Tomorrow I will be attending GenCon, the biggest table-top gaming convention in the United States. Held in Indianapolis, Indiana, it is four fun-filled days in celebration of the art and hobby of role-playing. There is something for everyone there: games, films, seminars, workshops, dancing, music, and parties. It’s an annual event where people from all over the world come to let their hair down and their inner geek out. As a lifelong gamer, I am excited to go to GenCon.
As an ethnic minority, I am apprehensive about going to GenCon.
For all that GenCon offers, it lacks in minority gamers. Last year was my first GenCon, and as I explored the convention, I saw almost no one who looked like me. By far, the most visible minorities at GenCon were the hired convention hall facilities staff who were setting up, serving, and cleaning up garbage for the predominantly white convention-goers. It was a surreal experience and it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which whites were waited upon by minority servants.
Gaming has a race problem. For all its creativity and imagination, for all its acceptance of those who find it hard to be themselves in mainstream society, gaming has made little room for people of color.
“The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that…
Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on.”
–Scott Woods, author and poet.
I am the first in my family to be born in the United States. The child of immigrants, I struggled between cultures. I was the only non-white kid in the neighborhood and one of only a half-dozen minorities in my high-school. I was an outsider.
I found refuge in Dungeons & Dragons in my freshman year. I could escape who I was in those heroic characters and epic stories. I could be someone I was not. I could be strong. I could be fierce.
I could be white.
As an awkward teen, like other awkward teens, I wanted to be accepted. But acceptance meant something different to me, as perhaps it does to other minority teens. Acceptance meant being white.
The broad acceptance that white people enjoy is the unspoken—but clearly visible—rule of our society, reinforced through a thousand structures and symbols. It pervades everything around us, reminding everyone that white people are the center of the story, no matter what story is being told. As a kid who desperately wanted to belong and fit in, white was the color of god.
Most games—the genres, the artwork, the characters, the stories—were Eurocentric and white. It was easy, perhaps even expected, to be white when playing a character. I was always Eric, or Gunthar, or Francois; I was never a person of color. My name was never my name. And no one thought it was strange that I played people so different from myself.
It has been a long and complex road to finding myself, and comfort in my own skin and ethnic identity. The first step was simply realizing that white wasn’t the only color of value. It came in drops: a character in a movie or a book that was of my ethnicity, who I could empathize with and imagine myself as. These characters, when they appeared, gave me my own heroes, heroes that were like me.
Gaming never afforded me those options. I had to force them, going against the pressure to conform. The pressure was so intense that the first time I played a character of my own ethnicity was actually online. Eventually, I did become confident enough to bring non-white characters to the table, but I still sometimes faced puzzled looks, and questions about ‘whether I was trying to make a statement’ when all I wanted was to simply be me.
I don’t think there are official surveys and statistics on the gaming subculture, but perhaps this study on the top 100 domestic grossing films in science-fiction and fantasy is an indication of similar trends in gaming: There are only eight protagonists of color in the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy films. Six are played by Will Smith and one is a cartoon character (Aladdin). None of these protagonists are women of color.
Things are changing in the world of gaming, but too slowly. The designers are mostly white, especially lead designers and executives. Equally, the key officers of most conventions are almost entirely white. Usually, they are well-meaning people who do not realize how their roles and decisions impact the larger gaming community and its lack of diversity.
GenCon is emblematic of this problem. Of the twenty-seven Guests of Honor (in various categories), only two are people of color. The judges of the prestigious ENnie Awards for role-playing, hosted at GenCon, have been almost exclusively white since its inception. The same is true for the nominees and winners of the Diana Jones Awards. There may be more efforts to include people of color in gaming artwork, but where are the real life people of color on the grand stage of gaming?
Furthermore, GenCon is disturbingly tolerant of deeply offensive material. Shoshana Kessock wrote about her experiences with Nazi cosplay and paraphernalia at Gencon shortly after returning from GenCon 2013, and I had similar encounters. It would be impossible to imagine minority players running around GenCon in t-shirts that read ‘Kill the white man!’, yet the convention welcomes and profits from images of racial hatred. GenCon has weakly worded policies to prevent these horrific violations, but it has failed to enforce its own rules.
These are symbols, important symbols. If the color of all the leadership, of all the roles of power and recognition, the entire structure is white, and if this same leadership is tolerant of hate-speech, it gives a clear unspoken signal to the non-white community: You can join us here, but only if you leave your history, your people, and your emotions at the door.
I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased.
Is it any wonder, then, that so many people of color in the community try and submerge their own ethnic identity? They do not wish to stand out or to be recognized. In most societies it is dangerous to be an “other,” and in a subculture as white-dominated as gaming, things feel especially unwelcoming.
Too many conversations on race and gaming die before they even start. I have seen more energy, debate, and engagement by gamers on the minutiae of rules and trivia than I have on the weighty topics of race and gaming. Gamers will spend endless days and millions of words fighting over the pros and cons of the Wacky Wand of Welding, but when a person of color brings up issues of race and diversity in the community, too many gamers roll their eyes and say, “Oh not again. Why do they have to be so politically correct? Can’t they just have fun?!”
Despite the apathy and dismissal, I know that there are people who want to work with the minority community to change these realities. I know there are allies and advocates who want to make gaming a different place, one that’s open in new ways to minorities and their communities.
If you’re one of those people, here’s where you can start:
- Listen. The Gaming as Other series is a great place to start. There are a handful of panels at Cons on the topic and I’ll be sitting on two of them at GenCon: “Why is Inclusivity Such a Scary Word?” and “Gaming As Other.” Keep engaging, listening and supporting. We notice your support and it gives us the strength to keep going.
- Hire more people of color and give them agency, visibility, power, responsibility, and credit in a wide variety of meaningful and important areas in your organization. Do not simply hire a token minority. Do not use people of color as a form of marketing.
- Reach out to minority groups and invite them personally to conventions. Your neighbors, your co-workers, the people at your church, all of them.
- Offer and play games that are actively and intentionally more inclusive.
There is a lot we can do together as a community. Gamers have always prided themselves on being accepting of those outside the mainstream. People of color want to be accepted too. GenCon is the flagship of gaming, and thus is a golden opportunity to start this process. Let’s start to have a conversation about the structures that led to the low number of minorities as Guests of Honor and ENnies judges. Let’s push GenCon to make changes to those structures so that people of color have a seat at the table for those important decisions. For many of us, gaming is not simply a hobby, but a home. Let’s make it both inclusive and diverse.
A. A. George is Director of Operations of an international non-profit and a passionate advocate of children’s education; he speaks regularly on the topic at numerous venues, including TEDx. In his spare time, he is a tabletop gaming enthusiast, larp organizer, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner. His talks and panels on gaming and race can be found under the banner of Gaming As Other.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAS. So glad someone with a platform is saying something. Some of us did a panel touching on such problems within nerd/geek culture at PopCon, and I’m very glad to see this addressed, every time it is addressed. I will be at GenCon and will make an effort to come say hello at one of your panels on Friday!
