Diversity Representation in MU*ing

[SparklesTheClown]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject
It was this A+ winner of a post.

https://musoapbox.net/topic/3249/diversity-representation-in-mu-ing/242?_=1591921257071

Which I umm am not basing any of my life decisions on.

Edited why are things hard to link It's at the bottom of the page.

As it didn't lead me to a specific post, I'll address two posts I see in that link.

This is the dumbest thread I've seen in a while. Let me state a couple relevant points.

You can play whatever ethnicity or gender you desire. There is zero pushback against this. No game currently open today (bar a few old MUDs and MOOs) still have racism and bigotry baked in to any real degree. And the people who are openly racist/bigots actually get tossed out. Unlike real life.

Playing a PoC to learn empathy? Bitch please. The shit that folks who aren't white have to deal with on a daily basis -don't exist on a MU*-! Period. It is a sanitized experience. It's downright offensive to consider playing a PoC as 'walking in their shoes' or 'learning empathy'.

I don't disagree with this at all. Like, yeah I believe that playing a POC with a certain intent, if it's gonna force you to research and educate yourself about certain things, can give you a better perspective, I really don't think that playing a POC in of itself will magically teach you what it's like to be a POC. And I think that's the point of this post. They're not saying playing a POC is bad, just that it isn't an equivalent experience to being a POC.

@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Play a POC, it wouldn't kill you.

Yeaaaaaaaah, no.

It feels a bit too much like this:

While it might not kill me, it might offend a person of color, so I'm going to politely say no. I don't judge people who do it at all, but I personally do not trust myself to do the character appropriate justice.

As far as this post, this person literally said they aren't a POC and quite honestly equating playing a POC to blackface is like, what??? Unless you're planning to do some horrific accent and use it as an excuse to drop the N word everywhere, or any number of super obvious things that anyone with common sense wouldn't do, then I don't see the issue. I have literally never met a single other black RPer who has said something like this. And I play in at least two MUSHes currently with multiple black players from a variety of backgrounds, and white people who are playing POCs.

Like, I can't take responsibility for a white person being way off base. I understand the sentiment but this is just straight up not a thing that should be taken seriously.

[surreality]

@HelloProject This is a good example re: the furor over clothing. Even the article is full of contradictory opinions, but the attacks if you look at the original link are probably not something most people of any description are likely to want to deal with, ever, to put it mildly.

(FWIW, that's almost identical to a dress I bought in Hong Kong, mine just doesn't have the band of black trim; it's why this sticks out in memory.)

As a fashion and costume and fashion history geek, every single thing about this depresses me. I don't expect you to explain or anything, it's 'if you hadn't seen this, this is an example of what I meant'.

[SparklesTheClown]

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject This is a good example re: the furor over clothing. Even the article is full of contradictory opinions, but the attacks if you look at the original link are probably not something most people of any description are likely to want to deal with, ever, to put it mildly.

(FWIW, that's almost identical to a dress I bought in Hong Kong, mine just doesn't have the band of black trim; it's why this sticks out in memory.)

As a fashion and costume and fashion history geek, every single thing about this depresses me. I don't expect you to explain or anything, it's 'if you hadn't seen this, this is an example of what I meant'.

Stuff like this is usually pretty easy to explain, since I see it all the time and have had this discussion a lot. To put it simply, Asian-Americans and people who live in Asian countries are living extremely different experiences. You can't expect someone who grew up in China who has only lived in China to have the same experience and opinion as a Chinese-American. Considering that in China you grow up literally in the dominant ethnic group, why would the concept of cultural appropriation or anything like that even be something that you think about?

"Americans got mad, but people in China didn't" is just not a good argument and displays an overwhelming amount of ignorance on the part of journalists. Like, I don't see American journalists looking to see what the opinions of people who live in Lagos are about African-American issues. It just makes literally zero sense to me and has always been my least favorite line of thinking.

