So more sjw white male bashing BS huh?

If only you'd focus that energy into problems that actually do exist you might make a difference.

But no why fight child poverty or the spread of aids in Africa when you can cry about the mean white guys oppressing you.

Shoot everyone with a tumblr account into the sun and life on this planet improves overnight.

This post is venting, not appealing. And given the **** she's been through, I'm not surprised.

However, it's probably going to do more harm than good. If this post is meant to appeal to people to change their ways, it's not. A few will see through to the core message, most will see themselves being demonised because of their skin colour and gender. Posts like this alienate the demographic you're trying to appeal to: the support comes from the already converted.

Reading through it, it's fairly clear that this is not a bigoted attack on all men. But the generalising language is what people are going to see. Rather than be outraged at the harrassment she's suffered, they're outraged because they feel she's blaming them for it. See enough of that and you can easily turn someone on the fence into GamerGate scum.

Look at the post above mine. The normal response to "I've been harassed and bullied by a large number of other tabletop gamers" isn't "shut up sjw." But because the language appears to blame a white male tabletop gamer reader that reader feels blamed and the automatic response is to dismiss it.

If we're going to fix this, we need to stop categorising people's behaviour by race and gender.

So more sjw white male bashing BS huh?

If only you'd focus that energy into problems that actually do exist you might make a difference.

But no why fight child poverty or the spread of aids in Africa when you can cry about the mean white guys oppressing you.

Shoot everyone with a tumblr account into the sun and life on this planet improves overnight.

Because in politics it is not the creative or progressive but the most disruptive and obstructive that gain power. Take a look at congress and the US elections for all the proof you need. Don't make something instead hold everything hostage and hold everyone for ransom. When they finally pay you to allow them to do or create something you'll be rich.

The things the tumblr poster is describing are completely alien in concept to me from my experiences gaming here in the UK. Is this a US specific thing?

On the "why don't more women play X-Wing?" debate; most of the women I know love playing board games and many also love computer games as well. What they don't love, or have any interest in whatsoever, are miniatures games. They just don't see them as fun. I think it's a combination of reasons that include cost, complexity of rules and time commitment when compared to things like board games. I do think that the gamer stereotype of a sweaty, overweight, autistic-spectrum man does put some off, but I don't think that's the main reason by any stretch and I definitely don't think that it's an issue with a perceived environment of sexual hostility.

It can be a bit weird, even in the UK - myself and some friends went to a computer games expo a while back and, as you do, drifted apart as some went for food etc. Once we met back up our (female) friend mentioned that she'd have to try to stick around us a bit more as being on her own just meant she got continually... not harassed per se (as that has rather bigger connotations), but continually bothered by people trying their luck.

It was odd to listen to because 1) we never see it as when we were there it wouldn't happen, 2) it seemed fairly normal to her 3) it's not like any of them were horrible people or being too aggressive or anything, but when you have a half dozen people annoying you in an hour or two it's not exactly a welcoming feeling.

Anyway, that's just a tangential anecdote. In general I agree that the 'boys like X, girls like Y' attitude to what kids should be playing is one of the core things in terms of getting more people into the hobby (or even 'men do systems, women do social' thing when we get older). By the time X-Wing is involved I think most of the 'damage' is done.

I don't care who you are if you roll dice with me.

/thread

Posters of these blogs need to think about whether they'll have the decided impact or backfire, and we need to look past the inflammatory language to what they're trying to say.

The key points to take from the blog post are thus:

• Unless you behave in the way described in the post, this is not an attack on you, even if it reads that way.
• The generalisations in this post are there because they lack the words to describe the specific people and behaviours they're referring to, so they use race and gender. Humanity has been repeatedly guilty of this throughout history. Most of us have probably done this at some point.¹
• What the post is asking you to do is to not tolerate the misogynistic behaviour described in it. What it's trying to say underneath the rage and hurt is that if the majority put it up the mistreatment of women, or anyone for that matter, within the tabletop gaming community then that mistreatment by the minority endures. It's asking those who aren't guilty of it not to overlook it.

EDIT: ¹Received a PM just now pointed out that my post here comes across to some as dismissing the generalisations towards white men entirely: that wasn't my intent and my previous post in this topic is about how such bigoted language makes appeals for change backfire. What I'm getting at here is that while the language is bigoted the grievance is legitimate. We shouldn't dismiss bigoted language directed at anyone, but we can't dismiss everything else because of it.

I guess I should be relieved the most offensive thing I have to deal with at my game store is the D&D nerd who crop dusts roadkill farts across the X-wing tables through his cotton gym short wedgies. Buy some jeans to contain the tailwind, granny.

An important thing to take from this is that we can't dismiss what she's saying because she articulated it poorly. If we get into a cycle of one group saying the other should expunge their posts of inflammatory generalisation, the other saying the first group should look past the inflammatory generalisation and both refusing to budge until the other does we get nowhere.