-Leah
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Underrepresented minorities I believe. But over 50% of my gaming circle from high school and college (and some of us are set for 5e over Skype when it comes out) are Asian.
The issues you raised about a struggle for personal identity through role playing are important and interesting, but compeltely different than counting the faces of a self-selected group of people who show up for an event that anyone can attend by paying a fee.
If you go to GenCon, then by definition it’s not all white anymore. If you create a game then gaming creators aren’t all white anymore. Complaining about it isn’t going to change that any faster. I suppose you could encourage friends of various races or ethnicities (or genders!) to show up with you, but you probably have white friends too, so don’t invite them and then you can get the numbers up.
Why would anyone really care about the makeup of the larger community? Gaming is usually something you do with small groups of friends or people with common interests, so the demographics of people you game with is your own choice to make (if you care at all). I played RPGs and PC games for decades and never once attended a gaming convention. I’m more interested in the people I play with regularly than some sort of organized larger group.
1) Not “making room for” minorities is not evident in an entire industries lack of interest in doing what the author believes will attract minorities.
2) A small percentage of white people are interested in tabletop RPGs. Black people are %12 of the American population.If the same interest were present in Black America, you’re still looking at a comparitavely small number.
3) Cultural differences- particularly Black Americas enactment of masculinty- might reduce the amount of interest in nerdery even more.Like a previous commenter noted, there seems to be no shortage of Asians intersted in gaming.
4) Transparent attempts at appealing to minorities often come off as contrived.Are we just talking about asking artists to use lighter browns in favor of peachy hues? Or are we talking about adapting gameplay to a significantly different vision of the world? One is arbitrary, the other seemingly impossible.
5) It’s a kind of oppressive ideological impulse to hold one culture in contempt for simply enacting or manifesting their culture in an organic way. In other words, why should white nerds be seen as martinalizers for simply creating & playing the games they want to? What could they do otherwise?
6) Gaming is for everybody who wants to game. The mechanics of games are not culture-coded.It’s a set of logic propositions to do with risk/reward scenarios. Everything after that is up to the imagination.While some might be done to let those who don’t know about it find out, the idea that creators changing how they create, or gamers how they game, is going to “make room” for someone who isnt in the room with them is silly. If you have an imagination and can understand the rules, you can play. Using ones imagination freely is the point.If we want that for people who are darker than us , the only thing we can do is practice it ourselves.
Could not disagree with this more. I am an educated white male of 42 years for the record. I have a bachelors degree in history from Roosevelt University in Chicago Il. (a very socially liberal University)
I will not make the “color-blind” arguement. I will not say “some of my best friends are black”. I understand what institutionalized racism is, and its insidious effects on people and society. I understand that minorities in general are under-represented in the RPG and gaming community as a whole. At the risk of being dissmissive and apathetic, racism, institutionalized or direct, is NOT an issue in the gaming community. Or at least not nearly the issue it is in society, specifically American society, at large. I have often made an observation to my friends as to the seeming lack of Hispanic attendees to gaming conventions. Is this because of racism? or is it simply a cultural bias against, or unawareness of, these kinds of entertainment? How on earth can you see Gen Con as an unwelcoming place? As a 25 year attendee I have seen all kinds of people and gamers, and only once, in all that time have I ever witnessed an act of overt racism. Even that act was not really so overt as I dont think either person involved was really aware how racist they were being. To claim that GenCon subtley promotes some kind of institutionalized racsim is also ridiculous. The very fact that this kind of convention exists, and indeed thrives, is because it is intrisically INCLUSIVE, NOT EXCLUSIVE. Everyone is welcome, black white hispanic ork or elf, it matters not. If you feel uncomfortable going to GenCon due to the color of your skin, then that is an issue of yours, not the gaming comunity. We welcome you with open arms. GenCon management, guests of Honor, Staff, etc..yes there is some holding of responsibilty to ensure that these kinds of positions are REPRESENTATIVE of those who deserve it, as should be the case in all of society. But is it an organizations fault for inviting the most popular and talented entertainers of a specific genre to a venue, and the majority of them are of a particular race or color?
I cannot intelligently speak on Gen COn policies regarding cosplay as i am unaware of them. If they are out of line, then they should be addressed or removed. To insinuate that management is some kind of nazi sympathizer is a bit much. I plan on attending a war game, using a German Army, and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a German WWII era tank. Is that too much? What if I wore my SS replica hat? If you put literally thousands and thousands of people together, you are going to get a couple of knuckleheaded, perhaps even racist Nazi’s, in the group. If you are uncomfortable, you should complain, file a petition, try to get things changed. Seemingly what you are trying to do with this post is to scape-goat Gencon for a much larger societal issue. I feel this is grossly mis-guided as Gencon and the gaming community as a whole, is a great example of how to show people to get along and just play!
I’m a latecomer to gaming – sold my first story to Catalyst Game Labs less than a decade ago – but I recognized this racial exclusion from the first. I’m white, but at that time I’d been married to my wife Valerie, who is black, for nearly a quarter of a century (third of a century, now) and between us we’d raised three proudly biracial children, so I was a little more self-aware, or culturally aware, than most white folk.
Because I believe this unconscious racism (which I call white hegemony when addressing it to forestall defense reactions from fellow white folk) needlessly hurts and limits the gaming community, I have deliberately made minority, female, and minority female characters central to many of my stories.
In doing so I have more than once been accused of colonialism, of co-opting characters and cultures to which I have no legitimate access. But the alternative for me as a writer – someone not in a position to hire or promote anyone – is to do nothing at all. Quite literally my stories are the least – and most – I can do to try and bring racial balance to what is otherwise a creative and exciting culture.
I won’t be at GenCon this year, but I will be bringing a couple of my children and at least one grandchild in 2015. I look forward to attending any panels you’re on then.
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@@@@@ A.A. : Good luck on your panels.
@@@@@5: Your comment’s overall tone, is the type of argument A.A. did not want to happen. And was trying to avoid, I think with the “I don’t see race” argument that is encountered.
Racism takes place in many ways, often that are not overt.
I did a summer study in Austria. I was with a group from Texas.
It was surprising the comments and questions I received once the locals found out I was a Native American from Oklahoma.
Some comments were harmless, some made me very uncomfortable. To such that I tried to avoid being left without at least one Texan around.
Is this the same as being a black gamer? No. But it helped me understand the feeling of isolation several have talked about.
Being the “only one” like yourself surrounded by a group of strangers that all (or mostly) look different from yourself, can be very scary and intimidating. Even if the environment itself or the people you encounter at the event are friendly.
A.A., I totally get what you’re saying. I’ve wondered about the issue, too; I’ve been a gamer for… let’s see…25 years now, which is plenty of time for me to look around in at the hobby and say to myself: “Where are all the black/Hispanic/Asian/Indian/basically just not-Caucasian gamers?” It didn’t make sense–d10s and graph paper don’t care where you came from, and anybody can pretend to be a whatever. ‘Cause the hobby, after all, is about having fun with fantasies and stuff. Everybody in the world’s got fantasies and stuff, right? So where was everybody in the world?
