Cultural Appropriation in role-playing games (draft)

[Bagpuss]

I'm going to use sblocks for some of your stuff that I am quoting so that this doesn't look too huge a reply. It will still look huge mind you.

(Trigger warnings for; racism, religious persecution, sexism, genocide, slavery and related issues)

So trigger warnings for life basically? Not really a fan of trigger warnings, not because of what they were originally intended to do, but how they have been used since. Seriously a trigger warning for racism? Like that is something anyone is going to be able to avoid in everyday life? It's not like you are being racist in the passage. Perhaps a KKK meeting should carry such a warning, but they are hardly likely to put one on, so what does this achieve?

This column will discuss cultural appropriation in role-playing games.

Unfortunately most of you examples seem to be pop-culture references, like Taylor Swift. You mention titles of RPG materials but very rarely look at them in any detail. I think it would have been a stronger article if you had researched those RPG materials you mentioned in more detail.

Maisha Z. Johnson quotes
[sblock]Back to the subject at hand, to paraphrase a column on cultural appropriation by Maisha Z. Johnson that appeared at the Everyday Feminism site;

“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.”

Johnson also states;

“It’s also not the same as assimilation, when marginalized people adopt elements of the dominant culture in order to survive conditions that make life more of a struggle if they don’t.”

Johnson asserts cultural appropriation trivializes violent historical oppression, allows people to demonstrate facile interest in a culture while remaining prejudiced against its actual people and spreads mass lies about the marginalized, among other problems.[/sblock]

Here you take one persons definition of cultural appropriation, a view that on a subject that is controversial at best. Cultural borrowing is something that happens whenever to cultures mix, and it is frequently a good thing. It can lead to greater understanding of the other culture, an acceptance of it and new cultural developments due to the fusion of two cultures.

Cultural appropriation proponents tend to paint any cultural borrowing from a less dominant culture to a more dominant one as a largely negative phenomenon.

The name of the Washington Red Skins is cultural appropriation,

Actually that isn't. The Native American's didn't refer to themselves as Red Skins, that is a pejorative term used by the settlers, it is basically racist not cultural appropriation. The wearing of the headdress and their logo is cultural appropriation. They are different but related issues.

as are college black face parties and most of the music by Katy Perry.

Why not Elvis Presley? Paul Simon's Graceland? etc. etc.

Katy Perry actually responded to the idea of cultural appropriation

"I guess I'll just stick to baseball and hot dogs, and that's it," Perry said. "I know that's a quote that's gonna come to me in the ass, but can't you appreciate a culture? I guess, like, everybody has to stay in their lane? I don't know."

Of course the social justice types, will say "check your privilege" to a response like that, but she has a point. There are a number of areas where cultural exchange happens frequently and on the whole is good is viewed as a good thing Music, Food and Fashion. Without cultural borrowing in music we wouldn't have had Elvis, Rock and Roll which was a fusion of western swing and country with African-American genres such as blues and jazz. Without cultural exchange western food would lack a lot of the spices it has now days, and we wouldn't have curry sauce on chips! Fashion has always borrowed influences from different culture and styles have gone in and out of fashion, people claiming cornrows are cultural appropriation from African-Americans seem to forget it is an ancient hairstyle going back to 3000BC, and found not only in Africa, but worn by the Greeks, Romans and Celts.

Just Talking Digression
[sblock]To digress for a moment, communication always attempts to accomplish something, be it laying out an agenda for a business, a statement of emotion, persuasion to a new philosophy, to entertain at least one person or something similar. All “dialogue” – whatever the format – is about something and dialogue is frequently home to a conflict between the participants, in terms the form of the communication, the emotions employed, who is paying attention to what and so forth. Music is designed to elicit an emotional response, business meetings pursue profit and most conversations serve at a bare minimum as an effort to glen useful information if not an effort by one person to coerce another person into doing something. There is no such thing as “just talking” because all communication is about something and much of it is a contest of wills. The phrase “just talking” is meaningless; both denying the nature and purpose of communication and serving as a moral dodge, a phrase employed by people in an effort to avoid accountability for their message and means of communication. Asserting “you’re just talking” is like saying gravity may suddenly shut off.

