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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 6699738" data-attributes="member: 3887">I appreciate a good provocation, but when you try to draw equivalencies between "blackface", the use of an ethnic slur as a major American sports team's name, the terribly mediocre pop music of Katy Perry, and later, the various uses of pastiche in RPG game supplements, you've left "provocative" behind and entered the realm of "I don't really understand racism and the experience of racism". I'm going to try to be constructive here, but forgive me if it goes astray (I've got a mean streak, too, in addition to a love of 1980s Prince). What I took away from your essay was that it's a work of well-meaning white ally (please correct me if that's mistaken) who, intent aside, was talking for minorities rather than to them. I found that provocative, though probably not in the way you meant. Less a call for mutual respect and more of a search for ways of ameliorating white guilt, which came with a heaping side of speaking about the experiences of marginalized groups, rather than asking them. A lecture, not a dialog. Can I ask how much experience you have gaming with non-white/non-majority culture people? Do you have some practice to go along with the (post-colonial, critical race-influenced) theory? I'm a lifelong, non-white American gamer. I've experienced ethnic slurs directed at me (though never as part of gamer culture). I've run games for majority non-white groups, heck, half the table talk in my high-school D&D campaign was in Farsi. Your post left me feeling misrepresented, not really represented at all, when nominally it was all about respecting people like me. Do you have any specific questions to ask about the experiences of non-white gamers? I can try to help out, lend my one voice. I'm sure there are other folks around here who can add theirs. As for a specific point, I'd like to address your concept of 'agency' w/r/t 'appropriating' other cultural elements. I can tell you flat-out, no white friend has taken away my agency by playing a samurai. To suggest that's even possible is frankly, insulting. You wouldn't question my playing a faux-English knight, why do you imply I'm somehow demeaned or lessened by someone playing an Asian-inspired character? This isn't theory for me. In one of my best campaigns, a white friend played the ever-honorable 'Kenji Yamamoto' for a span of 4 years. This wasn't hate speech. It wasn't an attack on my identity -- which, of course, begs the question that the identity of all non-white Americans is based around ethnicity. It was a Tuesday night among friends (and, perhaps more importantly, equals). Racism is complicated, and serious, and it discussions of it are not served well by critical frameworks that draw dubiously-constructed equivalencies between things with unique & specific cultural contexts. Sorry, this has gone on long enough and I've barely scratched the surface. There's the more intellectualized part of this where we can debate to what extent "culture" can be owned, licensed out, and/or given "consent" to use.  This commoditization of culture practices & their treatment as some sort of IP is problematic in and of itself. Then there's the whole "media consumption as political activism" --ie, "consumerist activism" -- and questions of what benefit that actually provides to marginalized groups. Oy vey this can go on and on.Tl; dr, you're obviously concerned about this, so please, ask how cultural appropriation is experienced by gamers, if at all. You might be surprised by the diversity of opinions you get. And, again, if you have personal experiences as a non-white gamer, forgive my terrible assumptions about you, and share from your perspective.</blockquote>

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