Rule 3. Racism in CM. Should it be allowed?

[JJG]

-I see Towelhead isn't a slur against race and is instead a slur against an ethnic group, perhaps the rule should refer to discrimination in general rather than racism? For some people, being called towelhead is acceptable, for others it's not. I personally find it to be a bit excessive.

Words have the power we attribute to them. The more you use them the less power they have. If you see a word as discrimintory and prevent people from saying it you will never move forward, HUMANITY will never move forward!
If everyone said "faggot" for example in completely out of context situations (like a lot of people I know already do) the word looses all meaning even when used in context.

[Build_R_]

-snip-

I think that the question raised isn't "Should it be allowed?" It's moreso "Our rule doesn't match our policy, what way should we change it?"

You don't need to make a rule that will "shut everyone's mouth" though, there will never be a single rule that will satisfy absolutely anyone in the playerbase. For instance I'm not a fan of having the situation be "Either all is banned ..... or you allow everything," and I'm sure some people would agree, similarly there would be a group of people that don't like a rule allowing minor racism because it's not very precise.

The rules aren't chosen by popularity, otherwise I'm guessing CM wouldn't be a MRP server in the first place.

On the topic of the N-word, it has had massive real-life implications to many people in recent years and still affects some people today. There has not been decades of slavery where a subjugated people were called "zipperhead" (as far as I know anyways). The word holds a lot behind it which is why it tends to be difficult to touch as, when you do, you are often paired with the kind of people that used it in the past.

-sniip

I support that change, seems to cover all bases.

Words have the power we attribute to them. The more you use them the less power they have. If you see a word as discrimintory and prevent people from saying it you will never move forward, HUMANITY will never move forward!
If everyone said "faggot" for example in completely out of context situations (like a lot of people I know already do) the word looses all meaning even when used in context.

This isn't HUMANITY though, this is a CM simulator in space station 13, we would not exactly be trying to convert racists, we'd be trying to prevent people throwing slurs about in the first place since it's more or less a friendly server.

[JJG]

This isn't HUMANITY though, this is a CM simulator in space station 13, we would not exactly be trying to convert racists, we'd be trying to prevent people throwing slurs about in the first place since it's more or less a friendly server.

You completely missed the point and I am both too lazy and unable to rewrite it to be any clearer.

[Build_R_]

You completely missed the point and I am both too lazy and unable to rewrite it to be any clearer.

I guess I'll live with it then?

[Enigmachine]

I would also like to point out a flaw in the argument many seem to give:

"This would encourage people to be edgy and racist" etc

I would like to remind you minor racism has always been allowed, again, for four years now. If we've not have a problem with it 'encouraging' it in the past, would anyone mind explaining how it would now ?

Uh huh. This should lead you into the proper way to see this whole situation; a small outside group is coming in and trying to guilt-trip and whinge you into changing how you've always functioned so that things are more to their liking. The moral categories the other side is trying to manipulate us with are entirely bogus, because as it stands the current rules aren't making the community environment more anti-social. What is anti-social, primitive and backward is the censorship & repression faction's lack of restraint in implying bad character traits in pretty much all of us who disagree with them.

This issue is best seen in terms of power, influence and control, and I think the community will be poisoned if perspectives like Jabber's are not marginalized. 'Cause I go and read what he wrote in that childish player report about Soldier, over an imaginary character's actions, and come away with the impression that I want that perspective having no influence at all over the rules. It's immature, it's void of sound judgement, and smacks of someone looking for a reason to throw and albatross around another person's neck to make themselves feel better.

It's disappointing to this happening to CM, because in other communities I've watched it happen in it's always the same; the social justice repressors always go for the easiest targets first. "Oh, we just want your N words." Then once that seemingly trivial first concession is made, a kind of inertia kicks in and they just keep rolling back what's acceptable in the community, until finally they get to stuff that isn't so out on the fringe and they lock the whole place down into their one viewpoint. It's not a conspiracy; it's a mindset and culture and if you're naive about it they will uproot you and replace you with themselves.

Other than that,
I think the server should define the line between "minor" and "major" racism, 'cause to my mind a slur is "major" but apparently staff players think that's fine in some instances. Then there's the issue of uneven enforcement, which I think is much more serious than this simpleton's argument about the community needing repression because somebody somewhere might be sortof offended by something someone said IC'ly. I don't interact with these rules enough to know how it's handled intimately, 'cause I just turn race off in my head when I play CM.

So go on, what's your concept of minor versus major 'racism?'

[CABAL]

On the topic of the N-word, it has had massive real-life implications to many people in recent years and still affects some people today. There has not been decades of slavery where a subjugated people were called "zipperhead" (as far as I know anyways). The word holds a lot behind it which is why it tends to be difficult to touch as, when you do, you are often paired with the kind of people that used it in the past.

That's the point. "N-word" gained those implications in recent years and still affect some people today, becouse some people found it particularly insulting out of "white guilt".
From what comes term "Zipperhead"?:
"It is said to have been coined during the Korean war by frontline troops whom had run over enemy troops in jeeps."
"The soldiers claimed that the tire tracks from the jeeps left a pattern resembling that of a closed zipper along the corpse."
Term "Zipperhead" was used for many years, from Korean war to the Vietnam war atleast.
Comparing brutal murders to the decades of slavery. As an act of racism, they should be treated equally.
Nobody uses term "Zipperhead" becouse nobody was offended by it. It can still affect people today, but nobody is keeping this word in any regard. You can name your C-key "Zipperhead" and nobody will bat an eye. Untill somebody will, trolls and racists will catch the "flow", just to make anyone angry about it.