Also I didn't actually read the clothing/costume posts 'cause I was still responding to other stuff, but now that I have, like, fashion stuff is extremely contextual. I know 100% for sure that Japanese people in Japan encourage people to learn about Japanese culture and wear/learn about kimonos and stuff. And I know that there's Japanese-Americans who have had their culture disrespected enough times that there's sensitivity and wariness on the topic, because they have very different lived experiences than someone who exclusively grew up in Japan has had.

At the end of the day, all you can do is either 1. decide you don't wanna deal with that and just kind of yeet out of it, or 2. avoid the actual mechanics of what appropriation is and hope for the best.

At the end of the day, on kimonos specifically, the way that people in Japan encourage people to engage with stuff like that would very much entirely avoid the concept of appropriation. Like, if you're literally learning about the culture, doing things in the appropriate way, and respecting what these things mean, it literally doesn't fit the definition of what appropriation is. Appropriation is like, a white person getting a fashionable mini-skirt made out of a kimono and doing a whole "Asian-themed" thing with no regard for anything to do with that culture beyond its iconography and aesthetic.

The kimono debate specifically is one I've seen a lot, as I'm in a lot of Japanese culture things where I hear people discuss this topic quite a bit. It's an extremely thin line with lots of grey areas, opinions, and experiences, and it's one of those things you're not gonna get 100% of people to agree due to the fact that it isn't a strictly black and white issue.

Do I believe that appropriation has a pretty specific definition and set of terms? Yes. However, there is a grey area of, like, people who have seen their culture get appropriated so many times that they aren't quick to trust that someone isn't doing that, and some who believe that they can't trust someone not to be engaging in appropriation at all. To me it's an understandable feeling to have, and I don't judge people for having that feeling. But it's not really a homogeneous feeling or opinion, it's one of those things where it comes down to your own judgement after you've weighed everything that people say and feel and such. You're gonna find people who are all perfectly intelligent and "woke" and everything else whose opinions greatly differ on this.

But if I were to give my personal opinion, I personally follow the terms of avoiding what cultural appropriation generally is. So far I haven't really run into any problems from doing this. At the end of the day, basic respect for what you're engaging with is often all people want, so I go out of my way to show that.

Also that nurse outfit thing is wild, I never thought of that before. I can definitely see why a "sexy nurse" outfit is offensive and belittling from the perspective of a nurse. It really does seem like one of those things that grinds at a culture's perspective. Like my friend was saying on Discord about the way that the Simpsons have painted people's perspective on nuclear power.

[surreality]

@HelloProject Oh, it's not the argument of 'in Asia vs. in the US' that I'm thinking of so much as 'this was the article I read about it'. Like, I'd expect to see crap like that all over FOX news or something for its... "unique" (read: gross) motives, but it's common enough for it to crop up even in the New York Times with people full of contradictory opinions.

I've read a lot on the kimono one, too; there's tons of nuance there also. Like... a lot of the ones that came to the US from the 70s-90s are 'cause they're considered 'used clothing' and it wouldn't be clean or appropriate to wear them, and they were picked up from literal ragpickers from trash, which shocks us, sure, but was societally common then. In a weird way, it's a great example of the symbiotic relationship there -- particularly re: fashion -- because as that became more common, it emphasized the value of them 'at home' and while it means fewer coming here inexpensively these days, that they're valued there as the reason? I am elated as hell by that. Since a lot of the aspects of it are also arts at risk due to the dwindling number of people willing or interested in the long apprenticeships to learn them, the broader interest has helped keep the art form -- and it totally is -- more likely to survive, which I love even if I'd not wear one these days.

A lot of the 'make it from kimono fabric' stuff you see is actually a factor of the way they were brought here (by weight, literally) in that earlier period. A lot of things would be damaged when discarded, or discarded due to minor damage, so sometimes there were only pieces that could be saved. So, again, while I wouldn't necessarily 'go there' myself, I get how that specifically became 'popular' for a while in a very basic way, for a totally nuts and bolts reason vs. any sort of cultural statement. The pieces were apparently absurdly popular to use to make quilts, for instance, that weren't typically anything but 'quilt of pretty squares'.