The writing, art, design and composition of RPGs is usually a monologue, as it is designed to communicate something, usually someone’s idea of a good time. In its execution – when employed at a game table – it is a dialogue between the participants, the game master and the players. As all of it plays out on the internet, it is defiantly a dialogue.[/sblock]

Not sure what the point of this digression is, and while I agree all dialogue serves some purpose, clearly not all dialogue has the same weight or importance. Me passing a stranger in the street and passing the time saying "Good Evening", clearly doesn't have the level of exchange we are having here. If I chat to a friend at work about who we think is going to win "The Great British Bake Off" I think that falls into the category of "just talking". Neither of us is trying to win dominance, or pass on important information. Still it has little bearing on the subject at hand.

Hate speech and "Just Talking" again.
[sblock]Cultural appropriation can be a kind of hate speech. Cultural appropriation can be a kind of speech against an ethnic minority group, spoken in the language of that ethnic minority. Cultural appropriation is done by gormless people who employ phrases like “just talking” when called on their bad behavior. The fact that fans of the Seattle football team, attendees at college blackface parties and Katy Perry are not actively encouraging racial violence is essentially incidental – they wallowing in their privilege and taking something that is not theirs to take for their own amusement.
[/sblock]

While I agree it can be, I think there can be a lot of cultural exchange and borrowing before it approaches hate speech.

Hate speech "is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group." Even Washington fans wearing headdresses barely falls into that category. Certainly not for inciting violence, which is what most people associate with the term hate speech, but only because it could be seen as reducing the worth of the headdress and thus disparage Native Americans. So using it in this context is just being deliberately inflammatory.

I just want to pick up on "taking something that is not theirs" statement. Does anyone actually own cornrolls, arranging feathers into a headdress (rather than a particular headdress), a particular style of music (rather than an actual tune itself), a style of dress (rather than the dress itself)? People own things, cultures don't own things, they may originate ideas, but the idea that a group of people can effectively have intellectual copyright, in perpetuity on ideas is ridiculous and detrimental to progress, development and understanding.

Cultural appropriation is a problem in role-playing games and even as racism and sexism is arguably getting better, if only incrementally, cultural appropriation is not improving in any meaningful way.

On to gaming at last.

Jonathan Korman , at his Miniver Cheevy blog, wrote a column on the subject of cultural appropriation in gaming. In this column, he stated; “We need to find a way to enjoy the media we like without hurting other people and marginalised (sic) groups.”

Actually he was quoting Rachael at Social Justice League, and her piece on How to be a fan of problematic things careful you've made him actually appropriate, rather than culturally so. (Rachael's piece is well worth a read by the way)

What he actually says in the blog is...

"That said, I have to confess my own ambivalence about some of the rhetoric of “cultural appropriation”, which implies that Group X “owns” some ideas/images/practices/etc such that if Group Y employs them this constitutes “stealing” from Group X. This carries a whiff of Maintaining Cultural Purity which spooks me. Plus it seems to suggest an unrealistic conception of culture, which in practice always transmits itself across borders of all kinds and manifests a stew of crisscrossing influences."

Which I agree with. Still back to Rachael's statement. “We need to find a way to enjoy the media we like without hurting other people and marginalised (sic) groups.” which you say

This is a sentiment with which most people can agree, hopefully.

I guess I'm not most people because I have a problem with this statement. We accept running the risk of hurting people all the time to enjoy things. I enjoy peanut butter, but for some people this is fatal, if we wanted to avoid all hurt we could cause these people, we could ban peanut butter from sale, we could destroy the peanut harvest. I like getting to work on time so I drive a car, countless people are killed by cars on road every year, but it is a risk we are willing to accept.

