Diversity Representation in MU*ing

[reversed]

@bored said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

She's a former IDF fitness/combat trainer, and knowing nothing about you, I'm pretty confident to say she'd beat your ass.

I've been waiting for an excuse to use a gif of this scene in the Arx thread, since Gal Gadot is one of my character PBs, but I guess it can slot right in here instead.

Edited to a smaller one so that it's easier for anyone at work to hide a gif of nine-foot-tall Gal Gadot bullying someone in her underpants.

[SparklesTheClown]

I mean people on the internet say a lot of shit, and they also have a lot of different opinions. Obviously there are always going to be weird unclear waters, but expecting everything to have a neat and tidy explanation that no one has disagreements over is unrealistic.

And just for my two cents, I never thought Gal Godot was white, I just had no idea what the fuck she was. She's in that Morena Baccarin space in my head.

[Tinuviel]

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Morena Baccarin

Brazillian.

[Ominous]

@HelloProject

I would've guessed Brazilian or some sort of Mediterranean, which would include Greece.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Admiral said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject Agreed. Whiteness is what Republicans consider acceptable levels of melanin at any given time. Irish and Italians are white now. Hispanics are no longer white.

Having recently branched out into playing a Spanish character (from Bilbao, Spain) I have been surprised at this. As a Scandinavian it never occurred to me to consider a light olive skinned, green-eyed, brown-haired guy to be -- well, not white. American players on the game tell me that by US definitions, he is a POC. To me, he looks like someone I might bump into at the local gas station here in Denmark, back from a two week vacation to the Mediterranean.

It's not just a matter of skin tone. And at least to me, it's very bizarre.

[Goblin]

@L-B-Heuschkel As a fellow Scandinavian I agree this is bizarre, for the same reasons.

[Tinuviel]

@L-B-Heuschkel @Goblin From my understanding American racism is mainly about skin tone, whereas European racism is more about which country you're from. Of course skin tone is an element of European racism, as it is everywhere, but it's not really the first thing that comes to mind when you think 'European cultural rivalries'.

[Goblin]

@Tinuviel Yup. Also religion.

[Tinuviel]

@Goblin said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Tinuviel Yup. Also religion.

Well, that's not racism. But yes, that is also a strong source of conflict.

[surreality]

Skin tone and 'what I guess you are from 20 paces' has a lot to do with it in the US.

I'm normally eerie goth pale because I hide from the sun like a vampire, but when I get even the tiniest bit of sun, I bronze up fast, in a deep olive tone. When I lived in Los Angeles, pretty much everyone assumed I was Mexican, including my Mexican-American friends when we first met. People initially addressed me in Spanish more often than they did in English, and only the classic baffled deer-in-the-headlights 'I only speak English' expression -- still convinced this explained it in a nanosecond -- clued folks in. This never bothered or offended me, obviously, but holy shit was it eye-opening in other ways. Like, 'suddenly the person addressing me would stand up straighter and sound apologetic' kinds of eye-opening.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel @Goblin From my understanding American racism is mainly about skin tone, whereas European racism is more about which country you're from. Of course skin tone is an element of European racism, as it is everywhere, but it's not really the first thing that comes to mind when you think 'European cultural rivalries'.

I'm tempted to say that cultural rivalries seems to be an issue for both? When a guy who could be my neighbour here in Denmark is considered a POC because he's Spanish, then the issue is that he's Spanish -- not the colour of his skin. I guess that you can say that yes, it's what country you're from, rather than the exact amount of pigmentation.

Cultural rivalries in Europe are definitely a thing. To be blunt; there's a strong undercurrent in northern Europe that southern Europe exists so that we have somewhere with a nice beach to go sit on while we complain that the food is odd and the wait staff has a Spanish/Italian/Maltese/whatever accent.

[GreenFlashlight]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I'm tempted to say that cultural rivalries seems to be an issue for both?

There's definitely an element of it in American racism. Black people are poor, which must mean they're lazy; black people don't do well in school, which must mean they're stupid; black families are broken, which must mean they're selfish; on and on like that. I think most of it really is visual signifiers, though. Like, if Ted Cruz was as visibly Hispanic as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, he'd never have been allowed into Republican halls of power.

[Coin]

I'm White Hispanic with blue eyes; my roots are Spaniard and Italian.

I once took a road trip in the nineties along the border between Mexico and the U.S. with three other people: my step-father (same ancestry), and two other (pretty white, but maybe a bit more olive, I dunno) dudes (his friend and that friend's son). Both of them were born in the U.S., my step-father had had his U.S. citizenship for years; I was the only one who was an immigrant.

