Smartface Bubba doesnt need to be removed
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You're still saying the issue is people using a cosmetic to target others. Which also could be applied to the pride charm. So no, it's not much of a stretch, it's just that it makes no sense, like saying bubba is doing "blackface" just bc he wears a random face from a random person he skinned.
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Friend, you have found what is called a "Strawman Argument" where they change your point to make it easier to argue against.
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Pride charm allows representation of onesself. Blackface Bubba is blackface. His skin tone beneath the mask is literally darker than usual.
They're really not the same.
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Don't get me wrong here, but I think some wires have gotten crossed regarding 'cultural appropriation' somewhere along the line.
Firstly, cultural appropriation refers to a dominant culture co-opting cultural signifiers from a minority culture. I don't think 'yellowface' or 'blackface' would qualify. That's more of a straight minstrel show nastiness.
Secondly, I don't think that cultural appropriation even exists, at least not at the ultra-expanded definition that seems to be applied today.
I've spent the majority of my life in Japan and Africa. Japanese people love it when a foreigner throws on a yukata and joins in the local taiko performance, and you can't walk through Tokyo without seeing western fashions, hearing western musical styles or seeing amazing katakana variations of English slogans. In the modern west, this would be considered deeply problematic.
My best example in Africa is the late Johnny Clegg, who took Zulu culture and language and became one of the forerunners of the Afropop genre. He was an incredible activist against the Apartheid regime and drew an enormous amount of attention to the cause of those being oppressed. Now? He's derided for this exact problem.
It's gotten so out of hand that white Hip-Hop artists catch endless flak, several women were essentially terrorized because they wrote a Tex-Mex cookbook (they were accused of 'stealing Latinx recipes'). Hell, I've been scolded by a bunch of students (fortunately not in my class) for marrying Mrs. Lost. I'm not kidding here - the language they used was 'you are colonizing her'.
That's...obscene.
I think the more apt term, aside from very specific examples, would be 'cultural appreciation'. Cultures mixing and exchanging food, fashion and music is an entirely natural process and it's what has given so many places such a unique 'flavor'.
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"noun: black-face
- 1.
- used to refer to the practice of wearing make-up to imitate the appearance of a black person. The use of such make-up was associated with minstrel shows in the United States from the 1830s until the mid 20th century; it is now regarded as highly offensive."
He isn't wearing makeup, he is wearing a literal face.
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Shrug. Again, this isn't a hill I'm willing to die on - I barely even play the Bubster :).
I'm saying that I think the arguments being made here are thin at best and is illustrative of an aspect of modern progressive activism that I think has become mildly absurd.
Which POC though?
This is probably my big problem.
'POC' aren't a monolith and the POC I've spoken to (granted, it's only 3) really like the visual and would actually probably be more likely to play Bubba with it.
This is the problem.
It's a lose/lose for companies right now - if you try to be 'representative', you are going to be wokebullied because someone didn't like a specific character (look at the recent spat of forum drama about the new killer/survivor) or found some minute detail problematic.
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That is a laughably weak strawman. I'm not even gonna entertain answering to seriously.
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canadian people loves pc
but even canadians who love pc will laugh at the question of whether this is a PC or not because of this dichotomous accident
hahaha!
this thread shows why people not loving blizzard anymore
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The definition of things can, shockingly, change over time.
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Like hopefully the devs don't entertain removing a cosmetic just because people on twitter have too much time on their hands and like to make big problems out of nothing.
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I do really think the discussion is important. I will understand if the thread gets closed, I also feel like both opinions can be, and have to be expressed. Thus far, it has been mostly civil.
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People don't like Acti-Blizz because of mass sexual harassment allegations and them shredding up a lawsuit idk how that's relevant.
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Definition of things, yes, but that change is not made by nobodies on twitter.
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DBD Forums users stop speaking over POC on issues they face challenge 2021 (failed)
accurately sums up this comment.
