An Open Dialogue on One Specific Slur

[CombatRolePlay 1722]

A low effort attempt at being edgy- a tactic often used to stir OOC feelings from the other player to taunt a reaction in RP. Pretty standard OOC terrorist tactics. lets move on from this 2014 bs lol

[Smaw 2368]

I mean, they’re literally called

Dark Elves.

 

If you ban the word and people come up with another one, would it not have the same inference?

 

It’s easier to moderate excessive use of a phrase than to ban it altogether where it may be applicable in certain RP circumstances.

[S1nnerVsSa1nts 267]

Bruh. I thought we all knew to stop using it. Legit had a whole sit down in an older Delf server in 2020...

[xMuted 2465]

On 8/16/2023 at 4:03 AM, cosmic_evil said:

Of all the things you could roleplay in the vast fantasy setting of lotc, why would you choose to play a racist? 

 

Because I am a dwarf nationalist who inhales smog and smoke, and want to turn every tree into a siege weapon, each lake into toxic sludge and have smoggers machines pillow the air in smoke.

 

The nature loving elves naturally do not like this, thus the consequence is I am racist towards them in roleplay.

[cosmic_evil 28]

2 hours ago, xMuted said:

 

Because I am a dwarf nationalist who inhales smog and smoke, and want to turn every tree into a siege weapon, each lake into toxic sludge and have smoggers machines pillow the air in smoke.

 

The nature loving elves naturally do not like this, thus the consequence is I am racist towards them in roleplay.

"xD i hate elves!!" rp has got to be the least interesting dwarf rp cliche you could possibly pick from. You'd be better off doing diggy diggy hole rp.

[xMuted 2465]

8 hours ago, cosmic_evil said:

"xD i hate elves!!" rp has got to be the least interesting dwarf rp cliche you could possibly pick from. You'd be better off doing diggy diggy hole rp.

 

Dont you dare attempt to tell me about dwarf rp, boy

[DrunkPapaBear 1975]

16 hours ago, cosmic_evil said:

xD i hate elves!!" rp has got to be the least interesting dwarf rp cliche you could possibly pick from. You'd be better off doing diggy diggy hole rp.

Hating on elves for what they are is the best thing Lotc can offer

[JustMeMorgan 1000]

On 8/15/2023 at 7:48 PM, terms said:

Well in a way this is very offensive. As someone who was apart of this situation and having a great time doing some realistic RP for you to call me racist is very rude. And so i reply with a question , if you were walking down the street and you saw a green person would you find it wrong to call them something with resembles their colour? For example grass? If you said to them hello grass people would that be cause for an uproar that we are experiencing? The truth of the matter is that our characters had good RP reasons for our comments and people are blinded by racism in our world and arent thinking about rp.

 

If I walked down the street and saw someone who was green, I would probably believe I walked into a live action casting for shrek.

 

'Coal people' and 'darkie' are beating around the bush of real life slurs and phrases just much less explicit. You play in a game where many phrases are much easier and more accessible to you however you chose to take the ones that were closest to real life counterparts.

 

"Knife ears" are an example of a fantasy insult to connote distaste towards elven people, In Skyrim for example they use the "Grey Quarter" for the area where dark elves are kept, this is an excellent example of "Hey, we have real life racial issues where using skin colours is a word of hostility to black communities, let's make sure to evade this issue by using the word 'grey' instead of 'black' or 'darkie' quarter."

 

Furthermore, stating that the community is blinded by racism is a bit of an overstatement, apologies if I said you were racist, I was just taking a quick-fire straight approach, I don't believe you are racist in any capacity and the words used were just used in a quick minded way to denote a distaste to the elves, that being said they could have been used as a way to evade using real life racial slurs to denote black people, if used to just be silly and childish and as a joke or anything else, I simply just suggest caution

 

I do believe this server has a very wide community of people, many on here may use it as a lil escapism from real life issues, I mean Paris had two nights of riots as Nahel was shot down by a cop, racial issues are still present in the world and LotC is a good escape for those players, having random people approach them and tiptoe the border with fantasy slurs is probably not the most fun experience

 

tl;dr it's tiptoeing a border into irl slurs when you had a dictionary of alternatives welcome for you to use, all of which avoid this line and although I don't think you overstepped it, you sure as hell put your foot directly on it

[Nathan_Barnett36 1546]

I thought spook just meant like an edgy character or just an unusual person who does unusual things, it's mainly referred to dark magic users.. I could be wrong...

