Ban players who create 'blackface', 'transface', etc characters

[chocolate_bickie]

In light of MSOs new global rule (https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27489) and the election of a new headmin team I think it's time players who create characters from protected groups when not part of that group are banned from the server.

Many of these characters are nothing but offensive caricatures or are just used as an excuse to spam slurs (with the defense being, well it's not racist because my characters black). Even when the character is created without the intent to to offend 'playing' as a minority is just offensive, not to mention the fact you are likely to still behave in a stereotypical way. These characters are basically just blackface in online form and should be treated as such.

Now I'm not advocating players need to send in verification pics, but it's well know several members of the community play minority characters without being among those groups (not naming any names because global rules). The new global rules make it clear that demeaning behavior on the grounds of race, sex, gender orientation or the like is unacceptable. Blackface and the like clearly falls under this.

[PepperPrepper]

So you're saying we should make assumptions about peoples race/ sexual orientation based on the way they rp on a L/M RP server?
Tg is not high roleplay, people don't have to roleplay believable real-life characters.
Regardless, if someone is being very offensive you could just ahelp it and I'm sure an admin would talk with them. Not everything needs to be policy.

[Agux909]

In light of MSOs new global rule (https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27489) and the election of a new headmin team I think it's time players who create characters from protected groups when not part of that group are banned from the server.

Many of these characters are nothing but offensive caricatures or are just used as an excuse to spam slurs (with the defense being, well it's not racist because my characters black). Even when the character is created without the intent to to offend 'playing' as a minority is just offensive, not to mention the fact you are likely to still behave in a stereotypical way. These characters are basically just blackface in online form and should be treated as such.

Now I'm not advocating players need to send in verification pics, but it's well know several members of the community play minority characters without being among those groups (not naming any names because global rules). The new global rules make it clear that demeaning behavior on the grounds of race, sex, gender orientation or the like is unacceptable. Blackface and the like clearly falls under this.

[Stickymayhem]

There's nothing wrong with playing any kind of character if you aren't using it to enact stereotypical bigotry

Tyrone Watermelon is obviously not ok, playing a black character is.

[Tarchonvaagh]

There's nothing wrong with playing any kind of character if you aren't using it to enact stereotypical bigotry

Tyrone Watermelon is obviously not ok, playing a black character is.

[Ayy Lemoh]

If you want non-shitposting then yes - ban blackface since it's bigotry. That's not really a character gimmick anyways and Tyrone Watermelon may as well be an OOC in IC name. You still shouldn't ban people from making non-white characters because they're white irl though. Same applies to the other minority groups.

Like my main character, besides one non-roundstart race I like to play, is literally an arab person. I don't play him as a mocking caricature though.

[chocolate_bickie]

So you're saying we should make assumptions about peoples race/ sexual orientation based on the way they rp on a L/M RP server?
Tg is not high roleplay, people don't have to roleplay believable real-life characters.
Regardless, if someone is being very offensive you could just ahelp it and I'm sure an admin would talk with them. Not everything needs to be policy.

No, I don't want that. But several players in the community are open about that fact that they play characters of different gender or race to them and a lot of those characters are quite stereotypical/1 dimensional. A lot of them time the characters are defined by their race/gender rather than behaving like actual people.

There's nothing wrong with playing any kind of character if you aren't using it to enact stereotypical bigotry

Tyrone Watermelon is obviously not ok, playing a black character is.

From what I've seen a lot of these characters can be stereotypical in less obvious ways, such as talking in broken English that doesn't get picked up by admins.

If you want non-shitposting then yes - ban blackface since it's bigotry. That's not really a character gimmick anyways and Tyrone Watermelon may as well be an OOC in IC name. You still shouldn't ban people from making non-white characters because they're white irl though. Same applies to the other minority groups.

Like my main character, besides one non-roundstart race I like to play, is literally an arab person. I don't play him as a mocking caricature though.

Can you be 100% sure that your portrayal of someone of Arabic decent will not be offensive to someone of Arabic decent? Couldn't you just play as a [insert Ayy Lemoh's race] character and not risk being accidentally offensive.

Or to put it like this. If I were to walk around wearing black face paint, but acting like I always do, wouldn't that still be offensive? Even though I am not engaging with any stereotypes? Of course it would. And the same can be said for black characters. Even if you behave completely without stereotype your still being incredibly offensive.