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Now IDK about you- actually I do, you won't change, so this argument is entirely pointless and is just going around in circles- but I'm more than happy to accept the definition made by multiple people about an issue that they face if it can be commonly agreed upon. In this case, a lot of POC have agreed that this is blackface/cultural appropriation, so I'm more than happy to accept their definition and support their attempts to remove something that is being used to purposefully harass them
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I was right - page 3 and the thread is out of hand
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Last I checked nobody has actually resorted to name calling or anything else against Forum rules. Whilst this debate may be heated, it has yet to evolve into an argument.
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thats what pc people cares about?
we koreans only cared about news like diablo immortal as "you don't have a phone?"
and a surprise party that tracer is a lesbian and the soldier76 is gay
very suddenly all these happend
It's not because of activision, how much this company now careless about their customers,
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Is there something wrong with Claudette's face?
@GoodBoyKaru racists will be racists. Removing it won't stop harassment as the face isn't a catalyst to it.
Taking away a cosmetic simply because its a different color is racists. Claudette deserves her place as the original 4 survivors.
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"an issue they face", an issue that they made up sure. There was no issue in the first place.
Pretty sure there is way more POC thinking this is a non issue than what some people are making it out to be.
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Its really close though. I think rn the threads more or less a powder keg
We just need to wait for 1 spark to blow the whole thing up.
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"as the face isn't a catalyst to it" except it is
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I agree. These are very important discussions that need to be had, so long as they remain civil. And media is an excellent framing device for these discussions.
Which POC?
What I'm putting forward here is primarily the opinions of my wife (and I hope that being married to a Caucasian hasn't become grounds for disqualification) who is sitting about 2 meters away from me at the other end of my living room.
This is a core part of my disagreement here. You seem to be more than willing to consider all POC a monolith. Aren't you, yourself, speaking over them where they disagree?
Also - let's be nice here GBK. That last thread ended badly.
Also also - as I said then, I will never accept any sort of ideological segregation. Anyone can (and should) speak on any issue that interests them. Nobody's opinion should be discarded because of their race, sexuality or identity. And that cuts both ways.
It saddens me as a progressive of yesteryear, who marched against Apartheid himself (and ended up with a pretty awesome scar), that this seems to be the way we are going now.
Unfortunately, it is indeed mostly an online thing (and some very fringe parts of academia) - but right now, the Twitter and Blogosphere have the ability to project a very loud and honestly very skewed impression of what people actually believe.
It's a bit of a sidetrack, but my best example is a semi-recent spat involving a team with an 'innapropriate' name. When polled, actual Native Americans either didn't care or were a fan of the name. However, this would not have been the impression you got unless you went and tracked it down.
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And when that spark comes it will be dealt with accordingly.
People have been advocating against this cosmetic for a while- well over 2 years. This isn't a recent development. Who are you to say what is and isn't an issue for people?
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The same way you can say this is an issue for certain people, I have the right to say this is a non-issue for other people.
Bubba wearing a mask made of skin, that happens to be black, is not blackface. It's not racism.
Saying this is racism, actually takes away from actual racism happening in the world, which already is a lot, why add even more to it?
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What I'm putting forward here is primarily the opinions of my wife (and I hope that being married to a Caucasian hasn't become grounds for disqualification) who is sitting about 2 meters away from me at the other end of my living room. This is a core part of my disagreement here. You seem to be more than willing to consider all POC a monolith and are you, yourself, speaking over them where they disagree.
And then her opinions are also entirely valid. I've been using POC all thread when I should be using some/most beforehand, which was entirely my bad and I apologise.
Also also - as I said then, I will never accept any sort of ideological segregation. Anyone can (and should) speak on any issue that interests them. Nobody's opinion should be discarded because of their race, sexuality or identity. And that cuts both ways.
Correct, everyone's opinion holds some weight. However, again to use the analogy of the lawyer and the brain surgeon, they will have vastly different experiences in life, and so you wouldn't go to one person on advice for something they aren't experienced in. If you have experienced something for a large portion of your life, then you are just naturally going to be able to give better advice on the topic at hand, hence why your opinion should be weighted higher since you're more knowledgeable on the subject matter at hand.
