Jump to content
clyde

Social Justice

Recommended Posts

So, this happened around the Rosetta mission:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/11231320/Rosetta-mission-scientist-Dr-Matt-Taylor-cries-during-apology-over-offensive-shirt.html

 

It was a dumb move on his part, as a representative on a stream you owe it to yourself to not court the controversy and distract everyone from the really cool thing that is happening.

 

I guess this is a knee jerk reaction on my part though that goes 'how big a deal is this?' Because if a woman were to wear something that inapropriate on a broadcast like that you can bet there would have been nothing but these articles decrying how she shouldn't have come on. The more salubrious of newspapers in the UK would have had something snarky to comment on it.

 

Anyway rambling now, I'll let Total Biscuit set my mind at ease:

https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/533288920025681920?t=1&cn=cmVjb3NfbmV0d29ya19kaWdlc3Q%3D&sig=dc85692442ec60a2675e2aabd8621e17bccc5327&al=1&iid=64772ef0c7804f0a99cd74d6a04e11b8&autoactions=1416040135&uid=236434615&nid=244+1489+20141112

 

Okay, yeah, that T-shirt should not have been worn.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The dude apologised and there's a bunch of people getting foamy about that fact that they think he shouldn't have. There's more outrage over anyone being offended by it and the resulting apology than there ever was over the shirt. That whole monocle popping stream of thought/discourse has been sustained for days now and it's making me quite unhappy to see it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've seen some friends reacting on facebook and often the reactions are mostly at the assumed strawman reasons for finding it offensive. It bothers me how so many people don't understand that their brains are subject to a wealth of unconscious behaviour modifying biases that we construct in an equally unnoticeable fashion. And it often becomes hard to explain that concept in the context of an issue like this because they're already primed to think the 'other side' is ridiculous.

 

Of course they might be aware of our brain's subconscious control and allowing themselves to be ignorant. That'd be a lot worse, now that I think about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've always kinda wondered if all the strawmen and misconceptions regarding PC and feminism are all informed by parodies from the 80s and 90s. Because the first thing I picture when someone mentions PC are sketches where a group of comedians dressed as children of every ethnicity and a guy in a wheel chair do bad musical numbers, and the word feminism conjures up Married With Children immediately.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah that's a good point. Good satire/shitty parody usually has its tongue so far into its cheek that anyone without a certain amount of cultural literacy will take elements that they know and fit with their prejudices and run with them. It's definitely a different era, but the first thing a friend said to me when I brought up feminism was "damn feminism is still a thing?", laughed, then quoted that ecofeminist from futurama's line about the "manocracy".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think most of the strawman/misconceptions about feminism come from the efforts of social conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly to turn feminism into a bad word in order to get the Equal Rights Amendment defeated.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wow, gamechurch have their own website.

 

I have their bible book thing they were handing out at E3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So the hostage situation in Sydney has predictably spawned shit like this: http://www.pedestrian.tv/news/arts-and-culture/the-daily-telegraphs-rushed-out-martin-place-cover/6936a399-368e-485c-a180-6e5e9f9734b3.htm

 

On the other hand, people on Twitter have been great: http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/illridewithyou-twitter-sprouts-anti-islamophobia-campaign/story-fnjwnhzf-1227157197523

It's nice to see something like this that is immediate and unambiguously positive, rather than some kind of reactionary defensiveness like #notallmen/muslims for example (though there's sadly a bit of that as well*).

 

Social Justice, ruining the fun of bigots everywhere.

 

*I gathered this from a quick hashtag search, reading more it seems like some #notallmuslims tweets are actually from Islamophobes using it sarcastically, or using it to mock feminists who are critical of #notallmen. At least the positive ones seem to vastly outweigh the shitty ones.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thankfully it looks like politicians have decided that they're not going to do the 'tough on terrorism' thing and have been spending a lot of time de-escalating. A good change from the sturm und drang of the incident in September that was tied to The ISIL Threat.

 

I think my favourite thing is that they evacuated the Opera House and no-one's entirely sure why.

 

Actually my favourite thing is that this guy, or group, went to Martin Place, which houses major banks, a national broadcaster and the Reserve Bank, and is over the road from the NSW parliament, and what they decided to take hostage was a cafe. Good start to the jihad there, guys.