[Ayy Lemoh]

Can you be 100% sure that your portrayal of someone of Arabic decent will not be offensive to someone of Arabic decent? Couldn't you just play as a [insert Ayy Lemoh's race] character and not risk being accidentally offensive.

Or to put it like this. If I were to walk around wearing black face paint, but acting like I always do, wouldn't that still be offensive? Even though I am not engaging with any stereotypes? Of course it would. And the same can be said for black characters. Even if you behave completely without stereotype your still being incredibly offensive.

I can't play as my race because people won't make abductors roundstart. Jokes aside, I doubt it will because I don't use it as an excuse for racial humor. Also, you're clearly pulling our fucking legs and I knew this was bait. This is like that time where people said using a reaction image of a black person meant digital blackface. I literally can't take you seriously.

I know MSO banning bigotry is unexpected compared to the past however christ man - if what you're talking about came true then the server would literally be only white people ft. lizards and shit. Could you fucking imagine if everyone made a character that is basically just a 100% accurate real life self-insert lol god that would be so horrible

[wesoda25]

Imagine you’re random bodying and 2 minutes into the round you get lit up by ahelps asking for verification of your irl skin color.

People who ask for this shit are just as damaging to a community as those who are actually racist/bigoted.

[Stickymayhem]

Yeah I'm certain this is concern trolling to be honest

[wesoda25]

“Yes hello sir, I noticed you were playing as a paraplegic character last round, could you perhaps send me a picture of your wheelchair?”

[Tarchonvaagh]

Thread sucks please close

[Ayy Lemoh]

Thread sucks please close

[chocolate_bickie]

Imagine you’re random bodying and 2 minutes into the round you get lit up by ahelps asking for verification of your irl skin color.

People who ask for this shit are just as damaging to a community as those who are actually racist/bigoted.

I'm not asking for that, but based on what people have said this thread isn't going anywhere.

Yeah I'm certain this is concern trolling to be honest

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll

Having read that I guess it seems this way. I know Sticky knows more about what is and isn't acceptable more than me so if you think this policy discussion is wrong you must be right. I hadn't really thought about how this would be enforced. If popular demand is this needs to be closed for being 'bad' then I guess that's that.

[Stickymayhem]

Imagine you’re random bodying and 2 minutes into the round you get lit up by ahelps asking for verification of your irl skin color.

People who ask for this shit are just as damaging to a community as those who are actually racist/bigoted.

I'm not asking for that, but based on what people have said this thread isn't going anywhere.

Yeah I'm certain this is concern trolling to be honest

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll

Having read that I guess it seems this way. I know Sticky knows more about what is and isn't acceptable more than me so if you think this policy discussion is wrong you must be right. I hadn't really thought about how this would be enforced. If popular demand is this needs to be closed for being 'bad' then I guess that's that.

If you're not actually trying to make a point by pretending to care about something you don't care about, and you're not trying to make your opposition look stupid by adopting a dumb take then you're not concern trolling.

That said, this is an opinion that no one on either side of the argument has, has a much greater trade-off in freedom versus reducing bigotry ( heavily restricting what people can play as to cater to a complaint no one has ever heard and isn't represented by anyone real) and will never be enforced on /tg/station despite slippery slope arguments to the contrary.

[chocolate_bickie]

Imagine you’re random bodying and 2 minutes into the round you get lit up by ahelps asking for verification of your irl skin color.

People who ask for this shit are just as damaging to a community as those who are actually racist/bigoted.

I'm not asking for that, but based on what people have said this thread isn't going anywhere.

Yeah I'm certain this is concern trolling to be honest

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll

Having read that I guess it seems this way. I know Sticky knows more about what is and isn't acceptable more than me so if you think this policy discussion is wrong you must be right. I hadn't really thought about how this would be enforced. If popular demand is this needs to be closed for being 'bad' then I guess that's that.

If you're not actually trying to make a point by pretending to care about something you don't care about, and you're not trying to make your opposition look stupid by adopting a dumb take then you're not concern trolling.

That said, this is an opinion that no one on either side of the argument has, has a much greater trade-off in freedom versus reducing bigotry ( heavily restricting what people can play as to cater to a complaint no one has ever heard and isn't represented by anyone real) and will never be enforced on /tg/station despite slippery slope arguments to the contrary.