And then, it would hit me: they’re off doing something else that bakes their biscuit. Just as I could be out doing anything else, I’d chosen to learn, like, twenty different ways to pretend to whack an orc. My would-be Rainbow Coalition of Part-Time Dragon Punchers, they were doing their own thing.
That’s cool (Be Excellent To Each Other And Party On, after all), but too bad; I’d like to share this joy with everybody who wants to. But they’ve gotta want to, because it’s gotta be their fun, too.
So, yeah, not-male Caucasians are pretty underrepresented in the hobby. But nobody’s gonna show up to have fun they don’t want. Ergo, I don’t see this as a problem. A detriment, yeah, and lifetimes of missed opportunities…but not a problem of exclusion.
As an alternative, I propose a different problem to solve: why don’t folks who aren’t Caucasian dudes take advantage of this wonderful, often-hilarious opportunity, and how do you present it to those who’d want to?
One of the bottlenecks for participation in roleplaying is the reliance on peer recruitment in activities like RPGs that require a fairly high learning curve. Early gaming was noticeably lacking in women participants as most of the initial impetus came from men, who recruited from their own social circles. Only when gaming styles changed with World of Darkness storytelling systems, which helped to recruit and retain some dedicated women gamers, did the percentage of women participants noticably start to grow. So, a similar draw (change in gaming styles, content, presentation) may be needed to facilitate the recruitment of non-Euro gamers.
There’s definitely on truism in what you wrote, leaving aside issues of racism and inclusion: African-American participation in the creative side of not only tabletop gaming, but the fantasy genre altogether. Strong voices exist in SciFi (Octavia Butler, hello!), but you don’t really see this when the spaceships and aliens get replaced by swords and fireballs.
Where this truly becomes odd is when you realize most of fantasy comes from our mythos, and just how fun, different, and interesting some of the non-white mythologies are. When AD&D gave us Oriental Adventures, the sheer difference made that an interesting thing to add to, or even base a campaign around, and later the Shou, Chultans, Mulan, and other “non-white” races of the FR always struck me and most of my nerd friends as more interesting than more white people in Cormyr living out the same stories we’d heard a million times. A fully fleshed “afrocentric” game setting could certainly be not only interesting to play, but could also open some minds… I still laugh every time I hear someone shocked to realize that black africans ruled egypt, or had some of the most advanced cities during the golden age of Islam (what, did you think the Moors were Arabs?).
What I truly find ironically humorous, though, is that possibly the most racist thing that’s ever been done in D&D, the “these elves have black skin so they’re evil!” Drow, are considered by many to be the epitome of what’s sexy in D&D; just do a google search for “sexy fantasy art” and you can’t throw a rock without hitting an Ilythiiri. Even back in 1982, I had a (white) friend who literally insisted on playing a (non-evil) drow character… primarily because it gave them a “different” and “more interesting” background than the usual white-as-snow Conan/Fafhrd/Merlin characters that were the standard at the time in the white-oriented settings of the day.
A.A., I am thrilled to see article. As a Black gamer from the first generation of gamers I have lived with this problem for over 30 years, and I’m sad to say that things have not improved much since I started.
I attended my first GenCon in 1995. That year’s con had an attendance of about 25,000. Of those, I saw about six other Blacks… not counting the food service and custodial staff (who outnumbered the Black attendees I saw). To say that we were underrepresented there would be a massive understatement. I have observed the same trend at other cons that I have attended — indeed, it’s even more pronounced at anime cons.
@LukePski: You have a point re the Black community’s ideas on masculinity, and those ideas certainly affect the number of Black male gamers. Having your masculinity questioned because you don’t have a basketball in your hand is not a comfortable thing, and it can be devastating for a teenaged boy. But while this is a problem of the Black community rather than the gaming community, more sensitivity from fellow gamers regarding this issuecertainly would’ve helped me in high school. I can’t imagine that it would be a bad thing for young Black men today.
Finally, a ray of hope — the gaming community in San Antonio, TX is doing our part to reverse the trends. Our local gaming convention, Chimaeracon, has a significant minority presence in attendance, and the convention officers include me and several Latinos. SA also has a homegrown Latino-owned gaming company called Pinche Games. People of color are still not represented as well at Texas cons and in Texas game companies as we are in the general population, but the gap is narrowing.
I have to point out that the “As a white gamer, I don’t see a problem here” attitude, and the attempts to place the lack of participation solely on the heads of the gamers of color, is exactly the same sort of attitude that was expressed towards women and their concerns. “Why aren’t women gaming? I dunno, I guess they’re off doing something else that bakes their biscuit.”
The main problem we have at this point, is convincing the community that there’s actually a problem. And that is probably going to take at least as long as it was to convince gamers that the concerns of women are legitimate.
5) It’s a kind of oppressive ideological impulse to hold one culture in
contempt for simply enacting or manifesting their culture in an organic way. In other words, why should white nerds be seen as martinalizers for simply creating & playing the games they want to? What could they do otherwise?
This.
Racism indeed.
As a caucasion white male I absolutely should not be allowed to enjoy *my* cultural heritage, the stories of *my* ancestors, of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, the Sorceress Morgaine le Fay and all the sword and sorcery outgrowths of that.
No, I have to be not ‘colour(culture) blind’, but be colour/culture-sighted and put all other colours and cultures ahead of mine even when celebrating my own culture.
Because otherwise its me who is racist!
@Corbon: No, you don’t have to put other cultures ahead of your own to not be racist… but you do need to be willing to make space at the table to not be racist. Racism isn’t about prejudice, it’s about power differentials lending strength to prejudice. Celebrating your heritage isn’t a problem until it interferes with someone else celebrating theirs.
There have been attempts at multiculturalism in gaming. They have mostly been shouted down or ignored except when the alternate culture is Asian. There is an Africanesque setting for D&D called Nyambe. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it. It could’ve been marketed better. But even among those who did hear of it, White gamers stayed away from it in droves. And I’m sure that most of them would describe their reason for that as a lack of interest. Here’s the problem with that — as a person of color, I am forced to be interested in your heritage if I want to participate in the hobby. That you feel free to be less interested in mine sends the message (I hope unintentionally) that my heritage is not important. That creates a hostile environment that can potentially chase people away from the hobby. I would like to see a friendlier face than that on the community.
@14. ErictheTolle
It’s going to take LONGER. Much longer here’s why:
Every gamer out there more than likely has a connection to a female at some point. Thier mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, girlfreind, daughter or neice.
Not so with the exposure to peoplee of color, especially black people.
This whole bloody country as an empathy problem in general. The farther you get away from that inner sphere of the white male, lesser the empathy for that person.
Just look at Ferguson, Missouri.
@5 – wait, you’re a history major, and you still go *anywhere* with nazi symbols/paraphenelia of any kind? Got in himmel, why? As a representative group of humans, Nazi Germany is pretty much the categorically wrong one to continue lauding in any fashion. I could understand if you were a kid nowadays who hadn’t studied WWII, didn’t understand the vast evil that was done, etc, but you are informed and still *own* an SS replica hat? Yes, to answer your question, that is too much.
