InsaneJournal

Current mood:	incredibly upset
Entry tags:	#race issues: gaming, #race issues: general, i hate people, online: culture

For the ones who wanted to bother me last night (and just anyone curious)
Chopchica does post-mortem.

I've sat and thought about if I wanted to say anything, if I had anything different to say. But it all boils down to what she said - there under a bright and shiny and seemingly careless surface, is racism. And for me, the name change feels like something very small - good, but small. Because I don't believe the game's moderators and players realized or learned anything.

I think they walked away from this huffy and upset at having their racist and insensitive actions called out.

I think they walked away from this talking about those whiny Jews and Jew lovers.

I think they walked away from this thinking about how the Jews want to own the Holocuast.

I think they walked away from this with any little knowledge they had about homosexuals, the physically and mentally handicaped and blacks who were also in the camps - completely drummed out of their heads with words like cunt and bitches and sheep.

I think they walked away from this thinking that it was just bad timing to have promoted the game so close to Holocaust Remembrance Day.

For hours they watched people comment; upset and outraged and hurt and disgusted. They watched human beings say 'This is wrong! Please stop being so wrong!' and all they could think about was their sense of entitlement and that if someone brings up a point that hurt their feelings there should be cock sucking and petting and pampering to make them feel better and THAT would be what prompted them to change anything at all. As if racial sensitivity was some kind of trade.

For hours they ignored the very simple, plain and easily understood fact that intent does not matter when someone is hurt.

I think behind locked posts some of them will still refer to the game, or the game's timeline point as The Night of Breaking Glass.

I think marieantoinette is not the only individual who thinks the Holocaust was 'something in the past that should not be dwelled on'. I think she is not the only one who is like to believe the same for slavery. If the Holocaust was 'Oh my gosh 70' years ago, then Slavery being centuries away is what she'll focus on. Never mind that Jim Crow Laws and Segregation are only forty years away.

The fact that after so many commented, someone could come to my journal to ask me just why I was upset...

It boggles the mind.

I am reminded of all the times, in other conversations where things went pretty much the exact same way - someone brings up "But I went to Japan and they reverse discriminated against me!!" As if a country filled with people who lost a war, and who suffered terrible tragedies like Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually have the power to do anything but make an individual feel uncomfortable. And even then, within the culture, it would have to be an individual who felt above following the norms of the society they were visiting.

I bring this up because all this defensiveness and spitting swear words and back up determination to stay in the wrong, seems to come from feeling guilt and having discomfort.

Guilt & Discomfort.

Those are the reasons the pain and suffering, the humiliation and anger of formerly and still currently oppressed peoples are to be ignored.

Guilt & Discomfort.

To admit that you were careless, thoughtless and insensitive is to face guilt and discomfort. I don't believe that all racism is based completely on this, but I do believe that a goodly part of the racism that infects individuals who want to claim that they're good people - comes from guilt and discomfort.

And energy.

They'd have to learn something. They're angry at having to learn something. They're angry at having to spend time and energy learning something. And rather than be angry at their ancestors who treated various groups of people as if they were less than nothing - it's easier to be angry at the descendents of those groups for bringing things up. As if racism were not a cancer that when ignored continues to consume society, multiplying cell by cell, thought by thought, invading and possessing.

I am well aware that there are individuals behind the journals that were involved in this. And I'm left thinking of those individuals that spoke, and the ones who let a few doing the speaking for them. And I'm left KNOWING they're not at all nice or good people. They want things easy. They want anything that isn't easy to just go away and leave them alone. If they don't think about living in an Apartheid State then it isn't true. Cause America is great! America's #1 and how dare you insinuate, how dare you accuse its children of not being perfect.

____

For the moderators of asylum_promo, I do not wish to have any further communications from Keieeeye. Her concept of PR clean up is seriously lacking.

For prairiecrow A better term for what went on would be imbroglio and not wank. Racism and anti-semitism are not the same as shipping wars and who's the best NuWho Companion. But it's just a suggestion from someone "childish and impulsive".

For ardath_rekha While I do not believe in your apology, I am grateful that you took the time to apologise and risked doing so on the journal of someone who was and is incredibly upset by what happened. I have unscreened the apology on my post but I also point people here to where you posted the apology to anyone still tracking things.

To anyone wishing they could comment or start/continue conversation in my journal - I'm sorry, but I cannot handle conversation right now. I am still far too incredibly angry and upset. Chopchica has comments open - if you have an LJ you can go there.

ETA: I am not exempting the British Isles, or Europe from containing idiots and assholes and a strong sense of superiority.