Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Dire Bare]

I honestly have trouble not reading this as downplaying.

Okay. I don't.

Poverty doesn’t just suck. It can be a matter of life and death. It can be the threat of becoming homeless in the near future). It can mean having to choose between food and heat. It can mean struggling with things like mental illness. It can mean closer proximity to crime. It can mean tremendous difficulty receiving much needed medication and healthcare. Struggling to get by in this country is everything. It puts you at 0. I am not saying there aren’t other disadvantages, and that those disadvantages can’t feed into poverty but in the US I don’t think anything cones close (except perhaps a terminal illness or homelessness—which has a strong correlation with poverty anyways) to the disadvantage poverty imposed on a person. It really can be a struggle to survive if you are impoverished in the US.

I agree with all of this. Not sure how any of my posts, or any other posts in this thread, are downplaying the grim realities of poverty.

I'm also not sure how it's relevant to the main discussion at hand.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Figure out what percentile different incomes are for being white or for being black in America. And I'm guessing being in the lowest 5% of black is a lot worse off than the lowest 5% for being white. Which doesn't mean that anyone in the lower levels of wealth isn't having an awful time!

But here you are talking about averages and if a group is disproportionally poor. What I am saying is being poor is the single biggest disadvantage you can have. If a person is making under 13,000* dollars a year, and very unsure what their future months are going to be like, it is little comfort to them if you bring up that 5% thing. People aren't averages, they are individuals. My point is, when someone says in this sort of discussion to you that they are an exception to the averages you are talking about, the response: well it sucks to be poor but at least you are not X, is rather infuriating I think.

Poverty rates are affected by what group you belong to, and that is a problem. In my state I think something like 6.5 % of white people are below the poverty line, while 17.5 % of black people are below the poverty line (pretty sure native americans and latinos are the highest percentage in poverty here). So obviously that is something that is worthy trying to fix. But my point is that is a struggle for all of them. Being that poor, is a struggle a person who isn't poor really can't appreciate. If you are saying to someone, white people have advantages, and they are saying to you, but I am not in that upper 93.5% of white people, I am in the bottom 6.5%; can you see how downplaying the impact poverty has on them might drive them away from your point of view? Sure you can quibble over whether they have other advantages but I think the end result is it looks like you are losing sight of how big a problem poverty is for people in a country like the US

 

[Dire Bare]

. . . its actually pretty easy for competent people to fix their wealth problems.

I'll push back on this one. It's certainly possible. But for many, it is far from easy.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I agree with all of this. Not sure how any of my posts, or any other posts in this thread, are downplaying the grim realities of poverty.

I'm also not sure how it's relevant to the main discussion at hand.

I may be reading into your posts, things I have gotten from other peoples posts in the past (just posts where people have said the sorts of things I am talking about, and it was clear to me they didn't appreciate the full gravity of being poor).

It isn't particularly relevant. It is a side point (I made it in response to one thing you had stated, and I brought it up because it is something that annoys me in some of these conversations). But it is probably not worthy derailing the thread further into that territory

 

[Dire Bare]

I see it a lot. Especially when it bumps up against identity issues. For example when someone is told they have privilege and their response, perhaps because their very poor, is to mention their economic struggles. Rather than respond to that with the same degree of empathy I see people in that camp have when it is an issue of identity, so often, when it is economic the response is always something like “well you may have trouble paying the Bills but you aren’t X” (or variations on this sentiment.). And I think that sentiment really underestimated the mammoth effect poverty has on the quality of a persons life. It also underestimated what it means to struggle to pay bills. There is a vast gulf in the US between someone who is poor and someone who is doing just fine or well off (in significant, material ways that amount to more than mere ‘challenges’). And it is very hard to get out of poverty once you are there

When the discussion involves white privilege, and somebody responds with their experience with poverty . . . . sorry, but poverty doesn't erase white privilege. Being poor does truly suck (sorry-not-sorry if that word isn't strong enough for you), but even the poorest white person in the US enjoys a degree of privilege his minority brothers and sisters do not. That doesn't take away from the challenges of poverty, but poverty also doesn't erase white privilege.

However . . . and I'm as much to blame here . . . I'm pretty sure we've crossed the line from the thread topic into the no-politics rule here on ENWorld. So I'm out of this side discussion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I agree, being poor is no picnic, it holds a lot of people back in various ways, but I'd MUCH rather be poor than be a minority, as its actually pretty easy for competent people to fix their wealth problems. Heck, I've been dead broke a couple of times. It was annoying, for sure, but then I didn't grow up that way either. Both are bad, anyway.

Again, being briefly dead broke, which does suck, is different from extended periods of poverty. The health impacts are massive, the possibility of ending up on the streets is very real, your exposure to crime is so much higher, and sometimes you go hungry or don't have medicine you need. If you add to that, you are trying to raise children, or you have a serious medical condition that makes pursuing work even harder, it can really be crushing, even a death sentence. And while some people escape poverty, a lot don't. And I think especially in the US with our lack of real serious social programs, it is hard. It is very easy to blame people for being poor or homeless, but I think most people who are those things, would prefer not to be. Again, if it is so easy for you to understand all the disadvantages you perceive about someone being a minority, why should it be so difficult to understand how big a disadvantage it is to be impoverished (that is about as substantive and material as disadvantage can get).

 

[Bedrockgames]

When the discussion involves white privilege, and somebody responds with their experience with poverty . . . . sorry, but poverty doesn't erase white privilege. Being poor does truly suck (sorry-not-sorry if that word isn't strong enough for you), but even the poorest white person in the US enjoys a degree of privilege his minority brothers and sisters do not. That doesn't take away from the challenges of poverty, but poverty also doesn't erase white privilege.

However . . . and I'm as much to blame here . . . I'm pretty sure we've crossed the line from the thread topic into the no-politics rule here on ENWorld. So I'm out of this side discussion.

I am not going to derail any further, but I just don't agree with this at all.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Heh, regarding the Satanic panic stuff. I have to admit, I never encountered it. One of my very first DM's was an ordained minister. My best friend in high school, who gamed with me, was Mennonite and his dad was a minister. The whole Panic thing just completely passed me by.

I don’t know if this could formally be considered “satanic panic” (1982?) but hearing about this game that religious people wanted to ban made me want to know more about it. I probably would have eventually found D&D anyway, but it’s what pulled me in at the time.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I am not going to derail any further, but I just don't agree with this at all.

Yeah, like I was saying, I think that fundamental disagreement underlies a lot of these higher-order disagreements.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don’t know if this could formally be considered “satanic panic” (1982?) but hearing about this game that religious people wanted to ban made me want to know more about it. I probably would have eventually found D&D anyway, but it’s what pulled me in at the time.

I think it technically began in 1980