 

They didn't even have their own ISIL flag and had to improvise

 

I'm guessing this is less the vanguard of a global wave of terror and more a couple (at most) of fuckwits who are waaaaay out of their depth at this point.

 

(my actual favourite thing is that everyone's alive so far and five people are out, and my friend who works at the Reserve Bank didn't pop down for a coffee)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As I read these opinions, I swing hard between "Interesting point" and "hmmm, they seem to have missed the point". It's still worth reading in my opinion. Social issues are heavily influenced by perspective and I often have a dissenting opinion of articles that claim to have the answer anyway. It's nice to have multiple skilled and knowledgable authors address internet outrage in this casual form and allow the reader to digest it how they may. These summaries and analyses of a year of controversies in which I had opinions are good for reflection without having to be bullet-proof.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/12/the_year_of_outrage_2014_everything_you_were_angry_about_on_social_media.html?day=15

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Watching the BBC's The History of Racism and this particular excerpt (0:43-1:35) was so succint that I became excited to share it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Can't even escape this shit in my dumb grindy babby games.

 

q4KeC5t.jpg

 

 

I just started playing FFXIV and I've actually had less issues with other people versus the game itself - some of the writing, despite having great representation of women characters, has a ton of really casual rape references, misogyny and anti-sex worker nonsense. It is making me really upset in this way, MMORPGs seem to be this wasteland when it comes to attempting to catch up with the baby steps of progressive behavior the rest of gaming is beginning to talk about. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I thought about putting this in the "Random Thoughts" thread, but I feel it's too pointed for that.
 
I had a depressingly predictable conversation with friends of a friend on Facebook about Iggy Azalea's refusal to acknowledge or support black hip-hop culture. I posted a short and polite response explaining what cultural appropriation is and what its context is in the history of the Western world, with which he had no problem agreeing. Then a crowd of a half-dozen other dudes (it's always dudes, at least when I talk race on Facebook) piled into the comments to blither about how I was the real racist because music has no race. I was fine debating with them, because "success legitimizes itself" and "haters gonna hate" are easy to answer as arguments, but then a black guy started commenting about how people need to stop inserting race into every conversation and start focusing on what we have in common instead... I don't have the energy or experience to talk with a person of color who's internalized and then projected racist structures to that extent. I tried briefly to point out every single way that white people have taken and made money off of creative works that black people have made popular while giving nothing in return, even just in the music industry alone,  but he staunchly stuck to his description of that as "cultural exchange," no different than his background with soul food from New Orleans. I thought to say how that had also been created and then appropriated through the long-term assault on and mutilation of African and black culture by white people, but... Nah.
 
I wish I'd had this article about the American invasion and occupation of Hawaii to read. When those people asked me, what does it hurt for a white girl from Australia who doesn't feel she owes anything to black culture or artists to be one of the biggest hip-hop stars out there, I can now quote the following passage, among others.
 

‬Embedded in every American theft is the denial of that theft,‭ ‬be it theft of land,‭ ‬culture,‭ ‬nationhood,‭ ‬all the things that define a people,‭ ‬all that they need to survive as a people.‭
...
The use of cultural identifying characteristics belonging to indigenous peoples is the celebration of white supremacy and American supremacy.‭ ‬It’s a way to continue the practice of cultural cannibalism,‭ ‬and to‭ blithely pass it on to new generations.‭ ‬It’s also [a] reminder to the native that no matter how assimilated you do or don’t become,‭ ‬you are not respected by the dominant,‭ ‬settler society.

 

And, on a less grand note, I'm still enormously frustrated by so many parts of that conversation on Facebook. The idea that anything you do or say is okay, so long as it's making you money, is one of the ugliest things I can imagine, and yet I hear it from minimum-wage stiffs like the dudes above just as much as from the one percent in the news.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's pretty much because late stage capitalism has a decent stranglehold on the conversation, but the phenomenon going on with poor people is the "veil of opulence" specifically:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/the-veil-of-opulence/?partner=rss&emc=rss

 

I had no idea about this phenomenon until it turned up in, ironically, an article about gamergate:

http://www.nickcapozzoli.com/blog/2014/11/21/wwwgc#.VKKbsF4AAA

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I wish I'd had this article about the American invasion and occupation of Hawaii to read.

 

Thanks for linking that, fascinating read, and covering an area of history that I'm pretty ignorant about (the US in the Pacific during that time period). Regarding Facebook, it's surprising how many of the articles that I post there end up coming from the Idle Forums nowadays (including this article).