It doesn't matter if this is about sexuality, race, gender, religion, science- the topic is irrelevant. The general principle remains the same of "your opinion matters more if you have experience in the subject"- and so, absolutely no offence intended, I'd value your wife's opinion on the subject moreso than your own. Like I'd value an Asian person's opinion on the subject of Asian hate than I would anyone else.
(Also, in terms of your previous talk about the comments you received when marrying your wife, I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. That's been taken to the extreme of the extreme and provided both of you were legally of age to marry then absolutely nothing should've stopped you, with no comments or judgements made. People will take these things too far, and I believe this was one such example of that).
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Good. I'll agree with you on this.
But again, which people?
Before I changed something like this, I'd make very sure that I was doing it because it actually offended a lot of people. Maybe an ingame poll would be apropo?
Otherwise you risk falling into the trap of making changes to your product because of a tiny minority opinion.
The slippery slope isn't always a fallacy, and you risk sliding right down it once this happens.
This, right here, is the absolute core of my problems with a lot of this stuff.
When you start complaining that having black enemies in Far Cry or Bubba wearing Claudette's or Jake's face is racist, then you water down how wrong and evil racism actually is and - if anything - you risk making actual incidents of racism viewed as less serious.
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no, thats just pc based idea
they screwed one remastering and showed they don't care about their customers like before
did you saw how diablo immortal presented? thats true reason
it doesn't matter what happend there, people don't give a damn about it
i never heard any person suggesting to hate them for any whistleblowon stories,
also majority pissed about what you said just because they added soldier76 and tracer is homosexual
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Saying that something that people who experience racism have defined as racist- though I appreciate not everyone will, which was my bad since comment 1 on this thread- doesn't create more racism in the world, it just allows people to deal with something that was racist all along but simply wasn't recognised as such
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No I think the sexual assault victims would absolutely argue that it was due to the sexual assault lawsuits and not because of a few bad game reveals..?
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To just state my opinion on the matter, I personally don't see it as a necessary thing to change. I will be opposed to flat-out removal, however. As GBK has stated, though, that is (hopefully) not the case.
That said, I'm naturally going to be biased. Being a white Dutch guy, I've grown up with the yearly tradition of Sinterklaas (which is, fittingly, around this time of year), where actual blackfaces (and, admittedly, not very flattering ones at that) appear commonly. Zwarte Pieten, they're called. Literally, Black Petes. It's something I just never considered as being offensive until a few years back. Strides have been made to improve the situation, but it only takes a quick google image search to see why even the current iteration ("roetveegpieten" - chimneysweep Petes) is still problematic. Even so, it hardly affects me at all. I'm too old now to be affected by any major change in the tradition (it's primarily aimed at kids around the age of 8-10), and the whole matter leaves me largely indifferent anyhow.
With that out of the way, I can perfectly understand why a poc would be offended by the cosmetic, and if that's indeed a shared sentiment, by all means, I'll support that. Though, I really don't think flat-out removal is the way to go about it, as that seems like positive discrimination. Quite simply, it just doesn't make sense if we don't also remove, or indeed, change the other cosmetics. That isn't me taking offense to just Dwight and Meg's faces being the only ones, I just would greatly prefer a more elegant solution, if something were to change.
(I am currently running on 4,5 hours of sleep. If this topic still exists tomorrow, I'll try to elaborate)
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It isn't racist, tho.
How it would be racist:
Bubba only killing claudette and using her face because of her race.
Bubba never using claudette's face because of her race.
He sees everyone equally, he doesn't care about race. People making it a "blackface" thing, when it's not even close to the definition.
It would be "blackface" if he used it to mock claudette for her skin color. He doesn't.
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If I'm being genuinely honest, I am not 100% the best person to ask for how to gague community requests to change the cosmetic(s), however I have some friends I could ask on what they believe the best way of doing this would be (and you absolutely could do the same if you wanted).