With cultural exchange we run a risk that some people might feel upset that their culture is misrepresented. It is hardly life threatening. It's a level of "hurt" I'm willing to accept to have RPGs like Werewolf:Wild West, VtM, Mazteca, Nyambe and the countless other RPGs you mention later on.

These aren't hate speech, they aren't KKK pamplets, or BNP propaganda. These are an authors attempt to show aspects of a different culture to other people, they aren't even making huge amounts of money (like Katy Perry) off this cultural borrowing. Niche RPGs like these are never as popular as western medieval fantasy anyway, and it's not like RPGs are big business for most publishers anyway.

Minimize harm, yes, be careful to approach issues of race and culture sensitively, sure, but no risk of harm? Sorry but that just means people will become risk adverse, fearful to publish anything outside their own experience.

There two ways to go about representation, direct translation of a real people and culture and the pastiche, even if both may lead to some variant of blackface play.

Oh dear another emotive term. Really is someone playing an Asian character in say Feng Shui, yellowface play? Is Nyambe blackface play? If I play a female character, is it disrespectful to women, transgender people? Are you suggesting we really to be confined to just playing ourselves in RPGs? As that seems the logical conclusion.

If you are just trying to say something along the lines of; when playing characters of other cultures or backgrounds be careful not to fall into offensive racial/gender stereotypes; then say that, rather than using such emotive language. Emotive language is the sort of thing that will either turn people off from your argument or as I mentioned earlier make them so risk averse they won't every try something outside of western medieval fantasy.

One of the joys of roleplaying it playing someone else, trying to experience a world from a different perspective. Now often that will involve stereotypes as these are easy handles for people to grab, and mistakes will be made, occasionally some people maybe offended, but that's a level of "hurt" I'm willing to accept.

I think I'll leave it there for now, and break this into 2 posts at least.

 

[Bagpuss]

Okay Round 2.

There two ways to go about representation, direct translation of a real people and culture and the pastiche, even if both may lead to some variant of blackface play.

I mentioned at the end of my last post my feelings on the use of the heavily emotive "blackface play" phrase, I've included this sentence again because it leads into the next point about direct translation or pastiche.

Mirriam-Webster Dictionary on pastiche
[sblock]According to Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, a pastiche is something – such as a piece of writing or music – that imitates the style of someone or something else. For example, Stephen King’s short story “Jerusalem’s Lot ” is a pastiche of H.P. Lovecraft’s works, only better. Stephen Sondhheim has composed many tunes that function as pastiches of music originally composed in the 1920s and 1930s. A pastiche does not make the original a subject of ridicule, which would be a satire.[/sblock]

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 regional source books, which provide details for places such as New York City, Hong Kong and Berlin.

I must say I've never heard "Direct Translation" used in that sense. To me direct translation, means a literal translation, where you convert something word for word from one language to another and sometime because of that it sounds weird or in the worse cases the meaning is lost or changed. Direct translation stays slavishly true to the source (hmm perhaps I shouldn't use 'slavishly' while we are talking social justice, lucky you've given a trigger warning earlier).

What you are describing is Fictionalization to use Mirriam-Webster like you did, "to change (a true story) into fiction by changing or adding details". White Wolf's regional source books provide details for such places as New York City, Hong Kong and Berlin, but then add a load of stuff about vampires which clearly aren't real.

Aesthetic, according to Mirriam-Webster, is a set of principals underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or movement and here

I found that definition in Oxford not in M-W. Generally it is more commonly used to describe the study of beauty or designs intended to provide beauty. IE: I planted the tree there for aesthetic reasons. Still you seem to invent your own use for the word in use with RPGs as we see so what dictionaries use it for doesn't seem to matter.

– in terms RPGs – it refers to how cultural minorities, regions and the like might have a particular overall style quickly identified upon sight.

Why not just use "style" in that case? Why not just say Paizo's character has an Arabian style? I assume we are talking about these sorts of characters. I'm not sure they actually count as "cultural minorities" when they are actually in there own culture, Arabs aren't minorities in Arabic countries. "Minorities" seems another unnecessary use of an emotive term. Every culture has a style an aesthetic if you must, and in there own region they aren't a minority.