Posters of these blogs need to think about whether they'll have the decided impact or backfire, and we need to look past the inflammatory language to what they're trying to say.

The key points to take from the blog post are thus:

• Unless you behave in the way described in the post, this is not an attack on you, even if it reads that way.
• The generalisations in this post are there because they lack the words to describe the specific people and behaviours they're referring to, so they use race and gender. Humanity has been repeatedly guilty of this throughout history. Most of us have probably done this at some point.
• What the post is asking you to do is to not tolerate the misogynistic behaviour described in it. What it's trying to say underneath the rage and hurt is that if the majority put it up the mistreatment of women, or anyone for that matter, within the tabletop gaming community then that mistreatment by the minority endures. It's asking those who aren't guilty of it not to overlook it.

"The majority of gamers do not engage in online terrorism, but are instead complicit in lower levels of harassment."

"Gamers want to believe that they are logical, sensible, and rational. But there is nothing logical, sensible, or rational about making your peers and customers run a gauntlet of bigotry for the dubious privilege of playing a game in a space where people like you (and the people sympathetic to you) are despised."

"Men can shout all they like that #notallmen harass women, but as long as gamers defend their bigoted behaviour as a “sense of humour” (implying that women who don’t like being groped are somehow at fault), #allmen are complicit in the harassment"

She kind of is blaming all of us, though. She's not saying that every one of us is sexually harassing women and racially discriminating against non-white people, but she is assuming that we are aware of it and choosing to side with the person who is, and at no point does she ever consider that maybe I've just never seen it happen. "I haven't seen it" is not the same as "I noticed but come on he was totally joking," and it's possible that I'm not seeing it because it wasn't happening when I was a regular at FNM and it hasn't been a thing since we started playing X-Wing on Saturdays. And if I haven't seen these things happening, it's likely that others are either playing at stores where it doesn't happen or are truly unaware of it when it does happen.

... but if your reaction is saying you've never seen it happen, then she isn't talking about you when she says 'but as long as gamers defend their bigoted behaviour as a “sense of humour”', no?

An important thing to take from this is that we can't dismiss what she's saying because she articulated it poorly. If we get into a cycle of one group saying the other should expunge their posts of inflammatory generalisation, the other saying the first group should look past the inflammatory generalisation and both refusing to budge until the other does we get nowhere.

Posters of these blogs need to think about whether they'll have the decided impact or backfire, and we need to look past the inflammatory language to what they're trying to say.

The key points to take from the blog post are thus:

• Unless you behave in the way described in the post, this is not an attack on you, even if it reads that way.
• The generalisations in this post are there because they lack the words to describe the specific people and behaviours they're referring to, so they use race and gender. Humanity has been repeatedly guilty of this throughout history. Most of us have probably done this at some point.
• What the post is asking you to do is to not tolerate the misogynistic behaviour described in it. What it's trying to say underneath the rage and hurt is that if the majority put it up the mistreatment of women, or anyone for that matter, within the tabletop gaming community then that mistreatment by the minority endures. It's asking those who aren't guilty of it not to overlook it.

No. The blog author made a conscious choice when continually referring to white males as terrorists and using phrases like this.

White male terrorism is the white underbelly of the gaming community, meant to terrify and disrupt the lives of those who threaten the status quo by race, gender, or sexuality.

The prominence of white male terrorism in the geek community is obvious to everyone except straight white men.

This is a clear agenda piece. It's a piece of agenda theater.

The reason that is so sad is that it obfuscates and uses the message as a blunt object to attack the author's target of hatred.

Sexism, Racism, and other forms of Discrimination should not, and cannot be tolerated. It does not matter if you are male, female, black, white, or purple with rainbow polka dots.

You cannot fight discrimination, sexism, and racism by using them as tools in your fight. It would like holding a protest against violence by stoning people who were accused of violence.

Edit - That is not to say we should discount victims, or blame them in anyway. However, we should also not allow people use to victims, their pain, their stories, and their trauma as a weapon in agenda driven activist theater. We should find solutions, and work towards prevention. Not stereotyping blame games.

But haven't you heard you can't be racist or sexist against straight white men.

So busy shouting about misogyny they miss their own misandry.

I've never seen a gay couple discriminated against by a bakery. I've never seen an unarmed suspect shot to death by police. And I don't have to to know those things are wrong and should be talked about and ended.

Too often, "I've never seen it" is as good as saying "It's not happening." Your observance shouldn't be a criteria for whether something is really a problem or not.

I find it interesting that it was pointed out that there are a lot of white males who play this game, but people are only concerned about bringing in more females? What about the non-white issue?

