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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 6702933" data-attributes="member: 891">Going to quote some things out of order here...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:and: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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />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...******TL<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />R 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.******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... 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.</blockquote>

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