That's a fair point. If it hasn't come up during rounds then I suppose it isn't an issue. It just seems like bad taste but if people are being respectful I guess it isn't a problem. And yeah as others have said there isn't really a way to enforce it.

[Tarchonvaagh]

I dont think freedom of speech is about saying random slurs to seem "cool", but sure

[TheMythicGhost]

Here we go here we go here we go now.

Real talk? I was completely right about how stuff like this was going to be used, and it's funny that people called me a fucking lunatic for suggesting that it would be this way in the past.

[Ayy Lemoh]

Here we go here we go here we go now.

Real talk? I was completely right about how stuff like this was going to be used, and it's funny that people called me a fucking lunatic for suggesting that it would be this way in the past.

The slippery slope is not real yet can also definitely be real - Schrödinger's slope. When I say this, I mean the fallacy itself alone and not the context here.

[Stickymayhem]

Here we go here we go here we go now.

Real talk? I was completely right about how stuff like this was going to be used, and it's funny that people called me a fucking lunatic for suggesting that it would be this way in the past.

Except that literally no one is agreeing with this bad thread but if it helps you freak out about the commies coming to snatch you from your beddy weddy you can totally take one random bad idea from a random player as the full scale intention of the entire administrative deep state

[Vekter]

I'm not entirely convinced this thread was made in good faith. This reads like someone talking about the silly bullshit they're afraid of happening from this rule going into place.

On the off chance that you're not trolling, no. This is an awful idea.

[Critawakets]

how to remove segregation in two steps!!

step 1: add segregation

step 2: whoops

seriously though being like "you have to be black to play a black character" is kinda of the racism

[confused rock]

just to make sure you guys all know this is bait right?

[cacogen]

This is so good. it just keeps happening

[MrStonedOne]

In light of MSOs new global rule (https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27489) and the election of a new headmin team I think it's time players who create characters from protected groups when not part of that group are banned from the server.

No.

[Qbmax32]

nice bait

[NecromancerAnne]

There's nothing wrong with playing any kind of character if you aren't using it to enact stereotypical bigotry

Tyrone Watermelon is obviously not ok, playing a black character is.

We had a guy who for the longest time was a literal gollywog. I assume he would fall under this right? (Not sure if he got told to change his character or not)

[Vekter]

There's nothing wrong with playing any kind of character if you aren't using it to enact stereotypical bigotry

Tyrone Watermelon is obviously not ok, playing a black character is.

We had a guy who for the longest time was a literal gollywog. I assume he would fall under this right? (Not sure if he got told to change his character or not)

Yeah no, if your predominant character trait is "modern Minstrel character" you're probably going to be asked to change it.

[Tarchonvaagh]

Fuck this thread, but what if, for example, someone played as an extremely stereotypical Irish character, constantly saying "ooh-arr" and talking about potatoes. Would he get banned? Probably not, since (and hereby I present you my take on this whole thing) Irish people aren't a victim of extreme discrimination. It all depends on the severity of the case, as some people previously mentioned.
please dont bring up the Irish-British relations

[cacogen]

I hope they don't come for Dr. Blackman. Also Irish people are white so you can't be racist towards them.

[Farquaar]

just to make sure you guys all know this is bait right?

[Vekter]

Irish people aren't a victim of extreme discrimination.

[Tarchonvaagh]

Irish people aren't a victim of extreme discrimination.

This actually depends on how severe you believe "extreme" is

[Kryson]

This makes perfect sense.

This type of censorship is a form of self gratification.

When punishing the "evildoers" for playing a bigoted character doesn't hit like it used to, there is always an even more fragile and neurotic person with new grievances the censor can use as justification to exercise power or feel in control again for a brief moment.

If they were not online all the time, perhaps the outlet for their desire for control would be demanding to speak to someones manager or demanding football players kneel for the national anthem.

[Arianya]

Given the extreme bad faith in the opening of this post, shitposting, and talking about a rule that is technically offtopic to the subject of the OP, plus MSO's response, I'm just gonna go ahead and lock this barring the headmins or the incoming term wanting to issue a response.

[Coconutwarrior97]

No.

Headmin Votes:
Coconutwarrior97: Yes.
Naloac: Yes.
Domitius: Yes.