Three of the ones I have are damaged from this sort of thing; two of the three would have been quite valuable if they were pristine. (One's part of a theater costume similar to a wedding kimono and is covered in embroidery, one is a Maiko kimono that's hand-painted and also heavily embroidered with real gold thread. The former had import stamps slapped onto the silk in the export process <WINCE> and the other was practically falling apart before I repaired it, but it's too fragile to clean.) I'm still glad they're in one piece, all things considered. They're things I would donate now if I didn't love swooning at them every so often; if they were pristine I would do so, but in their current condition they'd unfortunately just be part of the non-display 'research portion' of a costume library, so they can wait until I'm dead for that.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

This is a good example re: the furor over clothing.

This is, and it is something I'd rather not re-visit.

[surreality]

@Ganymede Apologies for mentioning, in that case, and I wouldn't ask you to or expect you to.

[Ganymede]

@surreality

That’s okay. I know you aren’t trying to be hurtful, and I don’t find the issue hurtful.

I just get exasperated by it.

Just don’t fucking wear something without appreciating why it is culturally significant.

And when you understand that, please understand why some people, in this case Chinese ex-pats or their children, would not want you to wear it.

[surreality]

@Ganymede I may be in a weird -- ok, no, I know I'm in a weird position on this particular issue, but there's an innate problem, mainly: there's no way to make 'I know the history of this garment/item' as visible as the item itself. Many people won't know, but there are folks who do.

Mine hasn't fit me since 1986, so there's no risk of me running into this issue, but I am rationally inclined to think I'm not a monster with zero cultural sensitivity for wearing it once when I was 13, and seeing that article? Made me feel like I am, today, right now, and nothing will ever change it, just for that. There's a reason I don't visit those boxes in the closet much.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I may be in a weird -- ok, no, I know I'm in a weird position on this particular issue, but there's an innate problem, mainly: there's no way to make 'I know the history of this garment/item' as visible as the item itself. Many people won't know, but there are folks who do.

I'm just going to use you for illustrative purposes, then.

Ganymede: You know what you have on?
Surreality: No clue.
Ganymede: Why did you get it?
Surreality: It looked pretty?
Ganymede: Okay, well, that's a cheongsam, also known as a qipao. Back when my parents lived in China, around the time of the Cultural Revolution, women who wore that were arrested for dissidence and never seen again.
Surreality: That's awful.
Ganymede: Yeah. It was really shitty. The Communists thought it was too bourgeousie, and put people to death for that. It was also a way to keep women in check, who were often outspoken activists against the rise of communist totalitarianism. Like, imagine if you were wearing Lululemon or Victoria's Secret stuff one day, and then you get picked up by a bunch of gun-toting psychopaths, driven to a camp, and then shot in the head for political reasons.
Surreality: ... so, I shouldn't wear it.
Ganymede: No, I just want you to be aware of it's history. Women in the 80s and 90s brought it back when China started to become more capitalist. It was a sort of counter-revolutionary thing for them. The Chinese government had just opened up, and it could not risk losing status in the eyes of American interests, so it tolerated the movement knowing full well that women were once again being disobedient.
Surreality: ... so I should wear it?
Ganymede: That depends. Now that you are aware of what it means, would you be upset if I told you to take it off?
Surreality: No.
Ganymede: Great! Now, show me your kitties.

As for the teen that wore it to prom, she defended her choice because she thought it did not constitute cultural appropriation and that it was pretty. Where the conversation gets exasperating is where people say things like "well, how was she to know?" and "she's just a kid!", to which I say "there's a fucking thing kids use called wikipedia so you can learn about your clothing's history and the Three Kingdoms and shit without much difficulty, c'mon".

And when people say "well people in China are okay with it", that's when I say "people in China didn't have to flee China for their ideals or witness their friends disappear for wearing that outfit, like my mother who had to spend 2 years separated from her family because her parents could only afford to take 2 of their 3 kids to Canada with them, so they left her behind with other relatives in Singapore with no fucking contact whatsoever."

That's why the situation is exasperating.

Also, more kitty therapy:

[silverfox]

@Ganymede

Ty for the kitties put in appropriate break points. I motion that all posts from now on do this to help us combat compassion fatigue.

