An Open Dialogue on One Specific Slur

[Benleft 1850]

Hey guys, I've been told by our Moderation Admin that we have to have an open dialogue to discuss using the slur used in this report if we want to remove its use. 

 

What are your thoughts? 

[ScreamingDingo 18651]

It's a half-half situation. There are people who definitely use these slurs with their IRL intent and they should be punished for doing as such. There's a very fine line for certain slurs and insults that need to stay detatched from IRL and also be relevant to the cultures that are there.

"Knife-Ear" is a term I think that is great and does represent some of the sentinments and hatred towards the elven race [which has been seen throughout the server's 11 years of existence]. 'Darkie' itself is a contested one, mainly because it can be utilised by groups with ill-intentions, but it is on the edge of what could be considered acceptable or not.

Biggest thing is just making sure these things do not allow for groups to be spreading hate-speech OOC. I expect the Mods to know where that line is and to be able to monitor/protect the playerbase effectively. 

[Jihnyny 3763]

Darkie is weird. Also makes no sense for dwarves to use it when two of their subraces have a darker skintone than the other. It makes no sense for anyone to use it IRP. Racism comes from stereotypes and an excuse for someones personal beliefs.

(Example: though every1 is descendant from the 4 brothers, during every war each race calls out their differences to cause conflict and show hostility towards people that do not look like them; ‘knife ear, greenskin, stouty’)

 

Every race has a subrace  that holds a darker shade.

humans with farfolks

orcs with orcs

dwarves with cave dwarves and forest dwarves

elves with forest elves and dark elves

(Except halflings, but halflings are racist towards everyone for that reason, theyre different from everyone)

[Adstrom 558]

The usage of RP slurs and real life slurs shouldn't be any kind of Venn diagram intersection affair. If it has real life connotations, it shouldn't be allowed in rp either, even if those connotations change to reflect an rp situation. In this particular instance, they are hardly even different, and to argue such is nothing short of an excuse. 

[Smmer 1561]

We do a lil race-ism rp. 

 

I don't have a lot to add cause it's not my place to speak on it but its very easy to accommodate and change your terminology if a user is upset by the language used by you or other individuals. Darkie however, feels so out of place and unnecessary.... I get the whole grr me am dwarf hate elves for what they did to my kin gimmick but as someone familiar with the aformentioned in the report. Do better?? its not that hard. 

[SimplySeo 6230]

color-based racism in a world with elves and dragons and magic is kinda uncomfy, speaking as someone who was on the recieving end of it when I played a cave dwarf, 'Darkie' was thrown around a few times and it always made me cringe.

[Unwillingly 14086]

there are some instances where people genuinely just don't know that the slur they're calling this fantasy race of elves is an irl slur and I think it's a bit of a knee-jerk response to go "oh my god what the **** he's racist he's spreading hate speech oh my go-" (obviously this depends on whether the person changes the behavior or not...)

other than that what is there to discuss? if its recognized as a slur and is bothering people enough to make a report then it should be pretty cut and dry

[RoamingRonin 623]

9 minutes ago, Jihnyny said:

Darkie is weird. Also makes no sense for dwarves to use it when two of their subraces have a darker skintone than the other. It makes no sense for anyone to use it IRP. Racism comes from stereotypes and an excuse for someones personal beliefs.

 

It's because the folks in the RP scenario just wanted to walk up and be unabashedly racist. Simple as. 

[warlord of filth 8184]

25 minutes ago, ScreamingDingo said:

Knife-Ear

This ^^ in elder scrolls dark elves are also referred to as grey skins which is infinitely more appropriate than others

[ChaoticallyCheshire 637]

3 minutes ago, warlord of filth said:

This ^^ in elder scrolls dark elves are also referred to as grey skins which is infinitely more appropriate than others

This I feel like would be a great alternative to both the slurs used in rp last night! Still a bit weird to feel the need to be racist towards people of darker skin tones but I guess if someone feels like their character must then this would not cause any uncomfortable feelings!

[satinkira 7586]

plays lotc for fantasy escapism from irl issues and debates only to find irl debates and issues being discussed in the fantasy escapism context

[Bonito 2460]

remove its use in what way? Making a rule punishing players now seems like a waste of time when the mod admin has shown that they can outright prevent words like "pvp" from being sent at all. Would rather admins blacklist slurs that way and maybe have a message that notifies the person why their emote wasnt sent, so the tired excuse of "erm i didnt know oopsie!" stops being a thing completely. but an admin claiming we lose nothing from banning slurs and then not banning them says a lot lmao. forcing the community to do yet another post to gauge if enough people care or if the mod admin can keep enabling racists for no reason doesnt make me hopeful

 

[Nooblius 6688]

As a proud Roleplay and Real life racist,

I think it's just important when we have discussions like this not to deprive ourselves of context. When talking about OOC conduct and intent of interfacing with server, it's not a light matter to assign thoughts to people they don't express themselves.