@19: If you look at most TV shows or commercials that seems to be the case. (sigh…)
but that’s a whole different topic.
Wow. How different can experience be when you go from one country to another.
I’m a RPG gamer since I was 8. I’m not white (multiracial, looking mostly Asian). And I participated in a lot of RPG conventions here in Brazil. And let me say, I saw gamers of all races and walks of life in these conventions. I played and game mastered in lots of tables, and saw a diverse combination of races in most of them.
I guess there’s a difference between the US RPG market and the Brazilian RPG market. Both are passing through difficulties, but the time when the hobby peaked and how it did is different. US RPG hobby peaked in the 80s, while Brazilian RPG hobby peaked in the 1990s (and especially in the mid-90s) and the famous writers that attended Brazilian conventions (like Steve Jackson or Mark Rein Hagen) noticed that the profile of the RPG player differed in both countries, with the American ones being mostly older people while there were lots of children playing RPG in Brazil. RPG in Brazil became popular especially during the Anime craze of the 1990s, due to the policy of the main RPG magazine of that time (Dragao Brasil). I guess that would be reason behind the difference in racial profile of the gamers as well. Each generation of Americans is becoming more ethnically diverse, due to immigration. Since most RPG players in the US are older, they most probably are whiter on average than the general population is now.
Look at some galleries of RPG events in Brazil.
http://www.tagmar2.com.br/GaleriaDetalhe.aspx?Folder=RPGCON%202011
https://www.flickr.com/photos/125515339@N04/sets/72157645373214537/
http://valhalla-rpg.blogspot.com.br/2010/09/5-quero-jogar-rpg-como-foi.html
I’m curious how you balance calling to make “people of color more visible” jives w/ your cautioning to not “use them for marketing”. The former is very difficult, if not impossible, to do without doing some of the latter.
Consider me shocked that a convention of table top gamers being held in Indiana is not the most racially diverse gathering of people. I’d be willing to bet that a gaming convention held in, say, Texas, would probably feature a more diverse crowd. Quelle suprise, it does.
@22 SFC B
As a person who lives in Indianapolis, but is not native to Indy, I can say I was surprised at the amount of racial diversity in this city. Definitely not as great as other places in the US, but I personally live in a neighborhood that is at least 60% not white, and my husband had only one white kid in his class last year.
Indiana is not known for its liberal attitude, but you shouldn’t make assumptions like this based solely on stereotypes.
If “Elminster in Hell” is really the story of your ancestors, you should totally go after Ed Greenwood, since he claims to have written it! How dare he take the fabled story of your grandparents, about the mightiest wizard in the Forgotten Realms?
Great work, Ajit! Im glad you wrote this.
If you really want to feel like a minority, just be a female gamer! Of any color!
@Corbon: Uh… you do know the Knights of the Round Table included a black guy and a few Arabs, right?
The author played D&D and felt compelled to roleplay a white person? Weird, the D&D I played was full of gods and mythos from different cultures, which was the attraction for me. It’s fantasy, not roleplay working in an office.
Maybe the author should get out of the midwest if they want to experience a more diverse group of people to hang out with.
My response after 35 years in gaming?
Horse manure.
Over those three decades I’ve had active gaming groups with more colors and flavors of the rainbow than I can count in and out of combat zones and in the Third World and by no means does GenCon – or *any* Con – represent this community and by no means do we need another PC attempt to make a place at the table that already exists for anyone who wants to take the seat.
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A colleague pointed out this article on Facebook and I have been wondering if I should share my comment here and seeing what’s been said I feel I really must. Racism isn’t one thing and its not cured by the fact that people of different races at times come together at a table to role play.
Today I was looking at pictures from the first day of GenCon. I’ve looked at over 200 pictures, so far I’ve seen six women, one person of South Asian decent, one of East Asian decent and one who could be Latino. No blacks. I’ve also seen two cosplay outfits that used German military insignia similar to those used by Germany during WWII. While Rivet Wars is taking a WWI approach, there are certainly elements of their costumes that could trigger people with issues with Nazis. So, 3 non-whites out of about a hundred or so photographed people over many photos from several albums.
Now, on to my other issues which I’ve shared previously on another site.
Something that struck me while reading some of the comments in that article is NPCs of color. At least within the games I’ve played they are rare. Very rare. Unless playing in an area that is predominantly non-white, like say Rokugan, the setting for L5R and even then some of the people have very Caucasian features. Practically non-existent and much like flesh crayons of days of old meeting a new NPC it is so ingrained that the NPC is white by default that mentioning a NPC is white is unnecessary language. Of course much the same could be said of gender and sexual orientation and there I think those are often used to sensationalize a NPC and that’s an important issue but it gets away from the topic at hand.
Race appears all over gaming. The author touches on the inapropriate costuming that is racially charged at GenCon but that also hits an aspect that is true of gaming, its absurdly Eurocentric with a healthy dose of Orientalism thrown in. There are lots of reasons for this, people like the history of their own people, white people tend towards written history which Europe and parts of Asia have in spades. Africa with its more oral traditions then gets ignored by white game authors as part of a cultural bias. The language of gaming is very technical which, again generalizing, is more comfortable with a white than black audience. Of course simple race (race meaning ethnicity not elves, Hobbits, Klingons, etc…) representations is woefully inadequate and while many table top games have gotten better about their covers looking more like a Benetton ad once you crack the book the example characters, the “I” characters of the narrative are overwhelmingly white often with a token female. So you get extreme tokenism instead of actual acknowledgment or empowerment for people of color let alone a honest invitation to non-white players to join the experience.
This is a conversation along with others that needs to be had everywhere within gaming, not just tabletop gaming; I write while glaring at my stack of PS3 games… which I love but also have issues with. Thank you for bringing this to my attention Brennan. Now to struggle with writing a reply to the actual article to have the knee jerk white comments not be the majority.
While many gamers individually would welcome their non-white brothers and sisters to GenCon it is a very white convention. It is hard being the person(s) to break the mold, who enter in as one of the few African American, Latino, Asian attendees. It takes time and perseverance to turn it around so that GenCon reaches the 12% black attendees to match the statistical population representation. Its not easy and most white people don’t know how hard it is.
So next time you plan on going to GenCon invite your friends who are not white, who aren’t male, discuss it as a real possibility for them to join in on. I don’t have the answer but if a lot of us did this I think it would at least help.
@32: By “people with issues with Nazis” you mean almost the entire post-1939 world, right? I would assume gamers would know the difference between playing an imaginary character and actually being a Nazi. Those that can’t tell the difference — or at least give the benefit of the doubt until actions show otherwise — don’t really understand the level of imagination required to role play.
And imagination is the key to all this. You can complain all you want about the art on the cover, but the whole point of tabletop and RPG gaming is that you are not limited to the written game rules. Nothing is more inclusive than free use of your imagination. If you still have problems with race under those terms then you are playing with the wrong people.
Unless there’s some policy that I’m not aware of, anyone can go to Gencon. You are not being judged by the powers that be there. So any racism you encounter is a problem with an individual.