[surreality]

@Ganymede That's just it; I knew this at the time (partly why when we went I was surprised as hell to see so many places selling them). This was in the 80s. I chatted with the guy who sold it to us when I mentioned being surprised to see them about the resurgence. The history I knew then was 'feminine empowerment phase initially, became distorted/sexualized as anything like that unfortunately does, became symbol of luxury and dissent with horrific results (as you describe)' and 'remained more prevalent in Hong Kong throughout but was still rare' (which is where we were).

We weren't super comfortable with the idea of buying it at first because of the history (and the sexualization/fetishization), but we could get behind the 'sign of independence', which he explained at the time, along with that it was 'the start of Hong Kong's return to China from the Brits that people wanted to encourage' along the same vein. These did not seem to be bad sentiments, though I can absolutely understand why someone who was not a part of that resurgence would be extremely put off -- it had been our initial take, too. (We kept that guy at the shop chatting until after they would normally have closed, I swear. Maybe he was just trying to sell to the tourists, but that wasn't the impression we got at the time, fwiw.)

I was always the megageek on costuming since I was about 7 or 8, when I realized I was never going to be Jacques Cousteau due to a paralyzing fear of moray eels. (No, really.) I knew this stuff at the time since I did a deep dive on clothing info pre-travel, because megageek, and my mother was a hardcore textile arts hobbyist.

I outgrew it within the year, regardless, but I do keep it.

Even now, when I travel, I try to get something wearable that is traditional in some way to the area. It's mostly jewelry or an accessory these days, since not a lot of places have things in 'one size fits short round woman made of boobs', but it's an interest in the area and related clothing and ornaments. I have a lot of stuff I've bought like this that I could never wear/waggle into, too, since it was an interesting find for whatever reason.

But, yeah, I don't disagree that 'it was pretty' is the most likely reason most people go with -- it's just not everyone's reason. Thirteen year old me would not have ever made it back from that experience if I was in that person's shoes, and the only reason I'm not is because people weren't tweeting in 1986. I doubt anyone would have listened to the info related above, and probably wouldn't (or don't) care either way.

I will totally put up a pic of the kitty in a little bit though 'cause... she's a derpy doll and she's in a nip frenzy today.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

But, yeah, I don't disagree that 'it was pretty' is the most likely reason most people go with -- it's just not everyone's reason.

I know. That's why I wrote the scene as I did. This is probably how it would have gone between us.

Ganymede: You know what you have on?
Surreality: Sure do. It's a cheongsam, also known as a qipao.
Ganymede: Why did you get it?
Surreality: Well, it looks nice, but I appreciate what the women are doing in China these days wearing them, so I wanted to make a statement in support of them.
Ganymede: Super. Now show me your kitties.

[surreality]

Mid-murderypaws:

...and the husband's poster in the background almost makes this relevant:

Bannister flouf.

Dark house is dark today, hence the blurry bad lighting. Ah, well.

[saosmash]

i hear someone wants more kitties

[silverfox]

@saosmash

yeeessssssssss

[surreality]

I also really want to note: Gany, that is a great example (in both examples you used) of 'calling in' vs. 'calling out', and that difference is not to be overlooked.

It is such a valuable difference.

Someone calling out a stranger on twitter with no data is easy, which is I think why we see so much of it all around on every possible thing. Having a conversation with someone is not so easy, but is usually so much more effective, as it's less likely to get someone instantly on the defensive to the extent that they usually won't listen.

There's definitely a place for calling out. I wish certain world 'leaders' would stop proving that...

[TNP]

@Ganymede said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Ganymede: Great! Now, show me your kitties.

Raise your hand if you read that as titties.

[Auspice]

@TNP said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Ganymede said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Ganymede: Great! Now, show me your kitties.

Raise your hand if you read that as titties.

I mean, it was Gany asking to see pussy.

[surreality]

@Auspice ...was just typing that, so... yep.

Though also:

[Ninjakitten]

I appreciate the diverse array of kitties already represented in this thread.