 

I don't particularly find myself to be friends with people who are reported for using slurs in Roleplay, but I do find myself sympathetic to them because it is a roleplay server- it is actually a GOOD quality to be willing to roleplay a character with brazen flaws. I think the a good way to combat people using it as an outlet to field genuine IRL malice is to just create the social expectation that characters with these brazen flaws are not celebrated OOCly for those flaws.

 

I'll offer my own experience as an example; Norli Starbreaker is a racist. Not just in the @sshole way of using strong words against people in a lack of sympathy to their emotions, but in the genuine believes in racial hierarchy way- and in a very cruel subtle way as well where he will speak kindly to groups he thinks lesser of. As I became a more veteran roleplayer, I found the best way to deal with that was to call attention to it in the description/action segment of any emote I did. When describing how he says something, describe it as arrogant and flawed.

 

I won't pretend that this is alone is an antidote to dealing with this subject, but I do think it's a good way to deal with playing a character with the flaws- make the fact that they're flaws part of the character.

 

---

 

As for the specific word "Darkeh", I do just want to say that's definately something used a lot within the dwarves both for dwarves and outsiders. I saw someone comment "but dwarves are black too" and I will reply to them that yes and they call eachother that as well. I think it's worth being cognizant of how/why people use slurs, or at least not over simplifying it. Don't deprive yourself of context- if your position requires you ignore context then it's a bad position.

 

I will genuinely say I've never heard it used at all in real life, and I've definitely heard my share of demeaning words in real life, so I really can't speak to the impact of it IRL. I will observe however that if it is about the same level of prevalence or less than the term "spook" then we should probably permit its use. However I do genuinely feel that I have no awareness of its prevalance, and even in trying to find out more from researching I couldn't find anything.

[Shmeepicus 4120]

3 minutes ago, Nooblius said:

the same level of prevalence or less than the term "spook" then we should probably permit its use.

 

alright bro not with this shit again please

[sneakybandit 1518]

7 minutes ago, Nooblius said:

As a proud Roleplay and Real life racist,

I think it's just important when we have discussions like this not to deprive ourselves of context. When talking about OOC conduct and intent of interfacing with server, it's not a light matter to assign thoughts to people they don't express themselves.

 

I don't particularly find myself to be friends with people who are reported for using slurs in Roleplay, but I do find myself sympathetic to them because it is a roleplay server- it is actually a GOOD quality to be willing to roleplay a character with brazen flaws. I think the a good way to combat people using it as an outlet to field genuine IRL malice is to just create the social expectation that characters with these brazen flaws are not celebrated OOCly for those flaws.

 

I'll offer my own experience as an example; Norli Starbreaker is a racist. Not just in the @sshole way of using strong words against people in a lack of sympathy to their emotions, but in the genuine believes in racial hierarchy way- and in a very cruel subtle way as well where he will speak kindly to groups he thinks lesser of. As I became a more veteran roleplayer, I found the best way to deal with that was to call attention to it in the description/action segment of any emote I did. When describing how he says something, describe it as arrogant and flawed.

 

I won't pretend that this is alone is an antidote to dealing with this subject, but I do think it's a good way to deal with playing a character with the flaws- make the fact that they're flaws part of the character.

 

---

 

As for the specific word "Darkeh", I do just want to say that's definately something used a lot within the dwarves both for dwarves and outsiders. I saw someone comment "but dwarves are black too" and I will reply to them that yes and they call eachother that as well. I think it's worth being cognizant of how/why people use slurs, or at least not over simplifying it. Don't deprive yourself of context- if your position requires you ignore context then it's a bad position.

 

I will genuinely say I've never heard it used at all in real life, and I've definitely heard my share of demeaning words in real life, so I really can't speak to the impact of it IRL. I will observe however that if it is about the same level of prevalence or less than the term "spook" then we should probably permit its use. However I do genuinely feel that I have no awareness of its prevalance, and even in trying to find out more from researching I couldn't find anything.

Too long to read, so im just going assume Noobli doubled down on his racism