For example, a character from Piazo may wield a saber and wear a particular set of robes , so the audience understands she possesses a pseudo- Arabian Nights aesthetic. This is to say, she appears Arabian… in a vaguely pop-culture manner , meaning she does not have to know the pillars of Islam . Also, while there are non-Muslim Arabic peoples – such as the Yazedi – such people so rarely appear in pop culture that the pseudo-Arab is usually also a pseudo-Muslim.

That because they are borrowing the style, and applying it to a fictional world, they aren't necessarily wanting to take the whole culture. In the fictional world Islam doesn't exist so it would make no sense for the character to know anything about it anyway. Do we expect Western European styled knights to know all about Christianity, rather than following Tempus or some other fictional diety?

By comparison, any attempt at a direct representation of the Middle East and people of the Muslim faith should get pillars of Islam correct. Too often RPGs fail in this type of effort. Instead, they become efforts at just creating a pastiche, at just ripping off an aesthetic, while pretending to be something more for the purposes of a game.

RPGs [-]don't do[/-] very rarely do direct representations, for example none of White Wolf's stuff is a direct representation, they are all fictionalizations. They take some of the mythology or the style of a culture and use that to create a fictional world. The intention is to be a pastiche, that is the goal. They don't want to be an accurate encyclopedic representation of the real world. This is not a failure this is by design.

Both ultimately serve as examples of cultural appropriation, and while one may be worse than the other, that does not excuse the lesser. Class C Felonies might be more severe crimes than Class A Misdemeanors, but that does not excuse the misdemeanors.

They are both just borrowing a certain style, or myths, or folklore from new sources, usually because Western European style, myth and folklore have been done to death. This isn't cultural appropriation, this is artists finding different sources of inspiration. You need to stop talking like cultural appropriation applies to any and every borrowing from a different culture. The difference between blackface and Al-Qadim, isn't they are both wrong one being a Class C Felony the other a Misdemeanor, it's the difference between mainlining heroine and drinking coffee.

Grumpy's bumper list of problematic RPG materials.
[sblock]
RPG examples of settings functioning as at least pastiches include;
• Mazteca from TSR for Meso-America,
• Al-Qadim from TSR for Persia, the Middle East and North Africa,
• Nyambe from Atlas Games for Africa,
• Kara-Tur from TSR for East Asia,
• Rokugan from Alderac Entertainment Group also for East Asia,
• Osirion in Pathfinder and from Piazo for ancient Egypt,
• Galt in Pathfinder and from Piazo for Revolutionary France,
• Chelix in Pathfinder and from Piazo for Colonial or Post-Reconquista Spain,
• Katapesh in Pathfinder and from Piazo for North Africa,
• Qadira in Pathfinder and from Piazo for Persia,
• Ganakagok, from an independent publisher, for Artic peoples,

Examples of real world settings and even real world peoples, employed for role-playing games include;
• The Ravnos vampires from White Wolf Games for the Rom or Gypsies to use to more widely recognized term, though it is a pejorative,
• The Giovanni vampires from White Wolf Games for the Italians,
• The Followers of Set vampires from White Wolf Games for Egyptians,
• The Assamite vampires from White Wolf Games for Muslims,
• Masque of the Red Death from TSR and its representation of many places, including Eastern Europe,
• White Wolf and its representations of Mexico City and Eastern Europe as home to most of the puerile evil in the universe,
• The Dreamspeaker mages from White Wolf games for all the indigenous aboriginal magical forms ever and in their original incarnation this group formed a single cohesive and coherent tradition,
• The Akashic Brotherhood mages from White Wolf games for most of the Eastern Asian martials arts and philosophical traditions ever as a single cohesive and coherent tradition,
• The Euthanatos mages from White Wolf as a group of mages from southern Asian who more or less worship death and frequently act as serial killers,
• The Uktena and the Windego from White Wolf as Native America werewolves
• Gypsies, from White Wolf, which was a book about how the Rom people possesses actual magic,
• Going Native Warpath, from an independent publisher, which makes a mélange of most of the Native American and Pacific Islander peoples,
• Far West, also from an independent publisher, for most of the Chinese people and cultures while erasing Native Americans,
[/sblock]

There are more than those listed here but this column is not just a list of these things and so we shall move on.