Check in google phrase: "Marijuana is racist". YT videos and pages about how it is racist. Not much, but still. Check it out. You did? Great, now you know you lived in oblivion and every time you used this term, you were unintentionaly racist. Better to call it "M-Word", or "Cannabis". Becouse not many talk about it, nobody thinks it's racist. It takes only few famous people on the social media to bring this "issue" and here we got it. New big "N-Word".
Black people using this term are not paired with kind of people that used it in the past, nearly all of it is built over mentioned "white guilt".
Yes, it were horrible times, crime against black people, terrible act, yet not something "out of ordinary".

"White guilt" is a bad thing. Quoting wiki on Judith Katz: "She also avoided using non-white people to re-educate whites, she said, because she found that this led whites to focus on getting acceptance and forgiveness rather than changing their own actions or beliefs."
Keeping "N-word" with higher reward just out of fear for being especially racist, or to get this acceptance and forgiveness and metaphorical pat on the shoulder leads to the dead end where circle of racism continues.
Years of slavery, general treatment of non-white people, all of it was and is bad. All we need is to admit that this happened and it was not right, then we need to learn from this mistake, keep remembering what happened, but we have to live on, times flow, such everything else, world is changing.
Doing what can be described as " - Sorry mister non-white man, I will forget about this word, I will never use it again, please, forgive me for mistakes of my ancestors, you suffered so much, nobody suffered as much as you do." is clearly wrong. What happened, happened, nobody will change the past. (He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past... Hehe). Time to treat everyone in equal manner, or face "Kill all white people" as slogan on a t-shirt.

Any racial slur holds a lot behind it, no matter how "severe" the act of racism was, it was an act of racism. No act of racism was worse than other, they are equally as bad. Saying otherwise is racist in itself.

[CABAL]

So go on, what's your concept of minor versus major 'racism?'

By "minor" racism I understand using just plain racial slurs when talking to, or about single person that exist IC and you have to have a (semi-valid) reason.
In a situation where Arabic character accidentaly, but in pretty stupid way FF a fellow marine. If that shot marine shouts:
" - You fucking towelhead moron! Watch where you are shooting!"

By "major" racism I understand using racial slurs just for the sake of using it and without (semi-valid) reason that affects one, or more people that existance extend over Almayer (race, ethnic group).
In situation where Korean character accidentaly pushes fellow marine that was vending his uniform and armor. If that pushed marine shouts:
" - You fucking retarded gook! You all can't see a damn thing with those slanted eyes?!"

[Mann handle]

I think blah blah blah

Problem with that change is that you damn well know it's going to be pretzeled and not just by one side either. It's sad that we live in an age where definitions are disgustingly vast, it gets far worse when you consider that the staff consistency will suffer greatly with that as well.

To be honest what Coroneljones said is generally the objective outlook. It's been a thing for years so long as it wasn't shitRP which got punished due to shit RP acting as a thin veil to the racism. (Which is pointless seeing that unless you're the sort of idiot that uploads photos of yourself on the internet and link it to a 2D spessman game, no one will know who you are.) It's already handled in IC, which is the correct thing for IC stuff really as it's an IC issue. You can have brits hate frenchmen or evil election hacking russians but when it's a black / asian / arab, man / woman / attack helicopter? "oh no no no that's banned" seems a little off if it was all conducted in IC with skillful RP. Even marine law covers this, if it's an officer, disrespect. If it turns into a brawl then a simple investigation would lead to a disorderly conduct charge being applied to the guilty parties. Give MPs something to do at least, it's a boring enough job so investigations might actually make more people play the role that are skilled and know marine law.

The only problem is the Ahelp system tbh and most of that lies with the fact that third parties are complaining about it for the sake of a so called minority who is theoretically being harassed, even if they are not actively present in the first place. If it was open shit like someone running around saying "kill the kikes! XD XD" we all know that the punishment would be handed down without any major complaints as it was shit RP with no constructive purpose regardless of personal world views. But when the third party gets involved it becomes a convoluted mess like the report that started the whole thing off.

If anything this debate and some of the arguments remind me a little of the "Degradation of a fanbase / hobby" scenario due to the third party issues in a way. It was never really an issue for years until one report kicks off a whole a tirade of debate. The community for the most part conducts itself rather well for an autistic 2D spessman spess marine force.

Again I'll reiterate an earlier point I made in that the staff actually needs to come up with a system and stick to it. Heck defer all non blatant cases to player reports and then log dive into the interactions is an idea I came up with earlier today. As with another point I made earlier, I pointed out that one can spot cases of IC racism being played out and OOC racism / harrassment / blah blah being easy to spot. All it takes is a minor amount of leg work which in general is tiring yes I know but it's part of the job on the whole and I'm sure staff was expecting this from the onset of applying to the job.

[Tactical 445]

Well, IC is in character. I don't understand how this is an issue, seeing as the basis of ss13 is roleplaying, restricting ones roleplay opportunities defeats the entire purpose. It should defiantly be left the same, freedom of speech IC is it not. OOC I can understand, but restricting in game RP capabilities because people are being sensitive shouldn't happen.

Not to mention, this is a video game on the internet, its just for jokes. Don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch.

[TheDexFiles]

IC issue, excessive racism should be a banable offence though.

More issues should be IC though