Cultural Appropriation in role-playing games (draft)

[Dire Bare]

I am uncomfortable when adolescent males play women, because they usually play them as crazy sluts. The running gag about this kind of thing in the Gamers II is not far off the mark.

I teach middle school. There's a lot of things young adolescent males do that make me cringe, on a daily basis. Some of them learn and get better!

Males "appropriating" the female experience by playing characters of the opposite gender isn't the problem. It's young, inexperienced kids doing it poorly that is the problem. And that certainly points to some issues of sexism that hide inside our American culture to be sure.

American culture has made some serious progress over the decades away from racism, sexism, and other ills, although of course we still have a long way to go. But "cultural appropriation", at least how the term is being used nowadays, isn't one of those remaining problems. It's a misused term and misunderstood phenomenon that seems to be the Left's version of "political correctness" on the Right. I usually roll my eyes when I hear either term, because more often than not the user doesn't know what the hell they are talking about.

Ah, Umbran, Celebim, you guys are so much better at this than I am. I find the OP highly off-base, but I'm finding the resulting conversation from you two very interesting and enlightening. So, ah, thanks Grumpy!

 

[1of3]

I just read the discussion and it was very insightful.

I think [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] is quite safe with his bento box. The problem with the term "culture" is that it has two seperate meanings. On the one hand is culture, that is the activities, practices and symbols a group usually engages in. Then there also those practices that are "holy" for the group. That usually includes religious elements, but also art and symbols that are not usually considered religion. If there is a Ministry for Culture, they will usually look after those things.

If you are using parts of small-c culture, you are usually save. And while bento boxes might be typical Japanese, they are probobably not thought of as Japanese Culture. You might even get away with using some parts of special Culture not your own. Outsiders employing special Culture can seem outrageous to group, if the ones employing those Cultural symbols are considered hostile and dangerous by the group.

There are even examples for hostile takeovers of enemies' symbols. Roman generals would pray to the gods of a besieged city to move to an even nicer temple in Rome. And Americans were known to eat Freedom Fries.

Of course, the line between small-c culture and special Culture is not clear cut, and things can move from side of the spectrum to the other.

 

[Kichwas]

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.

Power dynamics / agency. Let us imagine for a second that I hated whites and sat in my room ranting and raving about it all day long. Let us even imagine I did it on a street corner. And lets then imagine I went out and attacked someone(s).

Now... as a minority with little power in the system, in the institutions that shape the USA, no matter which of those three actions I did my impact would be small.

Now imagine I am the very legal and social system we exist in - not an individual, either Chicano/Mulatto as I am, or Caucasian - but the system and social norms. If as the system I disfavor a given race, they will end up in prisons more, or have less access to jobs and education. Their neighborhoods might even be cut off from transportation infrastructure and the ability to obtain such fundamentals as food... (look at "Urban Renewal" and how it was used to move black landowners into projects in the 50s, and place freeways through cities cutting off white and black neighborhoods with entrance ramps often only on the white side - drive through Oakland California and you can directly see this). Suddenly the impact of the rules and norms I have set down is massive. Institutional Bias is real and can have a lasting impact for many generations beyond the era in which it is 'technically in place'. Urban Renewal happened in the 1950s, and it still destroys the lives of black youths today in the 2010s without a single racist person who enacted it having to still even be on the planet. And that's just scratching the surface of Institutional bias. Look at any land deed in Northern California, and you will often find a section that says it is illegal to sell the land to Chinese (and other Asians). Even though many Asian Americans are financially well off today, and these sections of deeds have been declared unlawful since the 1960s by the Supreme Court... the impact of how they forced the creation of ethnically segregated neighborhoods is still felt.


Individual bias versus institutional bias. Anyone can be individually biased and it is bad no matter who.

But only the system can be institutionally biased - and that system is fundamentally structured to favor 'Wealthy, Caucasian, Males, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon' - in that order (50 years ago you could have flipped Caucasian and Anglo in priority - there was a time when being Irish, Italian or Jewish for example, was a very rough experience in the USA - Jewish Caucasians still get bias, and Caucasians of the Arab ethnicity are still given a raw deal). If you happen to have all five in that set, everything is set up in your favor. If you have some of them, you have privileges of varying degrees - and other people cannot do anything to equalize a situation where this comes into play.

I was suggesting the "token brown staffer" actually be the one to write or compose the material on a minority population, be it a direct translation or a pastiche. And then only for their own minority population, not for another minority population.

That's kind of a disturbing way to look at it. Does this mean that as a Chicano, I would be disqualified from writing a 'typical D&D module' because of its Euro-centric roots in a mythic medieval setting? That is just as "ethnic" as if I were to write a setting based on the Inca. And the fact that I am multi-racial and somewhat globalized - does that mean I am essentially bared from writing anything because no matter what I write, I am not truly a member of that group?

On another angle that is missed here... the problem isn't what you assign your "token brown staffer" to... the problem is that ANYONE is a token... I lived in Asia for a time and had quite a few expat friends of White American and White European nationality. They would all describe to me an alienating experience I knew quite well: being the token non-person in any situation there were in. Over there, they were the minority. They thought Asia was being unusual towards them, some few understood that they were experiencing the reality of suddenly being "brown".
- If you're getting some people just to fill in a box on your checklist, and then presuming they are the people for 'task X'... you are dehumanizing them, and yourself.

This is a problem I see all over the tech industry as well. You don't solve bias by bringing in token others... you need to be overall inclusive and diverse in your outlook and in who is sitting in your desks. I've seen European firms that have an essentially 100% Caucasian staff manage to be more inclusive and diverse in what they put out than some American firms that have several 'non-whites' - because empathy, intent, and an inclusive perspective matter a lot more than filling a quota, especially if you then fail to engage and respect. I used to get stock photos for an educational company from photographers in Sweden that somehow managed to find more Chicano and African 'college students and cultural imagery' than a photographer in California could...