Personally, I think it's fine. It's just that X-wing is a very nerd thing that mostly white males love. My game store has Board Game Night and some MtG going on at the same night as X-wing. About half the store is female. Well...maybe 45%, but close enough. A lot of females. I've gotten one lady to play X-wing for an epic game, but that was it. There are a lot of people who laugh and love it when we play our Star Wars music while we play. Most are female. Our store is very female friendly. No females want to play X-wing.

Why don't females want to play X-wing? I've found that most tend to prefer multi player games that are more social. Tournament X-wing is 1 vs 1. Most would rather play other board games going on instead. I just don't think it's most of their cup of tea. That's one point.

Many people who get into games like X-wing are male. It requires a bit of dedication to get all the ships and get all involved. It's not really a casual game like Catan or Munchkin. My wife loves Star Wars, but doesn't play any games based on it. I know of one Mom in my general area who loves Star Wars and would probably love X-wing, but she's a Mom and never been into games before and doesn't go to game stores. It would require someone like me to make a special effort to get her into the game. If it were a pick up game, like Uno or something, it would be different.

There are a good number of guys at the game store who are dads. One parent watches the kids while the other goes out. Those that are of my generation and love Star Wars usually have kids. The spouse who might be of the same age to love Star Wars might be the one to watch the kids that night. Also, a lot of guys I know have a hobby to get them out of the house and away from the family. It's a healthy thing to do on occasion. My wife has her hobbies and I have mine. It's not a bad thing to have separation.

For me, I find the whole issue is "does your local game store feel like a friendly place for females". It is a Yes for me, but may not be the same. I know that my local store is very open and has females in the store, but they just don't want to play X-wing.

But haven't you heard you can't be racist or sexist against straight white men.

Yes, us poor, downtrodden white men who have CONTROLLED THE WORLD FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

I've never seen a gay couple discriminated against by a bakery. I've never seen an unarmed suspect shot to death by police. And I don't have to to know those things are wrong and should be talked about and ended.

Too often, "I've never seen it" is as good as saying "It's not happening." Your observance shouldn't be a criteria for whether something is really a problem or not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus

Some times things you've never seen don't actually happen.

This is a clear agenda piece. It's a piece of agenda theater.

The reason that is so sad is that it obfuscates and uses the message as a blunt object to attack the author's target of hatred.

Sexism, Racism, and other forms of Discrimination should not, and cannot be tolerated. It does not matter if you are male, female, black, white, or purple with rainbow polka dots.

You cannot fight discrimination, sexism, and racism by using them as tools in your fight. It would like holding a protest against violence by stoning people who were accused of violence.

Edit - That is not to say we should discount victims, or blame them in anyway. However, we should also not allow people use to victims, their pain, their stories, and their trauma as a weapon in agenda driven activist theater. We should find solutions, and work towards prevention. Not stereotyping blame games.

Maybe so. It could also be someone who's had some very bad experiences lashing out at the majority for the acts of the minority. Neither are good.

Does this blog post stereotype? Yes. Does the language come across as bigoted? Yes. Is this post as a result of its aggressive, bigoted language likely to by and large do more harm than good? Definitely. Am I defending it? No, and I apologise if I come across that way.

We absolutely should not buy into or tolerate the bigotry in this post, and I think the widespread sharing of it is probably going to be more destructive than constructive.

However, unless it's completely fabricated there's a legitimate grievance underneath it, and we need to be able to separate that from all the inflammatory hateful crap.

But haven't you heard you can't be racist or sexist against straight white men.

So busy shouting about misogyny they miss their own misandry.

There are a lot of people who claim to be feminists who would probably be GamerGaters if they were male. Coming up with "reasons" for why your bigotry is not bigotry is also what extreme racists do.

What we can't do is ignore everything because of a few loud bigots hijacking a cause to spread hate, less we be guilty of the same generalisations we condemn.

But haven't you heard you can't be racist or sexist against straight white men.

Yes, us poor, downtrodden white men who have CONTROLLED THE WORLD FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

And just how long did the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Mayans etc control what they perceived to be their whole world?

Contrary to 50's films, these guys ain't white.

Around and round that wheel goes guys.

Personally, if you want my humble opinion, aside from the above that I really, really don't care who I'm playing when I'm rolling dice with them, as I am grateful for the opportunity to roll said dice when it arises. I personally have a gigantic hate-on for social justice warriors in general, for precisely the reasons Hobo is outlining. Where there is an issue - an event, then it should be dealt with. But this generalizing is ridiculous. Not all white straight guys are oppressing. Hell, it's like people are trying to oppress us.

Note: I accept this is the same mentality I have that whenever someone tells me they are vegan, I make a point to get myself a big juicy burger. Do what you want, I don't care. Try and change me and I'll f**k up your agenda out of spite.