[Yagi_Kamisama 210]

25 minutes ago, SoMuchForThat said:

Had to come back for this one. Player PCSwift has not only a record of being banned for actual slurs and awful behavior across the mcrp community, but a track record of attempting to skirt rules by using slurs like “sodomite” (an irl term used to disparage gay folks for centuries, look it up) to skirt the rules because he’s got some unresolved issues and a desperate need for any kind of attention. He’s gleeful about causing a stink, it’s his whole MO—then he does the familiar dance of playing ignorant when he knows full well what he’s doing: chasing cheap thrills by testing the limits of what he can get away with. Not a player you want on your server, not a player who for their own good should be here either. Hope they wake up one day and realize they need to get away from the toxic circles they’ve surrounded themselves with and get a life before they waste too much more of their time resorting to the same old tactics to veil their bigotry and get cheap kicks while failing to grow as a person in any meaningful way. It's been going on for a pathetically long time—years now, but it's never too late. Good luck PCSwift, you certainly need it. Same to Terms.

Hope the moderation team takes a stronger stance on this and doesn’t turn their eyes from this kind of behavior. People with a track record like Swift’s don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt of being able to still play their minecraft pretend, they’ve long exhausted their right to more chances. To anyone jokingly teasing at whataboutism implying that everyone acts this way like Jentos (who also has quite the track record of frankly pathetic behavior—let alone writing—that’s caught them far fewer bans than they rightly deserve) I implore you to go and look into the mirror, attempt to muster any tiny modicum of self-awareness that lingers in your terminally online mind and get a grip so I don't have to explain to you that not everyone is alright with or engaging in casual bigotry just because you and your friends are; you won’t, but you should.

 

🐟

[Jentos 6884]

38 minutes ago, SoMuchForThat said:

Had to come back for this one. Player PCSwift has not only a record of being banned for actual slurs and awful behavior across the mcrp community, but a track record of attempting to skirt rules by using slurs like “sodomite” (an irl term used to disparage gay folks for centuries, look it up) to skirt the rules because he’s got some unresolved issues and a desperate need for any kind of attention. He’s gleeful about causing a stink, it’s his whole MO—then he does the familiar dance of playing ignorant when he knows full well what he’s doing: chasing cheap thrills by testing the limits of what he can get away with. Not a player you want on your server, not a player who for their own good should be here either. Hope they wake up one day and realize they need to get away from the toxic circles they’ve surrounded themselves with and get a life before they waste too much more of their time resorting to the same old tactics to veil their bigotry and get cheap kicks while failing to grow as a person in any meaningful way. It's been going on for a pathetically long time—years now, but it's never too late. Good luck PCSwift, you certainly need it. Same to Terms.

Hope the moderation team takes a stronger stance on this and doesn’t turn their eyes from this kind of behavior. People with a track record like Swift’s don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt of being able to still play their minecraft pretend, they’ve long exhausted their right to more chances. To anyone jokingly teasing at whataboutism implying that everyone acts this way like Jentos (who also has quite the track record of frankly pathetic behavior—let alone writing—that’s caught them far fewer bans than they rightly deserve) I implore you to go and look into the mirror, attempt to muster any tiny modicum of self-awareness that lingers in your terminally online mind and get a grip so I don't have to explain to you that not everyone is alright with or engaging in casual bigotry just because you and your friends are; you won’t, but you should.

 

 

i hung out with a bad crowd in 2018 but severed ties for my own health. Other than my well deserved ban earlier this year, I’m unsure what you’re even talking about apart from spreading slander under an anonymous account. I’d like to think I’m a good man, and far more mature than I was in the past, but you’re definitely quite bitter about me. My dms, of course, are always open and I’m far more enticed by a cordial discussion than this kind of silly accusation. I’m neither pathetic nor bigoted, but when I call people out I have the gall to show both evidence and identity. 

[sam33497 2793]

43 minutes ago, Jentos said:

I’d like to think I’m a good man

I know what you are Jentos, you did Varg rp

[Jentos 6884]

4 hours ago, sam33497 said:

I know what you are Jentos, you did Varg rp

NOOOO

[marimbamonk 1498]

Here are my two cents on this and other slurs in-game:

 

In my opinion, we should stay away from racial slurs like "darkie" that are based on in-game skin color, especially if the slur could also apply to a real life skin color. Saying "I've seen it used a lot" is just an observation, not something that justifies its use.

Although "spook" has a history as a racial slur, that's basically where its similarity to "darkie" ends. "Spook" itself doesn't have an obvious racial connotation. It has a more popular contemporary definition ("spooky, scary!"), and use of it in-game is to refer to something ghostly/creepy/undead, not something based on its skin color. 

 

You won't hear either word being commonly used as a racial slur nowadays IRL, but with "darkie", its racial connotation is immediately obvious, so its prevalence really has no bearing on whether or not it should be used. In my opinion, it shouldn't be used. "Coal people" is also a bad idea for all the same reasons.

And for "spook" – would it be a good idea for us to find a different word to use? Sure, it wouldn't hurt; but I'm not that pressed about it, as long as it's only used to refer to ghostly/creepy/undead things. I wasn't even aware of its racist history until I read that ban report a couple days ago.