You never go into if you think any of these cross the line (if there is a line) or if some are fine? You also seem to forget that the World of Darkness is fictional. The Gypsies in WoD aren't real world gypsies, and real world gypsies can't do magic. They might be inspired by real world gypsies, but clearly they are fictional. I don't have my books to hand but I'm pretty sure they have that all persons fictitious disclaimer you see in most works of fiction, just in case the person reading it doesn't know the difference.

Taylor Swift referred to twirking – a form of dance generally exclusive to African American cultures – in her video “Shake it Off.” Swift herself did not engage in twirking, but appeared to consider it as something inaccessible to her, something witnessed and considered but not something in which she might participate.

Have you actually watched the video? I suggest you do and make up your own mind rather than listening to the constantly offended types. Twerking was one of several dance styles that appeared in the video, none of which Taylor Swift was any good at.

However, even so the inclusion of twirking in the video offended people.

Doesn't mean you have to listen to them.

Amy Zimmerman , in a column for the Daily Beast, writes “While Swift’s interpretation of black culture was doubtlessly meant as a celebratory homage, it comes off as lazy and reductive at best, and racist at worst.”

And I wonder how many ad clicks that earned her? To give you an idea of the level of idiocy she quotes Rapper Earl Sweatshirt's tweets about the video the first one reads.

"haven't watched the taylor swift video and I don't need to watch it to tell you that it's inherently offensive and ultimately harmful"

Haven't watched it... okay. Then you have a link to another article about the online backlash, which has other great tweets like.

"why are white girls ballerinas and the ones that twerk black thats racist af"

No mention of the modern dance section where they is a wide range of diversity, or the same with the breakdancers, and body-poppers, gymnasts, cheerleaders, band or all the dancers at the end. These people are just looking to get offended for the attention it brings them. People complain when Miley Cyrus twerks as cultural appropriation, then other people complain when only black women twerk in a Taylor Swift video because it is racist for only black women to be doing it. Do you see the problem?

Morally and ethically, intent counts for less than we might wish.

Actually intent counts for a lot, it could be the difference between accidental death and murder for example.

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.

"mealy-mouthed" - means afraid to speak frankly. I wonder why that is in this current climate of outraged twitter and clickbait articles that are happy to call people racist, just because their dancers in 15 seconds of a 4 minute video don't match some diversity quota. Do you think Taylor Swift's intention in that video (you have watched it now I hope), was to instill prejudice, encourage racism? Or do you think perhaps it was to say well people are going hate no matter what you do, and the response to it is proof.

Okay I think I might have to stretch to a part 3... we'll leave it there for now, one last thing though....

[video=youtube;nfWlot6h_JM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM[/video]

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Unfortunately most of you examples seem to be pop-culture references, like Taylor Swift.

As I stated above, that is because cultural appropriation is not often discussed in the general public. The columns by Jonathan Korman and Christopher Chinn are all the ones strictly on the subject of cultural appropriation in RPGs - so I use other discussions to make comparisons.

Here you take one persons definition of cultural appropriation, a view that on a subject that is controversial at best.

Her's is a useful , coherent and concise definition.

Why not Elvis Presley?

He's dead.

Also, Perry is more a part of the modern, current discussion of cultural appropriation than Presley.

Not sure what the point of this digression is...

I am heading off any attempt to say C.A. in RPGs is "just talking," I am heading off attempts at denying responsibility.

Hate speech "is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group."

That is the legal definition. The colloquial definition is; "hate speech noun 1. speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability."

Really is someone playing an Asian character in say Feng Shui, yellowface play? Is Nyambe blackface play?

They can be.