Somebody just failed to tell the Swedes that Chicanos and Blacks were not supposed to be used as models for professionals and higher education students / faculty... so they somehow managed to miss learning to disrespect and categorize people by race...

Males "appropriating" the female experience by playing characters of the opposite gender isn't the problem. It's young, inexperienced kids doing it poorly that is the problem. And that certainly points to some issues of sexism that hide inside our American culture to be sure.

I would say it boils down to playing that female as something to observe, versus someone to be.

Its why in gaming I always cringe when a male player says something like "I'm playing a female character because I want a nice butt to look at on my screen". That is direct "objectification" of an other, rather than an exploration of a different perspective.

 

[delericho]

I'd stack bible quotes against Wheaton quotes for usefully-quotable material anyday.

Of course.

Other people saying much the same words absolutely count.

No, not "much the same words". Wheaton's Law is exactly those words.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Out of curiosity, what do you find most objectionable about the column? I mean, aside from my comments about God. What do you find to be the most unreasonable assertion or suggestion?

 

[Dire Bare]

Out of curiosity, what do you find most objectionable about the column? I mean, aside from my comments about God. What do you find to be the most unreasonable assertion or suggestion?

Heh, the basic premise?

"Standard" D&D takes tropes from Western culture, history, mythology, and literature and "appropriates" them out-of-context into something new. Why is doing the exact same thing with Asian cultures, African cultures, or other cultures bad? Does the author of a future "Oriental Adventures" have to be Asian to make it okay? And if this author is Japanese, can he or she include Chinese influences in the book?

When creating art and taking influences from other cultures ("appropriation"), there is definitely a "right" and a "wrong" way to do it, there is a line you can cross into offensive, insensitive material. But where that line lies is fuzzy and different for each individual. But to make a blanket statement that all cultural appropriation is wrong, and worse yet, "hate speech" is utterly ridiculous.

 

[S'mon]

I mustn't have the internal aspect on 'cultural appropriation', I can't understand why anyone would think it was a bad thing, unless they'd been trained to do so (which standard applies to literally anything). I guess I need the Commissars to get my mind right.

 

[Umbran]

I can't understand why anyone would think it was a bad thing...

Well, if you are a Caucasian male in the United States, you've probably not had it done to you, so understanding may be hard to come by.

Think of it in terms of intellectual property theft. Say you were a musician, and you wrote an awesome song. Somehow, by a freak of luck, you got to play it for a music superstar that you've always idolized. And they said it was good.

And then they took it, said it was their own, and hit the Top 10 charts with it. And there was nothing you could do about it. You hadn't documented when you wrote it, and nobody would believe your word against a superstar, and sure as heck they could afford much better lawyers than you could. They didn't have to do that - they already had loads of hit songs, fame, millions of dollars. They had all the power, and you had none, and they took it because they could.

Imagine the feeling of frustration, of violation.

That won't be exactly it, but it begins to approach the idea of how it might be a bad thing to take something as if it was yours, when it really wasn't.

 

[billd91]

Well, if you are a Caucasian male in the United States, you've probably not had it done to you, so understanding may be hard to come by.

On that you may be wrong. There's a current issue rumbling around Tumblr accusing white feminists of cultural appropriation for using the fist symbol embedded in the Venus mirror/women's symbol. The theory goes it was based on the Black Power fist symbol and was used by black feminists. Aside from the strategic foolishness of turning a symbol intended to mean strength through unity into a divisive issue, the claim that the fist symbol originated with the Black Power isn't correct. It dates back to at least 1917 with the IWW (and that case, probably drawn by a causcasian man). But, by the definition most often bandied about for cultural appropriation, we can't call it that even if it is a false claim of ownership because that false claim is on behalf of a minority group.

That won't be exactly it, but it begins to approach the idea of how it might be a bad thing to take something as if it was yours, when it really wasn't.

The problem here is that cultural practice isn't owned by any single individual. It may have developed over decades, centuries, or even millennia. Nor is it clear there's a benefit to exclusive use of it. Is it really an issue for a white model to have cornrows in her hair? There may be issues of blatant disrespect or caricature - Native American sports mascots come particularly to mind, here. But most cross cultural practices, even with some kind of differential in power, aren't blatantly disrespectful nor do they take away anything except exclusiveness.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, if you are a Caucasian male in the United States, you've probably not had it done to you, so understanding may be hard to come by.

So, do you think anyone has ever taken the symbols of Christianity and repurposed them for their own purposes in ways that some believers might find disrespectful? How do you think they feel about the 'Preacher' comics? Or 'Piss Christ'? The Virgin Mary painted in Elephant Dung? The 'His Dark Materials' series? For that matter, the TV series 'Touched by an Angel'? My guess is that understanding is hard to come by, but not in the way that you suggest.

But let me get more to the point, what cultural property are Caucasian males allowed to own under this theory, that they would get to reject anyone appropriating it? In point of fact, if you tried to claim that any aspect of the culture was somehow yours and other people weren't supposed to engage in it or criticize it or mock it or stereotype it, because you were a white male you'd not only be roundly mocked, but would be socially scorned and even blacklisted from certain industries.

Consider even your dismissive claims regarding a person or what they've experienced or what they know of frustration and violation or their ability to have empathy, simply on the grounds of their skin color and gender.

Or do you think Southern white men have never seen degrading stereotypes of themselves presented in popular media?