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idk how many times to say this but it's not about the character of bubba, please stop making it about the character of bubba
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Damn, I just got out of forum jail and you guys are already tempting me.
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Then nothing to be changed about Bubba, if it's not about him.
Just ban the players being racist. Removing a cosmetic will not change the fact that they're racist.
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they should keep the cosmetic, and also add more of the original characters as other potential unlocks.
i await for felix face.
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Or, and hear me out here, we improve the reporting system to ban these players and remove one of the enablers allowing them to be racist? :0
If you take a ban because of this topic then idk what to tell you, the only way you could really achieve that is through making a racist or insulting remark which are both clearly against forum rules lol
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gonna have to ask what POC is.
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People Of Color
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A lot of the people who advocate for the removal of the cosmetic suggest they replace it instead of outright deleting it with something equally as iconic, except without the problematic elements. My friend Tanibeax first suggested this one to me, I believe, and it does seem like the best solution.
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Thank you :)
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I'm all for a better reporting system since the current one is trash.
You're speaking it enables people, that's why earlier I brought up the pride charm as an "enabler" since it also can be used like that. Does that mean the pride charm should be removed because people can use it to be bigots? No.
People who show obvious bigotry just need to be banned.
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I didn't say anything all too insane last time either and yet things happened. You know well how that goes yourself too, if memory serves right.
Anyway, the developers are looking into the Bubba situation, which means we might see a change in a few years.
inb4 NFT blackface
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Good!
Never apologize for giving your opinion, unless you are giving it in bad faith or refusing to cede a point that you know is wrong.
Regarding your analogy...um.
I swear, there's a name for this that escapes me but what you are doing is conflating two very different scenarios.
I'd go to the Lawyer for specific legal advice. I'd go to the brain surgeon for advice on neurology.
However, that does not mean that their opinions on, say, baseball or the morality of a welfare state would be any more valid than mine, assuming we all watch baseball.
It also (and this is key) does not mean that I am incapable of having a valid legal opinion or making a correct point on neurology.
Now, I don't think your analogy is bad, but I think you've taken the wrong conclusion from it.
The reason being, everyone has a race (unless you are one of those 'white isn't a race' NBP types - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here). Race relations are something we all have to negotiate together.
'Offensiveness' is and always will be in the mind of the beholder. A very wise man once said 'offense is seldom given but always taken' and I agree with that. I've had some hilarious experiences in Japan (my absolute favorite was 'hey you're from Africa right? Do you have AIDS?'). And don't even get me started on the representations of white foreigners in Japanese media...
However, I would never take offense at that. Because I truly believe that where you encounter ignorance, your reaction should be mild amusement and, if you feel the need, a desire to discourse.
Here, we have a videogame with an aspect that was likely designed to be inclusive. I don't think that, without a significantly more robust discussion with the playerbase, the devs should change it because a few people declared it to be 'offensive'. I think that's a very bad precedent to set - the sort of precedent that turns you into Ubisoft, pumping out deliberately bland media to avoid offending anyone.
And yes, I'm glad that you agree that some things go too far.
Can you see that, from mine (and the perspective of my missus) that this is an example of that?
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Oh no believe me my ban was entirely warrented, there was a rule I broke very explicitly multiple times lmao
We ban the bigots and remove the, at best, tone-deaf enabler. It's two birds with one stone.
Also I've already explained time and time again why the pride charm is not a good example to use for this.
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If racist people use Bubba's smartface cosmetic as a way to harass others, the pride charm can be used in the same way.
I'm pretty sure everyone remembers when it got added we had some people saying they were getting tunneled and camped because of the pride charm.
From what GBK is saying, people who were using Bubba's Smartface, were camping and tunneling people, and people would assume they were using that cosmetic with the intent to be racist.
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People don't do it, or people don't say they're doing it?
Because just because a SmartFace Bubba facecamps a claudette, doesn't mean they are doing it to be racist, unless they state so in post game chat.
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Yeah, this.
ActiBlizz were in the dog-house long before these allegations.