 

[Mallus]

The columns by Jonathan Korman and Christopher Chinn are all the ones strictly on the subject of cultural appropriation in RPGs - so I use other discussions to make comparisons.

I've read some of Chinn's blog posts and all I can say is his opinions don't reflect my experiences as a minority gamer/nerd media fan. From what I've seen, he does a lot of question-begging; accepting for a fact that certain representations/partial-representations/(mis)appropriations are harmful without demonstrating how or why or to whom, specifically. Also arguments of the form: racism exists, therefore this is racist. Or hypothesizing 'someone might be harmed by X'. I don't find that particularly insightful, or helpful.

Then again, I'm probably not the right audience for his criticisms. If you put a hula-dancing orc or an elf in lederhosen in your D&D campaign, I'd laugh. I wouldn't get mad because you stole part of my cultural heritage.

(and in the interest of accuracy, my cultural heritage is best described as "working-class northern New Jersey", despite me being Polynesian & German, also Ukrainian and a little Japanese, possibly some other stuff, too, Hawaiian ancestry can get complicated)

Also, Perry is more a part of the modern, current discussion of cultural appropriation than Presley.

Perry gets a lot of flack for appearing in stuff like Geisha-drag, but I'm don't see how that's meaningfully different from, say, Guitar Wolf dressing kinda like the Ramones (if you don't know who Guitar Wolf is/was, Google them! Then go watch Wild Zero!!).

That is the legal definition. The colloquial definition is; "hate speech noun 1. speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability."

Yes, fine, but how does that apply to settings like Kara-Tur, or Orlais in the Dragon Age games (the snotty, elitist pseudo-French country)?

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

This really twerks me off.

I'm not angry, but I have trouble resisting a bad joke - the worse the joke, the more I want to tell it.

I must say I've never heard "Direct Translation" used in that sense...

I could not think of what else to call it.

Why not just use "style" in that case?

Style, to me, has a different connotation, is more specific and more transitory. Also, while this should be from the Oxford Dictionary (I got the references mixed up), "aesthetic noun A set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: the Cubist aesthetic."

RPGs [-]don't do[/-] very rarely do direct representations, for example none of White Wolf's stuff is a direct representation, they are all fictionalizations...

I disagree - yes, it is a fiction, but a fiction of real people who did not given consent to be fictionalized. While such consent is not required, such things should raise the bar in terms of standards and the effort should be handled responsibly. People should not just just use "it's fiction" to excuse any failures in terms of representation - that is like saying "they were just talking."

Any yes, I've seen the video.

Actually intent counts for a lot, it could be the difference between accidental death and murder for example.

It is not easily proven and is generally invisible.

 

[Bagpuss]

As I stated above, that is because cultural appropriation is not often discussed in the general public. The columns by Jonathan Korman and Christopher Chinn are all the ones strictly on the subject of cultural appropriation in RPGs - so I use other discussions to make comparisons.

But you hardly reference them are all? Why is that? Wouldn't they make more relevant sources?

Her's is a useful , coherent and concise definition.

It's one definition and certainly one you can work from, but you seem to be taking it as gospel. Even if we accept...

“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.”

...as the definition we will work with for our discussion, you list things like

The Giovanni as cultural appropriation, at what point did the Western Culture (USA where most of these writers are from) systematically oppress Italy (also Western Culture), or ancient Egypt, or a number of other of the examples you give later on? Buy this definition Katy Perry dancing in Egyptian costume can't be cultural appropriation as the culture she is taking from is long gone.

Also that definition doesn't place any moral judgement on cultural appropriation, it just defines what it is, as yet I've not seen anything to say if it is a good or a bad thing.

He's dead.

Also, Perry is more a part of the modern, current discussion of cultural appropriation than Presley.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Surely you can't mean because he's dead what he did wasn't cultural appropriation, because in that case Katy Perry's actions become fine after her death. If you aren't saying that then Elvis, Paul Simon, any musical artist is just as appropriate to the discussion as Katy Perry. If what she did was wrong, then what they did was, then Rock 'n' Roll, and everything that came after it is cultural appropriation. Are you willing to accept that?