Otherwise I don't have any advice to give, those conversations are tough.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's pretty much because late stage capitalism has a decent stranglehold on the conversation, but the phenomenon going on with poor people is the "veil of opulence" specifically:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/the-veil-of-opulence/?partner=rss&emc=rss

 

I had no idea about this phenomenon until it turned up in, ironically, an article about gamergate:

http://www.nickcapozzoli.com/blog/2014/11/21/wwwgc#.VKKbsF4AAA

 

Both those articles are spectacular, thank you. I especially liked the second one, which addresses (although doesn't fully answer) one of the most annoying counterarguments to any sort of progressive thought in games: "Corporations exist to make money, they should be allowed to do whatever they want to get it."

 

Thanks for linking that, fascinating read, and covering an area of history that I'm pretty ignorant about (the US in the Pacific during that time period). Regarding Facebook, it's surprising how many of the articles that I post there end up coming from the Idle Forums nowadays (including this article).

Otherwise I don't have any advice to give, those conversations are tough.

 

Yeah, I didn't know much either, aside from the designer's notes I recently read for the game Dog Eat Dog. I'm going to have to think hard about how I discuss Hawaii with friends and with students in the future.

 

Honestly, the hardest part about that conversation is that they've kept tagging me in their responses long after I unsubscribed from the comment thread. I'm not even going to look, but I definitely feel like I failed a bit.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Speaking of Dog Eat Dog, have you played it yet, Gormongous? I bought the PDF but haven't given it a good look yet. I really need to, since it's super relevant to my Master's research.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just started playing FFXIV and I've actually had less issues with other people versus the game itself - some of the writing, despite having great representation of women characters, has a ton of really casual rape references, misogyny and anti-sex worker nonsense. It is making me really upset in this way, MMORPGs seem to be this wasteland when it comes to attempting to catch up with the baby steps of progressive behavior the rest of gaming is beginning to talk about. 

 

Guild Wars 2 has normalised same-sex relationships, including three of the main characters. Two of the enemy factions are bad guys because they're reactionaries - their attitude towards females and other races make them bad guys to the player characters. The writers put a lot of effort into the progressiveness of the writing without having that progressiveness be the point. (It'd be nice if the writing was across the board better, though.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, everyone suggests Guild Wars 2 to me every time I bring up my issues with WoW or FFXIV and honestly, the game was just kinda boring to me, which sucks, because I'd like to support progressive MMOs. Honestly though, I'd like everything to be better versus just playing only one. (Wildstar was wildly fun and did a really great job on story stuff but then it just sort of petered out for me, time-wise)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just started playing FFXIV and I've actually had less issues with other people versus the game itself - some of the writing, despite having great representation of women characters, has a ton of really casual rape references, misogyny and anti-sex worker nonsense. It is making me really upset in this way, MMORPGs seem to be this wasteland when it comes to attempting to catch up with the baby steps of progressive behavior the rest of gaming is beginning to talk about.

Yeah, on average the players I've encountered have actually been fantastic (such a relief after dealing with WoW players for years :barf: ), but you're right about some of the writing and ambient world stuff. One thing that strikes me every time I run Sastasha (the first dungeon you unlock, for you readers at home) is the female concubines scattered around the captain's quarters. There's no real story connected to this and yet it manages to be unsettling just because of the details they chose to include. Namely that the captain himself is a roegadyn (giant burly hulk-like people) and all his concubines are miqo'te and lalafell women (fey catgirls and small child-like women, respectively). The only spoken parts are from a few of the women who have incidental lines of dialog like "when will this nightmare end?" There is zero engagement with this as anything but an incidental world detail (look how bad this man is!!), the women don't even attempt to escape once you off the captain.

It's kind of a shame when, like you say, the actual story and characters are pretty well rounded and maturely written. The localization is generally incredible too (minus a few voice actors... oh god Minfilia plz no).

But hey on a more positive note here's what my character was up to a couple nights ago.

md4QBuR.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, it's generally dismaying. What really bugged me was being called a bitch in a cutscene by a throwaway traitor character, or the insinuating or rape/coersion in another cut scene. So even with the progressive touches, it largely does not feel super welcoming to me as a woman, even if I can be a queer catlady (literally).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×