Assuming that a group of similar people all have the same attitudes based on their color and gender is the basis of all racism anyway, so maybe focus on people whose actions warrant it instead of condemning a whole community.
I’m disheartened to learn that you feel someone “not seeing race” isn’t a positive thing. If I treat everyone with equal respect regardless of race, is that not what we want? Why assume I’m seeing non-white people as white people? I’m just seeing people. After all, I don’t look at white people and think “Yeah, another white person! We can totally be friends!” I am far more likely to feel a kinship with someone based on a social activity like gaming than I am to feel like I have things in common with someone whose skin is the same color as mine. But it sounds like you want me to see you and see your race first rather than just see you as a fellow gamer? And you want me to make assumptions about your identity, history, and culture based on your race? Isn’t that exactly what I’m _not_ supposed to be doing? I know this is the internet and this probably sounds argumentative, but I am genuinely confused and distressed. I thought I’d been treating people the way they wanted to be treated.
@34: Maybe you are, and good for you. (treating people the way they want to be treated)
But there are also people who “don’t see race”, and really do try to treat everyone as if they have the same background as themselves.
Stephen Colbert had a great little bit about that on his show while interviewing an African-American guest. While it made for some decent comedy, the guest had some great replies as well.
Every once in a while I watch a show. The token “other” friend makes a joke. The white people look at them blankly, and the friend says something along the lines of “I need more “other” friends in this group.”
It’s passed off as a joke, but it really highlights there is a cultural difference, even if all of the friends have grown up in the same area.
I am white. I won’t go to GenCon—I don’t want to be part of the problem. (haha only serious)
I know what you mean. People look around for people like them. I was watching the European athletics championship the other day (I’m European too, to boot) and I was thinking, ‘Where are all the white people?’
(irony trigger warning)
Well, there were lots of whites there, but they were all in the stands, cheering the athletes. It feels like whites aren’t even trying, you know? I mean, what’s my race doing? Or maybe the non-whites should slow down a bit, and make some room for the 95% or so whites in Europe. Sometimes I wonder if we’re inferior.
(irony over)
People will do whatever they can do / are invited to do / love doing / are accepted doing. So, to agree with you on a point, yeah, if I were other-raced and went to a Con and the main panelist were someone from my race, I might go: ‘Yay, someone of my race!’ Or I might not, but I can imagine that happening. That might be a plus. I don’t know how much that would count for me; I guess your kilometrage varies (I told you I was Euro), and for some people it counts a lot, for others it counts very little.
Depends also how much you feel that people around you are just people, and not representatives of some race. And—how much the environment around you makes you feel like you’re just a person, or whether you feel so singled out that suddenly you are acutely aware of yourself as a minority. (I was agreeing with you again.)
Too bad you were in America and not in Europe. Come over to the Dark Side (no pun intended), where we play Eurogames, not D&D. You very rarely see a white meeple. Everyone plays coloured.
Or, in your little group (because that’s gaming, cons are not), use your imagination. Sven? No no—my character is called enDlani. The snowy barrens? Of course—this is the Kilimanjaro. If they can’t deal with that, then ditch them for other friends.
I hesitate to even post, since these topics are so often quicksand.
And that’s part of the problem. Is there a problem with inclusiveness of minorities and/or other cultural backgrounds in gaming culture? Yeah, I think there is. Is it a clear and simple problem with a clear and straightfoward solution? Sadly, no.
Some problems are circular: if there aren’t very many people from a given minority doing a thing, then you don’t have many to choose from for Guests of Honor, staff, other role model positions…and without those role models, people from that minority may feel out of place, so not so many come, so there aren’t many to choose from…and around we go.
Then there are the tight-rope walking problems:
Hire minorities–but not as tokens, even when vastly outnumbered in the current sub-culture.
Don’t be racist–but don’t tune out color/race either.
So many SF/F stories focus exclusively on white characters and European backgrounds–but white writers who attempt to use non-European backgrounds/settings/cultural elements are often accused of cultural appropriation or colonialism (as pointed out by #7).
I understand that both sides of each of these are founded on genuine concerns. But it certainly feels like a “no-win” situation at times for those trying to do better.
I definitely think these are conversations worth having as a community (many overlapping geek communities really). Let’s just please do it with as little angry finger-pointing and as much compassion and understanding as possible.
At GenCon 2013 I played a game of Werewolf. There were probably about 20 of us, I’m not sure. If I had to think about it now I would say that, based on probability alone, all of us were white. But I can’t be sure. What can I be sure of? That 18 of us were human, and 2 of us were ffilthy werewolves.
Another time I competed against four other railroad tycoons as we raced to secure our routes before the others. As to the races, genders, beliefs, or sexual orientation of the other four I can only really speak for my wife on account of the fact that I live with her every day. The others? I don’t know. It really didn’t come up I guess.
I played a game with a Brown coat, an Assassin, and a Jedi. Now that idiocy has forced me to actually think about it, I think the Assassin may have been black. At the time, I really only saw him as someone with whom I shared two passions: tabletop gaming and Assassin’s Creed. If anything, being the only one at the table not in costume, I was the ‘minority’.
If you have to call me a ‘racist by apathy’ just to feel better about yourself, I’d say that’s less a problem with the gaming community and more just a problem with you. When I go to GenCon, I see gamers. Is it a predominately white crowd? Yes, now that you mentioned it and I had to start mentally segregating races, it is. If that’s a problem for you, don’t blame ‘gaming’ as a whole. Get out and start sharing your passion, start recruiting people you want to game with.
While you’re out trying to bring non-whites into the fold, I’ll be recruiting anyone who shows even a minor interest.
As a person of color and second generation immigrant myself, I say Gencon =/= gaming
A convention that is not enforcing its own policies is not a problem in gaming, it’s a problem with that convention.
The barrier for entry into gaming as a developer, designer and publisher has never been lower; these days, anyone who wants to create and publish content is free to do so. Last I checked, Kickstarter, Drive-Thru, or Lulu didn’t have a “white’s only” signs up.
I’m sorry that you didn’t feel comfortable until you were much older playing someone your own skin color or even playing someone not white, but that’s not a problem with gaming.
I’m also sorry that some conventions seem to be overrun with Nazis, but that’s more of a Nazi & a convention problem than a problem with gaming.
If GenCon can’t clean up its act, maybe it shouldn’t be the flagship of gaming. Most gamers don’t go to GenCon, though, and most gamers aren’t Nazis.
If there’s a race problem, it’s not with gaming.
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I’ve sometimes wondered how this particular issue looks from someone else’s perspective. If you asked me, I would say that I was surprised at the race and gender diversity of gaming/anime/comic conventions when I started going to them back in the late 90s, since society basically says — and the sentiment was stronger back then — that nerd stuff is for fat white boys. I saw more diversity than ever when I went to New York Comic Con last year. I don’t know if GenCon is just an unwelcoming event — I’ve never been — or if it’s just that the problem is more widespread than that, and I notice it less because I’m just not part of the group that experiences this sort of thing firsthand.