I am heading off any attempt to say C.A. in RPGs is "just talking," I am heading off attempts at denying responsibility.

You haven't even defined what they are responsible for, or if cultural appropriation is a bad thing. Why deny it when you've not provide any evidence that it is even wrong?

That is the legal definition. The colloquial definition is; "hate speech noun 1. speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability."

So they are pretty much identical.

Here's what I said again.

Hate speech "is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group."

The legal definition has used disparages instead of insults, intimidates instead of threatens. They have clarified that speech includes gestures, conduct and writing. They have also used "protected group" rather than spelling them all out, but basically it reads the same.

It doesn't alter anything I said, so why deflect?

They can be.

Of course they can be, so can fancy dress, if you black-up like a minstrel, but most of the time it isn't. Would it not be better to call out the occasions when it does go too far than to make some generalised statement that playing outside your own culture "may lead to some variant of blackface play".

We don't say dressing up at Halloween may lead to blackface play, because for the vast majority of people it is harmless fun. We just call out those people that do blackface.

By making a blanket statement, using emotive phrases like "blackface", like an accusation, you will scare people off what is otherwise (more than 99%) of the time a harmless, enjoyable and sometimes educational hobby. You and others like you will put writers off looking outside western european fantasy, for fear of backlash from the constantly offended, and the public shaming they bring.

You can talk about you consider problematic things, but do so carefully, try not to stir up emotions, talk rationally and reasonably. Point out where things have been done well, what works and what doesn't. What is enjoyable so long as we understand it is a fiction, and perhaps even based on an now out-dated and offensive stereotype.

I'm still yet to be convinced cultural appropriation is a bad thing, and you've not really provided any strong evidence of where it is. All cultures borrow from each other when they meet, I don't think labelling one type of borrowing appropriation and another assimilation really helps.

 

[Bagpuss]

This really twerks me off.

I'm not angry, but I have trouble resisting a bad joke - the worse the joke, the more I want to tell it.

It's okay I can shake it off.

Style, to me, has a different connotation, is more specific and more transitory. Also, while this should be from the Oxford Dictionary (I got the references mixed up), "aesthetic noun A set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: the Cubist aesthetic."

Yeah I think we both know what each other means we shouldn't really get hooked up discussing semantics.

I disagree - yes, it is a fiction, but a fiction of real people who did not given consent to be fictionalized. While such consent is not required, such things should raise the bar in terms of standards and the effort should be handled responsibly. People should not just just use "it's fiction" to excuse any failures in terms of representation - that is like saying "they were just talking."

It isn't really, there is a great difference between something that clearly is fantastical fiction, like WoD Gypsies that gives Romani people ties to vampires and access to magic and say doing a sourcebook on the Romani people for a modern setting like d20 Modern, that claims they all have the Criminal Starting Occupation. One is borrowing elements of mythology and culture for a clearly fictional work, the other is clearly racists (and thankfully doesn't exist).

This is part of the problem I have with "cultural appropriation" as a term. As it seems to lump in any cultural borrowing by a dominant culture along with things that are a little problematic, and things that are clearly a racist stereotype. The whole thing is more nuanced and lumping them all together under one label of "cultural appropriation" isn't at all helpful. Well unless you want to get clicks for your blog by engaging in outrage culture.

Any yes, I've seen the video.

So do you really think it was racist?

It is not easily proven and is generally invisible.

You know you could just listen and believe what people tell you about why they did things, give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume innocence until you can prove guilt. Don't be so quick to shame, be the calm voice, people that are intentionally racist normally aren't that good at hiding it.

 

[Mallus]

I disagree - yes, it is a fiction, but a fiction of real people who did not given consent to be fictionalized.

Who has ever given their consent to be fictionalized? Did Joyce get the permission from the residents of Dublin? Did David Chase get north Jersey to sign off on The Sopranos? Heck, even Karl Ove Knausgård didn't seek out the okay from, like, everyone he ever knew before publishing My Struggle -- however, I'll grant you, in his specific case he probably should have.