Every time -- and I do mean every single time -- we crossed back from Mexico to the U.S. (we did it like five times, it was the point of the road trip), they were asked for their papers. I was not. In at least two occasions, when my papers were offered, the migra officer waved it off, because it was unnecessary.

White is absolutely about the color of your skin and the way people identify (or don't) with you in the U.S. It was like that back then and it's still like that now (my brother can attest). Being of Italian or even Spaniard blood does not make you some swarthy POC and I really wish a lot of the people who look like me and are from the places I am and my ancestors were from would recognize that.

P.S. There's white people in Mexico and Brazil and Venezuela and Uruguay and Colombia and Argentina and... I'm not gonna list all of South America, but just shove it all together. A lot of us are from the same ancestry I am (usually a lot more Spaniard than Italian; in Brazil a lot more Portuguese). There's racism all throughout South America -- based on skin color, based on provenance, based on who your parents or ancestors were. And at no point -- not a single fucking moment -- has being on the white side of that not benefited me, nor a single moment in which being a POC has not harmed my friends and other people.

Just, you know. Public service announcement.

[Macha]

See, I'm an asshole. It's not that I don't see color. Because of course I do, because I'm so fucking PALE that I admire all the other skin tones. I just hate the fact people put so much emphasis on something so beautful.

[surreality]

@Coin The easiest example of this, to me, to someone who doesn't get that? Cintia Dicker. We've all seen the PB around, everywhere.

People generally don't guess 'Brazilian'.

ETA: most painfully relevant GAP tagline ever for this convo.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@surreality That girl's paler and more blue-eyed than I am, and I have one single known non-Scandinavian ancestor since the year 1700. If she gets ragged on for being Brazilian, then it's not about pigmentation but stereotyping South Americans as if they were all one monolithic ethnotype and culture.

Not saying that whiter skin doesn't get you significant privilege; I'm white, I know it does. Am definitely saying that language or nationality sometimes get applied in the same fashion as skin pigmentation. I don't know if racism is the right word to use there (not a native speaker, after all) but bigotry sure as hell is.

[surreality]

@L-B-Heuschkel No, no... she doesn't get ragged on for it. It's that no one guesses, seeing that picture, that she's Brazilian (unless they already know), because she's pale, blue-eyed, and red-haired.

A lot of the assumptions that go around in the US aren't based on anything but appearance. The experiences Coin describes -- people assuming he's the white US citizen -- are good demonstrations of this. Same with people suddenly becoming deferential to me for no reason other than 'oh shit it's a white girl' when they realized I was white and not Mexican.

It's very much 'about appearance' in the US in incredibly disturbing ways.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel No, no... she doesn't get ragged on for it. It's that no one guesses, seeing that picture, that she's Brazilian (unless they already know), because she's pale, blue-eyed, and red-haired.

And when they do find out, do attitudes change?

I ask because I was genuinely surprised to be told by some Americans that being a POC isn't only a matter of appearance but also of country of origin. It makes as much sense to me as racism generally does (i.e. very little). At least some of my international friends experience being treated different if they suddenly are no longer perceived as being 'white'.

[Ganymede]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I ask because I was genuinely surprised to be told by some Americans that being a POC isn't only a matter of appearance but also of country of origin.

It depends, I think. Most people can tell that I'm Asian, but few people realize that I'm of Chinese descent. And then, when they find out, I'm Canadian and not Paul Kariya, well --

[surreality]

@L-B-Heuschkel The initial thing is appearance. I mean, that's pretty basic: <person> resembles <collection of physical stereotypes>.

It gets more insidious past that, since within every group of people with any given physical stereotype, there are the cultural or national or specific differences.

There was a point in time -- not terribly long ago in the historical sense -- when Spanish, Irish, Italians, Greeks, and some others 'weren't white enough'. You'd see despicable stereotypes about these groups spread around widely. You see relics of it today: 'Irish are all violent drunks', 'Italians are all greasy mobbed-up womanizers', etc. despite these people now being ushered under the 'white' umbrella in the US.

These groups were 'brought in' to the white umbrella when it came time to object to immigration from Asia and Latin America, and to ensure African Americans would not achieve any real equality after the end of the Civil War, over time. These groups had been treated poorly, and were essentially exploited into a devil's bargain of 'we'll sorta let you in to the respected people group with some side eye if you step wrong, if you shit on the other people we shit on'. It stuck in part due to the cycles of abuse we see play out psychologically with those who have been abused: some become empathetic due to their experience, but others become abusers themselves. The latter was dramatically encouraged, and so it's little surprise it became dominant.

It's that cycle you see playing out endlessly through every possible level of difference, from the macro of 'how you look' to the micro of 'you're from this specific town in this specific country that did that thing the one time 200 years ago and the rest of the country has been in a feud with your town ever since'.