And saying that tabletop games being more inclusive will result in medieval European fantasy being marginalized is a strawman argument. Pathfinder does it pretty well, I think. They keep their iconic rulebook characters diverse in terms of race and gender, and while there are plenty of white-majority European fantasy countries to go around, there are also a lot of other cultural analogues. (Granted, Paizo has a tendency to divide their regions up into nations of hats, to the point where it doesn’t make a lot of geographical or cultural sense, but the effort is clear, and Pathfinder is still selling well.)
A few things:
1. Indiana as a state is 84% white people (as of 2010 census data). While I know people come to Gencon from all over the country, I’m sure there is a significant local representation. If you go to a con in a more diverse area, you’ll see more diversity. I used to regularly attend I-CON at Stony Brook University on Eastern Long Island. The NY Metroplex is one of the most diverse areas in the nation, and I-CON was consequently quite diverse. I won’t deny that whites were still in the majority, but there were numerous non-white folks from all different backgrounds.
2. As other commenters have said, conventions shouldn’t be seen as representative of the larger gaming community. I have attended only a few other “nerd conventions” in general, and while I’ve seen plenty of diversity there (Otacon, Philly Wizard Con, Dragon*Con, NYCC), I would never think to judge all gamers in the United States and certainly not the world, by convention attendance. Given the tight-knit, often insular nature of gaming groups, it’s no surprise that a significant section of that population don’t attend cons.
3. I’m a straight white male (if you count Sicilian as strictly “white,” which I don’t), but I was introduced to the world of RPGs by one of my best friends. He happens to Filipino. This friend of mine brought me into a Shadowrun 3rd Edition group while we were in college back in 2004. He was indeed the only non-white member of the gaming group, but I believe that represented the lack of diversity in the Binghamton area where we went to school. I knew other gaming groups on-campus that were mostly or even entirely Asian. However, even our white-dominated Shadowrun group, playing characters of other ethnicities was perfectly normal and nobody ever blinked an eye. My friend often played female characters, which was also perfectly normal.
4. If you want to use anecdotal experiences at larger gatherings, here’s one for you. In Midtown West, on W 37th Street between 5th Ave and Avenue of the Americas, there used to be a place called Neutral Ground. It focused on RPGs and CCGs, but also sold some comics and other related merchandise. I’ve only been there once, with the aforementioned Filipino friend, but on that visit we were absolutely in the minority as light-skinned human beings. There were very few women (I’ll never deny the lack of gender diversity in the gaming community, something I find very unfortunate and baffling), but the vast majority of customers browsing and actively playing tabletop games were black.
5. In no way do I want to brush off your experience as a non-white gamer. However, I believe you may be looking at it from a specific, narrow perspective of your personal experience. Gaming is a hobby, and as you put it, a home. Like any hobby, anyone of any background can feel free to get into it. Don’t blame the community, or white people as a whole, for ostracizing non-whites when attendance to conventions is completely open and well-publicized for all human beings to take advantage.
Ultimately, minority populations will gain voice, agency, and power by doing it themselves. This is not “bootstraps,” this is reality. Civil Rights in the United States were not won by white folk on behalf of the black folk. Black Americans won it for themselves. Sure, whites had to become accepting of blacks (and by extension, other minorities) as equals, but the black population had to fight for that. Let’s not point the finger at the white majority and invoke the White Man’s Burden. Because that’s what I’m seeing in this post, though I’ll allow I may be misreading your intention. If non-white people want to game, then they need to go find a group to play with. If they want to go to a convention, buy a ticket and get there.
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Folks, the question isn’t whether the author’s experience lines up with our own. If it did, the post wouldn’t have been necessary. This is an opportunity to hear what someone else has seen and felt coming from the same hobby and the same convention as us. That it’s not what we’ve seen—that it’s not how we’ve felt—is why we need to listen.
Let’s ask ourselves this question. Why is our first instinct to dispute the validity of Mr George’s perspective? Why are we making bulleted lists of what doesn’t ring true to us? Why would we rather debunk all of this rather than consider it? The answer is that we are gamers and we’re not racist, so clearly we can’t be part of gaming’s race problem. We don’t want to be. That’s not an identity we’re comfortable with.
The problem is that how we want to feel about ourselves has no effect on what’s actually happening, and how that’s making others feel about themselves. Pretend for a moment that all the facts presented here are inaccurate. Even if that were true, we still have a person who feels alienated in the hobby that we all love. Isn’t that important? Isn’t it worth examining how that happened? Clearly the author didn’t choose to be alienated. There’s something real happening at GenCon that caused it. If we don’t understand what that is, then we are definitely missing an important part of the picture. How can we see the bigger picture?
We could try listening.
@47: The author clearly makes the point that his identity issues in his youth were his own thing.
The main problem that I have with the article is that he is blaming a large group for what amounts to person-to-person issues. When you experience racism at a place like Gencon it’s the fault of a person, not a group. There is no large corporation or organization that is alienating him on purpose, so this is not a matter of de jure discrimination.
Gaming can, with a little effort, also be free of de facto discrimination. Unlike with movies, TV, books, and video games, the content of these games are 100% flexible and changable according to your own imagination and preferences. And, unlike with online games, you are free to create a gaming group made up of any selection of people you choose. You can exclude or include at will.
So he is attacking a community that is better equipped to include anyone than almost every other hobby community. There are no actual barriers to entry other than the ones inside a person’s own head. If you are too shy to talk to people or too hung up on race, then yes, you will have a problem. But it’s easier to overcome those problems in gaming than it is in other activities and communities.
I don’t know why someone’s color of skin should matter, it should be the content of the person. You seem to be the person that cares about race and so in my opinion you are much more of a racist then I.
And if you reply that I feel this way because I am white then you have proven my point that you feel that the potential color of my skin is more important then my character.
You should stop worry about other peoples inclusiveness and just worry about your lack of inclusiveness.
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@47. JayTreat:
Nobody is saying that George chose to be alienated. But just because he was alienated doesn’t mean that Gencon as an institution or the people there are at fault.
Go back to my story about Neutral Ground and how my friend and I were many shades lighter than most of the gamers in there. If we were less secure in our respective heritages, or for many other reasons, we could have felt alienated by the lack of white and Asian people in the store. Instead, we just remarked to each other that it was unusual to see such a demographic switch, and went on with our browsing. Either way, our reaction was our own, based on our personalities and experiences. If we had instead felt frightened or out of place, that would be a product of those things, and have nothing to do with the young men and women having a great time at Neutral Ground.
My point is, it may not be the author’s fault that he felt alienated at Gencon. But it probably isn’t the convention’s fault either.
He’s not attacking anyone. All he’s doing is explaining the side that we can’t see because we’re unaffected by it. While there do exist neonazis and kkk members who embody racism at its very worst, very few if any of them are coming to GenCon. Instead, it’s the subtle institutionalized racism that is the problem here, something basically none of us are actively or consciously doing, but that happens passively just because of the way our culture casts the question. Everyone who believes they are 100% free of any encultured racism should ask themselves: Why question the testimonial of someone sharing their experience? Ignoring that perspective or calling it into question invalidates or marginalizes that person’s feelings, their opinion, and as a result, that person entirely.