'People of Color'. It's a somewhat controversial acronym generally meaning 'is part of a minority racial group within the USA/UK/Canada/Australia'. I'm not a fan of it, as I consider it to be somewhat dehumanizing but I'll use it here as this seems to be the common lexicon on the forums.
I'm incredibly confident that if I was to poll the non-white members of my classes tomorrow, they'd be against changing the skin. I could even restrict it to black students (I have two online classes from South Africa) if you'd prefer.
That said, the 'POC' (gah, I hate that term) that I'm speaking to right now (wife, inlaws) agree with me. But they Nigerian, and tend to be very come-as-you-are (although all but the oldest is highly educated).
What's going to matter here is, in my opinion:
- Political alignment.
- Education criteria (from my experience, humanities students are very 'progressive' while STEM tends more towards centrism, bordering on libertarianism).
That said, conversations-by-proxy are a little bit silly.
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Regarding your analogy...um. I swear, there's a name for this that escapes me but what you are doing is conflating two very different scenarios. I'd go to the Lawyer for specific legal advice. I'd go to the brain surgeon for advice on neurology. However, that does not mean that their opinions on, say, baseball or the morality of a welfare state would be any more valid than mine, assuming we all watch baseball.
You're correct in that I wouldn't go to either of them for baseball advice- I'd talk to a baseball player. And I'd assume the opinion of the baseball player to be more valid than that of you three, as this imaginary player has more experience with baseball than the imaginary lawyer. You see what I mean?
It also (and this is key) does not mean that I am incapable of having a valid legal opinion or making a correct point on neurology.
Correct, it does not. However, people will be more inclined to believe the opinion of someone with more experience and knowledge in the subject. If you can back up your opinions with experiences, be it legal documentation and prior court hearings you've seen, or a video of you playing baseball professionally 15 years ago, then people will also likely provide a lot more validity to your opinion than they would have prior, as they know you come from a place of experience on the subject.
To use a much more real world example, I'm currently studying economics (among other things). My friend, who I'll call Darlah (which isn't her real name), is studying psychology (also among other things). For economics advice, people would obviously go to me over Darlah, and for psychology advice, they'd do the opposite. In terms of getting advice for, say, criminology, they'd naturally go to someone else.
I hope this is making sense now?
Race relations are something we all have to negotiate together.
Which is absolutely true, however this isn't an issue of race relations, but instead of a lot of POC being racially targeted and harassed while a cosmetic enables the intentions to be made clear. Obviously, this won't suddenly solve racism, however making people feel more comfortable while playing their game seems like a good thing, right? Race relations would, imho, be something entirely different.
Here, we have a videogame with an aspect that was likely designed to be inclusive. I don't think that, without a significantly more robust discussion with the playerbase, the devs should change it because a few people declared it to be 'offensive'. I think that's a very bad precedent to set - the sort of precedent that turns you into Ubisoft, pumping out deliberately bland media deliberately to avoid offending anyone.
I believe that while intentions may have been pure, it was tone-deaf at best, and a lot of people I've spoken to seem to agree. It's been taken by racists as a tool for targeted harassment and since a lot of people- or at the very least a vocal minority- of POC players have spoken out against the cosmetic, I believe it at least warrents some looking into (which has been confirmed by not_Queen to be something they're looking into doing).
Can you see that, from mine (and the perspective of my missus) that this is an example of that?
Kind of? I get that it may seem extreme but I'd rather support people who are advocating for more comfort in playing the game than deny their opinions and experiences simply because of a cosmetic. The cosmetic itself has no monetary value and can be easily replaced with something else equally as iconic with far less problematic undertones. And while this may look like PC gone mad to you, to me it seems like a reasonable request for people to feel more safe in the game, and remove a tool to be implicitly racist, as explicit racism will lead to punishments.
Taken to the extreme would be the commentsmade against you and your wife, for example. I don't think this is an extreme at all.
EDIT: sorry for the long comment but I felt like it was warranted in this case.
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