaccurate assessment of humanity in general.

There is always the fact that, since we actually started trying, we have made great bounds towards equality. 8000 years of horrible lives for everyone, then 2000 years of near constant innovation in technology and how to treat your fellow man. It may seem a long way off, but I could see us having a decent level of equality, regardless of race religion or sex, in the next 2-300 years, which might as well be light speed in comparison to how long it took to get this far.

 

[billd91]

I was simply establishing that it was not just white people being horrible to their fellow man. As I said in a post up thread, pretty much the entire human race in the past was horrible, and equality of any sort is relatively recent as far as I know.

That doesn't really matter when the events and issues we're talking about are taking place mainly in countries dominated by white people and with high degrees of racially based privilege benefiting those white people. If these events and these boards were concentrated in South Korea, for example, we might be discussing racism and other issues from a perspective of having been a highly brutalized colony of Japan or if in Tibet, talking about Chinese privilege. That, however, isn't the case. We talk more about the issues and environments we know and experience.

 

[Mistwell]

Sarcasm aside, history has taught us that white people have spent an awfully long time doing an awfully large collection of bad stuff awfully effectively, and that maybe with chattel slavery, multiple cases of genocide and the oppression of most of the globe in our comparatively recent rear view mirror, a good dose of humility might be in order.

Just a thought.

First, welcome to the board.

Second, people of all races have done evil and good in large quantities. Pick a continent and race common to it, and you will find a history of great good and terrible evil. Your suggestion that you are in a position to identify one for shaming and demand humility is preposterous, as is your Faith in a concept of some sort of original sin for being born Caucasian which requires repentance through humility.

Perhaps if you feel humility is such a virtue, you should lead by example before lecturing others on it?

 

[IlluminatedSeraph]

First, welcome to the board.

Second, people of all races have done evil and good in large quantities. Pick a continent and race common to it, and you will find a history of great good and terrible evil. Your suggestion that you are in a position to identify one for shaming and demand humility is preposterous, as is your suggestion of some sort of original sin for being born Caucasian which requires repentance through humility to escape judgement and make reparations for the evils done by others.

Thank you for your kind welcome!

And I think my earlier post to Lanliss and Tia's bit of generous navigation on the last page pretty well sum up why I think the "lots of people do lots of evil everywhere" argument is derailing nonsense. Not that it isn't true, mind you, just that it's both utterly obvious and completely beside the point. As for my position to pass judgement, setting aside the fact that I'm obviously a silver-tongued demigoddess who you all ought to be bowing down in worship of anyway, I'm a reasonably intelligent human being with an education in history and about as competent a person to identify who in history has covered themselves in shame as anyone. One of the perks of being a sovereign, self-willed person is getting to exercise one's moral judgement when and how one wishes, and I'll go on doing so regardless of how preposterous (great word, I love that word) you might happen to find it.

And I don't know about original sin, but I certainly have a lot of noticeable passive benefits in my life for being Caucasian (greater probability of even modest family wealth, greater safety, greater access to networks of prestige and advancement, freedom from a whole variety of fears and judgement that I don't have to face from other people), and a lot of those benefits are the logical outcomes of the shadow my ancestors cast on the history of my country. A certain amount of gracious awareness of that, combined with humility, and a commitment to use those advantages to help others who aren't so fortunate seems like the least I can do for my fellow human beings.

That's what I think, anyway. But clearly if it was a cunning plan to escape judgement, I have failed and must take five minutes to rethink my life.

EDIT: It always amazes me that people persist in conflating humility with being afraid to take, hold and defend an opinion, especially people who presume to know what my faith does and does not dictate. Your opinions and judgement are your own, and of course you have every right to them, but I have no obligation to pretend to uncertainty in mine or display a respect I don't feel toward your logic just to make you comfortable.

Besides, vanity is definitely my favorite sin.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

First, welcome to the board.

Second, people of all races have done evil and good in large quantities. Pick a continent and race common to it, and you will find a history of great good and terrible evil. Your suggestion that you are in a position to identify one for shaming and demand humility is preposterous, as is your suggestion of some sort of original sin for being born Caucasian which requires repentance through humility to escape judgement and make reparations for the evils done by others.

Perhaps if you feel humility is such a virtue, you should lead by example?

If you live in the West and are white, you live on the stolen inheritance - through slavery and colonialism - of others. Period. Your ancestors took the labor, land, and resources of people from all over the world and you have inherited it.

Yes, people of all races have done evil. People of all races have done systemic, mass evil.

White people, and white people alone, have done GLOBAL evil, and now live on wealth stolen from generations upon generations of the people of other races.

Plus, back to my original t-shirt related point... only white people have had literally every single catchy "look how great my demographic group is!" slogan possible used by groups that thoughy slavery, segregation, colonialism, and genocide were good ideas, ought to be returned to, and in fact did not go far enough to the point that those slogans are basically synonomous with those groups and those beliefs.

Do I believe we owe reparations? Absolutely. I - as a white person - have inherited wealth and land and opportunity built on the backs of people who were stolen from their homes and forced to work without pay and to their deaths, then the same done to generation upon generation of their children. On spices stolen from Asia and land stolen from America. I grew up poor, and I still grew up - and moved out of poverty - on stolen land and wealth and opportunity. If we believe that there is a right to inheritance at all - that the possessions of the deceased ought to in any part be passed on to their heirs rather than taken and distributed in some other way - then we must acknowledge and find some way to make at least slightly right the stolen inheritances of the world.

But none of that has much to do with t-shirts. White supremicists, racists, and much worse have ruined those for white people by grabbing all the good slogans.