I agree it should be easier to overcome these problems in the gaming community, and that’s why it’s so important that we capitalize on that opportunity and try to change the environment together, to make it a place where everyone is not just welcome—which is not enough—but recognized and celebrated for what they bring to the table.
@51
It’s not institutionalized racism when there’s no institution. The gaming community is anyone who creates or plays a game. That’s it. There’s not hierarchy here to fight against. All the author is doing is complaining about people who are enjoying a hobby. Whether they are welcoming to him or not is not an institutional issue, it’s an issue of individual people. Yes, some of them are racist, but you can’t decide which ones just by looking at them. If you do, then you are the racist.
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Could it be as simple as the idea that there aren’t that many minority tabletop gamers?
Let’s go back to the whole Racial Apathy = Racism thing. I have just one question: Seriously? This is what we should be aiming for as a society. The color of your skin isn’t any more important than the color of your hair or the color of your eyes. Wasn’t it Martin Luther King who said that we should judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character? Now you’re telling me that when people do just that, they’re being racists? You’re not only moving the goalposts, you’ve moved them off the field, out of the stadium, thrown them in the back of a pickup and transported them across county lines.
***Gamers will spend endless days and millions of words fighting over the pros and cons of the Wacky Wand of Welding, but when a person of color brings up issues of race and diversity in the community, too many gamers roll their eyes and say, “Oh not again. Why do they have to be so politically correct? Can’t they just have fun?!”***
Okay George, I’m confused. If I’m at a gaming con, I’m there to play games and have fun – I don’t go to a gaming convention to discuss what race or gender or religion or political afficiliation people are. Just fun.
If you came up to me at a gaming con and wanted to discuss minorities in gaming, I’d probably be willing to listen to what you had to say (assuming I’m not in the middle of a tricky negotiation with Snarlakian Slimelords). But honestly, I wouldn’t want to spend the money, time, and effort to go to something like GenCon and then not spend it having fun. You know, gaming. Looking at games. Talking about games. Buying games. Gaming some more.
What is wrong with wanting folks to play games and have fun? Do the people you are quoting say, “Just have fun – but only if you’re white?” Or are they expecting you to sign up for a game or three and go have a good time?
I just don’t get it.
~ Ciara
P.S. Note, I am NOT a rules lawyer. I could care less about the pros and cons of most rules (such as the Wacky Wand of Welding) and actively prefer games with as few rules as possible. And I’m female. So maybe I don’t fit your example of gamer. :p
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@62: According to their policy, if you link to something insulting or offensive, they will remove the comment containing the link.
That might be the reason, despite the fact that the original post on this page is pretty insulting to a large group.
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Hey there, A.A. George. I think part of the crazy responses you’re seeing in this post is that you seem to be casting the net—and the blame—rather broadly. Tell us if we’re wrong on that. Seriously, there’s a lot of ruffled feathers because it feels like you’re saying everyone who isn’t a minority is part of the problem. Are you saying that?
I’ve been playing D&D since I was a kid—a white kid who could barely scrounge together other white kids to play, and did so under much disapproval—and over the years I’ve had the pleasure of seeing more and more people of all different cultures, colors, and sexes come into the gaming fold. I’ve DMed for girls (I married one of them), gay people, people of color (black, white, and a spectrum between them), and even—crazy enough—other American-mutt males of various European/Caucasion heritage. And we all had a blast. I’ve also been to GenCon a few times (usually as a game, once or twice as an exhibitor) and I’m pretty sure I remember seeing way more than white there. Way more. I daresay I think the gamer, con-going crowd (who are almost universally SFF fans) is more diverse racially and culturally than any other con-going crowd.
If you really feel it boils down to your bullet point solutions, I think we as a species are already on track. Maybe it’s not quite what you want, but isn’t it better than ever, and still getting better every year? It’s kind of like the number of female gamers continues to skyrocket. Compared to what I grew up with…holy cow, it’s great. My games are usually 50% female now.
I also think most of the people reading your post—even the angry ones—are the kind of people who’d be quick to include you in one of their own games. The people you are railing against, the actual racists or people who would actively exclude you, are probably not reading your post. Or….reading at all.
I can’t help but think that the true solution—and maybe you’re already implying this, if ambiguously—is just to get the word out about gaming, period. To everyone of all stripes. If everyone in the world played D&D or some other roleplaying, the white percentage of gamers would plummet. But whatever. More gamers, yay!
I generally limit how much I comment on other Tor.com posts because I write some myself. But you’re talking about gaming, and GenCon, and I’m passionate about that.
I’d also love to game with you. Live near Brooklyn, by chance? Come to the Brooklyn Strategist! Come meet my weekly Eberron 5E D&D crew. The white characters are few: two genderless metal-and-stone constructs who don’t even have skin for there to be a color, an elf from another plane of existence, a changeling whose defining trait is changing her phyiscal appearance on a whim, and a dragon-revereing human barbarian with flame-scarred, tattooed skin.
So apparently linking to Larry Correia’s detailed dismantling of the article is cause for deletion/moderation. Heaven forbid a SF site accept alterative views.
@69 Once again, as many of the comments posted above clearly prove, it is possible to disagree with the opinions contained in the original post in a way that is civil, constructive, and respectful to everyone participating in this conversation in good faith. Links and comments from any side of the discussion that do not approach the topic in a way that reflects the community standards laid out in our Moderation Policy won’t remain on the site, and we will continue to unpublished content that we consider abusive and insulting to our bloggers and readers.
Ugh… this type of article drives me crazy. I’ve gone to one “con” of any type. ComicCon. And at first I felt very nervous and out of place because I was just in street clothes and many many people were either in costume or at least a comic based shirt, or were with someone who was.
I was by myself…
I felt alienated as well at first, it took me an hour or so to realize that no one cared. No one cared if I was white or male. No one cared that I’m overweight and out of shape. I was just a fellow attendee with potentially matching interests. Another “geek”.
I see no reason we need to “force” “non-whites” to become gamers. Gamers are gamers. It’s not that whites are gamers, or blacks aren’t gamers. It’s simply that you either are or aren’t a gamer. Do I play a white character? Yes… only in that his skin is “light”.
Is that racist of me? Only if it’s racist for non-whites to play a non-white.
“I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance.” – A.A. George
Are you seriously telling me that I (as a person who wishes to live my life by the words of such inspirational people as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) am ignorant? Do you truly believe that a man who was a paradigm of equality in America was ignorant? I believe, A. A. George, that you need to expand your life paradigm to better understand what ignorance truly looks like. Then look in the mirror.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/king-content-character-quote-inspires-debate
“Dr. King understood that we all see we are different. You accept color differences, affirm them, celebrate them, but don’t allow them to become a barrier to human community,” said Baldwin, author of a new King book, “In A Single Garment of Destiny: A Global Vision of Justice.”
Yet Martin Luther King III believes that one day we will be able to live every word of his father’s dream.