 

"Greenskins" for orcs or "greyskins" for dark elves are certainly not as bad, as they have no IRL history or obvious IRL racial connotation. Personally, I usually don't have a problem with those unless it becomes obvious that the player behind the character is just using it as a way to mask being racist IRL, and determining that can be difficult. But ultimately, as I said before, my preference would be for us to just stay away from skin color -based slurs in general, given the extensive history of the concept IRL.

 

"Midget" shouldn't be used either, in my opinion. Whenever the term is used nowadays, it's almost always in offense. There are many little people who are fine with or even prefer being called "dwarf", but I've never heard of a little person who preferred to be called "midget." It's an offensive real-life word for a real-life group of people, so in my opinion, their comfortability trumps anyone's need to use that word in-game.

 

Lastly, the word "coon" might appear to have some of the same word qualities as "spook", but it was (and is) used as a racist term far more widely, including a well-known history of racist caricature artwork with the same name. Its only use referring to people has been incredibly racist. I bring this up because not too long ago there was a player on this server for several months who had named their orc character "Kuun'killah." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the orcs have never had to deal with a rampant infestation of raccoons, so one can draw a pretty obvious conclusion as to what that player was really referencing.

 

We don't have these conversations as often as we should, so I thought I'd cover as much ground as possible given recent happenings. If all these words magically "poofed" from the vernacular of characters in-game, would I miss these words? Not in the slightest.

There are more nuanced ways to express your character's prejudice that aren't as triggering for real-life groups of people.

 

--

 

I'm uncomfortable with the fact that a single Administrator made a decision for the entire server on what racial slurs should and shouldn't be said in our community. This should be a community decision, just like nearly every other decision on LotC that has the unfortunate habit of getting relegated to a select group of officious volunteers.

[DeusVult 564]

On 9/15/2023 at 10:29 AM, marimbamonk said:

Here are my two cents on this and other slurs in-game:

 

In my opinion, we should stay away from racial slurs like "darkie" that are based on in-game skin color, especially if the slur could also apply to a real life skin color. Saying "I've seen it used a lot" is just an observation, not something that justifies its use.

Although "spook" has a history as a racial slur, that's basically where its similarity to "darkie" ends. "Spook" itself doesn't have an obvious racial connotation. It has a more popular contemporary definition ("spooky, scary!"), and use of it in-game is to refer to something ghostly/creepy/undead, not something based on its skin color. 

 

You won't hear either word being commonly used as a racial slur nowadays IRL, but with "darkie", its racial connotation is immediately obvious, so its prevalence really has no bearing on whether or not it should be used. In my opinion, it shouldn't be used. "Coal people" is also a bad idea for all the same reasons.

And for "spook" – would it be a good idea for us to find a different word to use? Sure, it wouldn't hurt; but I'm not that pressed about it, as long as it's only used to refer to ghostly/creepy/undead things. I wasn't even aware of its racist history until I read that ban report a couple days ago.

 

"Greenskins" for orcs or "greyskins" for dark elves are certainly not as bad, as they have no IRL history or obvious IRL racial connotation. Personally, I usually don't have a problem with those unless it becomes obvious that the player behind the character is just using it as a way to mask being racist IRL, and determining that can be difficult. But ultimately, as I said before, my preference would be for us to just stay away from skin color -based slurs in general, given the extensive history of the concept IRL.

 

"Midget" shouldn't be used either, in my opinion. Whenever the term is used nowadays, it's almost always in offense. There are many little people who are fine with or even prefer being called "dwarf", but I've never heard of a little person who preferred to be called "midget." It's an offensive real-life word for a real-life group of people, so in my opinion, their comfortability trumps anyone's need to use that word in-game.

 

Lastly, the word "coon" might appear to have some of the same word qualities as "spook", but it was (and is) used as a racist term far more widely, including a well-known history of racist caricature artwork with the same name. Its only use referring to people has been incredibly racist. I bring this up because not too long ago there was a player on this server for several months who had named their orc character "Kuun'killah." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the orcs have never had to deal with a rampant infestation of raccoons, so one can draw a pretty obvious conclusion as to what that player was really referencing.

 

We don't have these conversations as often as we should, so I thought I'd cover as much ground as possible given recent happenings. If all these words magically "poofed" from the vernacular of characters in-game, would I miss these words? Not in the slightest.

There are more nuanced ways to express your character's prejudice that aren't as triggering for real-life groups of people.

 

--

 

I'm uncomfortable with the fact that a single Administrator made a decision for the entire server on what racial slurs should and shouldn't be said in our community. This should be a community decision, just like nearly every other decision on LotC that has the unfortunate habit of getting relegated to a select group of officious volunteers.

Not to be a hater cuz ur opinion is valid

but like why did we revive this