And how does an entire cultural group go about granting consent to be represented in the first place? This sounds nonsensical to me. How can I "own" culture? Do you feel like you own your cultural heritage?

"Consent" seems like the wrong word to be using here. It comes off as a rhetorical dirty trick; using a word freighted with meaning w/r/t the current discourse about sexual consent and re-appropriating it to lend emotional weight to an argument about cultural exchange.

edit: let me throw this out there: misrepresenting a culture in fiction (or fiction-like things) is, usually, an aesthetic failure not an ethical one. In order for it to be an ethical failure, there needs to be (much) more than mere 'not getting it right'. As if 'getting a culture right' was a trivially easy thing to do. Also, you first need to establish 'right according to whom?'.

One of the things I dislike the most about these arguments about cultural representation in media/RPGs is this notion that "other" cultures are something you 'get right or wrong'. Like they're a standardized test you can ace with the right amount of study. Any writing about culture, regardless of the context, has to be approached with a reasonable set of expectations about how thoroughly & accurately they will address a subject the size of a 'culture'.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

[video=youtube;-boC4a9SFFM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-boC4a9SFFM&index=32&list=PLmAnaUwVu3wmNK98wh-PCM22mycONgux_[/video]

Me and my mild stammer glory.

 

[Lwaxy]

They can be.

You know, for all my involvement with "black culture" - my Nigerian ex husband btw begs me to ask you what exactly that is, as there are probably more different black cultures than there are nations in the world - the first thing I heard about "blackface" was when there was all this online bashing going on of this poor young star (forgot even who it was, as it didn't seem to matter) because she applied make up to look like her fav char of some show last Halloween. After picking myself up from the floor nearly dying of laughter, I read up on it and had so many facepalm moments I would really have needed an extra pair of hands.

Seriously?? Someone dressing up as someone else gets bashed because they actually took their time to get the skin color right? That was the most nonsensical thing I ever heard. It has absolutely nothing to do with the real "blackface" issue that went on in the past. There is such a clear, obvious difference between wanting to portray a specific thing and mocking a whole race or culture. I talked about this with several, including 'colored' people here in Germany and none got it. My son's black cousin (in London, where painting your face for a costume seems to be mostly a non-issue as well as it seems) insisted to have his face in a white make up to be Clark Kent - not just anyone, specifically Kent - and no matter the overly stupid political correctness with superheroes lately, Clark Kent is white. Where is the problem? In the minds of activists-gone-crazy US non-whites mostly, as it seems.

My son is what in Nigeria is still called a halfcast without any of the negative connotations this carries in other places. He was constantly put in the role of the black king when it came to Xmas plays, even though he's relatively light, especially in winter. On one hand, he loved it because with the exception of the Ghanan boy who once did it, he always had a part in the plays. On the other side he just wanted to be someone else once in a while. He was so happy when he got other parts in other plays. If he had been any darker, I'm sure he would have asked to paint his face white to portray his fav chars during Halloween or carnival. And nothing at all wrong with that.

Then I read the news about how there is international pressure on Germany to change the tradition to usually put one of the kids portraying the 3 Kings in black make up. Same thing with the Netherlands and their Zwarte Piet. Seriously, some OTHER culture, mainly US culture (if there is such thing as a coherent one) tries to force their views on European countries? That's not CA, but call cultural assimilation again. How is this not insulting?

The racism coming from those people flying under the name of anti-racism is quite frightening. It is even more frightening to have it extended to RPGs. Yeah there are issues with stereotypes, but those go in all directions. It is a stereotype, for example, that everyone who puts on different skin color make up is "insert-color-here"facing anything. In most cases they are just taking on another persona. So yes, intend matters. It always does. It is the most important thing to judge on.


Oh and someone else mentioned above that real "Gypsies" can't do magic. Don't ever say that to a Rom - they might agree with you, but from what I have seen most would not (and actually me neither but that is a different story).