“I think my father’s vision was that we should at some point have a colorblind society,” he says. “He always was challenging us to be the best nation we could be.”
@70 If linking to content that does not pass the tor community standards is sufficient grounds to have a comment removed the moderation policy should be updated to make that clear. This can easily be done via adding “6. Linking to content that violates any of the above rules”.
“I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased.”
When you lump all white people together under the label “white” you strip them of their cultural and ethnic heritage. White people are not all the same. We come from many different countries with distinctly different societies and significant cultural differences. The Polish are not like the French and the Fench are not like the Swedes.
The only thing in common that white people have in America is that our ancestors came here because they liked the American ideals, way of life, and wanted to become Americans. This is the same thing we have in common with Asians, Latinos, Africans*, and other ethinic groups. When someone says they don’t see race, they are saying they see you just as they are, an American who can be any color and from any country on Earth. It doesn’t mean they don’t respect what your ancestors experienced.
Although, the way the term white is used by the author, I wonder if he sees us as people from different cultures who happen share the same skin color. Or does he strip away our cultural heritage and simply view us as white? Does he think we are all British or something?
*Granted many Africans were imported as slaves but many have immigrated here over the years as well. I am not in any way trying to minimize slavery. But I will point out, that when someone says they don’t see race in relation to a black person, it is an affirmation that we are all brothers and share the American experience, that we don’t view them as an “other”. It looks like the author of this blog views white people as “the other” rather than fellow humans and Americans.
@74: It is made clear, under point #2:
“links to pages which contain hateful, prejudiced, or phobic language or content which otherwise violates the policies outlined on this page will be unpublished.”
@76: Ah, I missed the “content which otherwise violates the policies outlined on this page” clause.
I still think the rules should be updated. It would be harder to overlook if it there was a specific rule stating that all linked content had to follow the tor community standards or if every rule said that it also applied to linked content.
@76 The link in question doesn’t contain anything more hateful, prejudiced, or phobic than the blog post people are commenting on here. I think the worst, is a few swear words.
It is a directly addressed to AA George but I don’t see a way around that when George’s blog post is written in the first person. Wiriting in the first person makes it impossible to be critical of the blog post and not the author of it.
@78: In the estimation of myself and the other moderators, the post/site in question does not fall within the bounds of the respectful dialogue that we try to encourage here on Tor.com. Again, people are free to be mocking, dismissive, and rude about the post on other forums and other sites–as we have said repeatedly, we remain interested in constructive and civil discussion of the topic in question. If people find that they are unwilling or somehow unable to express themselves politely and respectfully here on this site, they are welcome to seek out other forums on which to share their opinons.
Getting back to the purpose of this thread: if you want to leave a comment about this post that actually responds, in a civil manner, to the content of the post, please do–at this point I think that our moderation policy has been made more than clear.
An African-American woman goes to GenCon 2014 and is overcome by microaggressions, cisgendered heteronormative white privilege and the shunning exclusivity of the entire table-top gaming community.
Oh, wait. Nope. In fact, anything but…
http://www.chicagonow.com/alter-ego-maniac/2014/08/gen-con-2014-recap/
Over the weekend, I had the privilege of attending a convention unlike any I have ever been to before. Gen Con 2014, held in Indianapolis, IN August 14-17 definitely lives up to its trademark of being “The Best Four Days in Gaming!”
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Overall, this was probably my favorite convention I’ve ever attended. It was intense, exhausting, and there was never a lack of activities going on. But at the same time, I could sit down, enjoy delicious food and chat with friends between various game events, or just wander around the exhibit hall and do a couple of game demos. Everyone can enjoy this convention at their own pace. Gaming has this wonderful way of bringing people together to have a good time, and maybe make some new friends who share your passion for the hobby.
Imagine that.
Hard to argue with GIB there. But the whole tone of the article suggests that the guiding editorial hand doesn’t see that there’s any debate to be had on the subject. There is an attempt to use personal experience and anecdote to support the theory that gamers are too homogenous and therefore unwelcoming to others, but it’s based on a belief in certain “truths” about race which are actually matters of opinion.
Comment @83 unpublished. We’ve asked that we move the discussion back to the topics actually discussed in post–if you don’t understand, dislike, or aren’t able to grasp the spirit of the moderation policy, including point #5 (“Be bound by the decisions made by the moderators. This means adhering to any and all warnings”), then your’re welcome to find another forum. Once again, let’s get back to discussing the post, and move on.
Here’s a link for a very different perspective on GenCon by NaShantá Fletcher:
http://www.chicagonow.com/alter-ego-maniac/2014/08/gen-con-2014-recap/
Now, why do I think Ms. Fletcher’s experience was so much more positive than Mr. George’s, quite simple, she truly understands what gaming is about and he doesn’t; Gaming is the ultimate escapism. The joy of gaming is immersing yourself in a world that doesn’t have the day to day issues you face in the real world, which allows our (mostly geeky) imaginations fly. If there was actual exclusion of people from participation by banning or verbal harassment based on race, creed, gender or ethnicity I would agree gaming has an issue, but I have never seen that and the author never provides any examples, so I remain confident it by and large doesn’t exist. To ask gamers at GenCon to stop playing and have serious discussions about race is antithetical to the whole purpose of GenCon and makes no more sense than to insist the die stop rolling and participants discuss income inequality among gaming participants or the need for gamers to consider how unfair it is to have all those food trucks outside while people are starving in the developing world. Gaming is open to one and all, but if you don’t like it, simply don’t participate. It is completely unfair to insist that millions of people change their hobby to accommodate the complaints of an idiosyncratic few. Also, the great thing about gaming is that if you like the concepts, but don’t see what you really want, you can create your own games or adventures. Not enough adventures with Polynesian settings and mythology, no problem, develop that game, make it fun and exciting and you can have a great time and you will inevitably attract the stereotypical white geek to play too.
And on a final note, I must say this statement is frankly pretty mindboggling:
“I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white.”
So the author wants to be seen as a unique individual, but whites are just whites. We all have a monolithic set of experiences and beliefs so any one of us can stand in for another. It might surprise Mr. George that many white people have had to overcome great disadvantages in life, many even more challenging than his own, but then I guess our identity, ethnicity, history and people are of no interest to him.
Regarding the ENnies judges, they are not appointed, but rather, nominate themselves and then are voted upon by the fans. Aside from encouraging more people of color to nominate themselves for judge and encouraging the fans to vote for them, there isn’t much that can be done under the current structure.
As I enter my second year as the Business Manager of the ENnie Awards, I am definitely aware of the issue, and where I am able to make a positive impact, I will.
As an ethnic minority myself,
I’ve found gaming cons to be very accepting and inclusive. GENCON the couple of times I’ve gone has always been a fun time almost a feeling of walking into a giant family reunion. (btw Milwaukee was better than Indy)
Now if you want to talk about feeling isolated and shunned, be a libertarian leaning republican at worldcom…
Since the discussion of this topic seems to have run its course, we are now closing comments. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the conversation in a thoughtful and respectful manner, and thanks for reading!