I also have a very odd feeling that this lady somehow has gotten the perfect storm for harassment,

I have a hard time believing this is real, to be honest. Is the point here to believe this happens behind the scenes and I've just never seen/heard about it at all for the last 20 years or so of gaming?

I too have never encountered this kind of behavior while I was at a game store, but I don't think that is enough to dismiss it. We should assume that it's not a perfect storm, and that it's as is at face value, and that there is a deep problem.

I think that regardless of any other drama associated with the discussion, it's reasonable to believe that there are some really despicable things done by gamers. This isn't to say that it's worse that the general population, but it doesn't have to be. Nobody should hold themselves to a standard of "just better than the worst offenders". We should want groups we identify with to be better, a lot better, than the general population, and should encourage our peers and ourselves to act accordingly.

I'm tired of the white male bashing. No, we are not part of the problem and I don't believe the original blog post either. It's another hit piece with an agenda. "Agenda Theater" as very well put by someone else on this forum. The topics put forward are serious but how can they be linked to a white race issue? Total garbage and doesn't belong on the forum.

I've never seen a gay couple discriminated against by a bakery. I've never seen an unarmed suspect shot to death by police. And I don't have to to know those things are wrong and should be talked about and ended.

Too often, "I've never seen it" is as good as saying "It's not happening." Your observance shouldn't be a criteria for whether something is really a problem or not.

What do you want me to do, lecture people that aren't doing any of these things? I'm aware that in other communities there is a problem. The full extent of the problem here is that one guy that won't actually say anything to women, and all the guys think he's a lunatic. I can go on the internet and talk about it, and I admit that as a straight white dude I'm immune to the "you're just oversensitive" argument. But frankly I am not obligated to spend my free time crusading for a social cause, and the fact is I don't really want to argue with misogynistic teenagers if they aren't in my presence.

But haven't you heard you can't be racist or sexist against straight white men.

Yes, us poor, downtrodden white men who have CONTROLLED THE WORLD FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

First off, that doesn't make it okay to discriminate. Second, very little of it actually had any impact on my life. Slavery in the US (for example) doesn't improve the life of a Canadian living over a century after slavery was abolished. Thirdly, if white men can be judged by the things done by previous generations of white people than so can other races, and history is an ugly place. It's not looking good for anyone if we can judge a modern person by what their culture did over the last millennium.

But haven't you heard you can't be racist or sexist against straight white men.

Yes, us poor, downtrodden white men who have CONTROLLED THE WORLD FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

Here is another part of the problem, this notion of collective responsibility for the acts of dead people on the grounds of something as superficial as race.

Was anyone in this thread a leading figure in an 19th century European Empire? No. Anyone one of the monarchs leading the Crusades? No. Anyone owned a slave plantation? No.

You can't blame someone for the acts of long dead people over which they have no power but who they share a nationality and skin colour with. It's mad. You can't treat groups of people like a big hive entity.

Judge people for their own deeds, not the deeds of long dead people they have no power over. If someone's grandmother was an axe murderer, you don't lock them in prison.

I find it interesting that it was pointed out that there are a lot of white males who play this game, but people are only concerned about bringing in more females? What about the non-white issue?

Personally, I think it's fine. It's just that X-wing is a very nerd thing that mostly white males love. My game store has Board Game Night and some MtG going on at the same night as X-wing. About half the store is female. Well...maybe 45%, but close enough. A lot of females. I've gotten one lady to play X-wing for an epic game, but that was it. There are a lot of people who laugh and love it when we play our Star Wars music while we play. Most are female. Our store is very female friendly. No females want to play X-wing.

Why don't females want to play X-wing? I've found that most tend to prefer multi player games that are more social. Tournament X-wing is 1 vs 1. Most would rather play other board games going on instead. I just don't think it's most of their cup of tea. That's one point.

Many people who get into games like X-wing are male. It requires a bit of dedication to get all the ships and get all involved. It's not really a casual game like Catan or Munchkin. My wife loves Star Wars, but doesn't play any games based on it. I know of one Mom in my general area who loves Star Wars and would probably love X-wing, but she's a Mom and never been into games before and doesn't go to game stores. It would require someone like me to make a special effort to get her into the game. If it were a pick up game, like Uno or something, it would be different.

There are a good number of guys at the game store who are dads. One parent watches the kids while the other goes out. Those that are of my generation and love Star Wars usually have kids. The spouse who might be of the same age to love Star Wars might be the one to watch the kids that night. Also, a lot of guys I know have a hobby to get them out of the house and away from the family. It's a healthy thing to do on occasion. My wife has her hobbies and I have mine. It's not a bad thing to have separation.

For me, I find the whole issue is "does your local game store feel like a friendly place for females". It is a Yes for me, but may not be the same. I know that my local store is very open and has females in the store, but they just don't want to play X-wing.

Thank you. I was hoping to hear more stories like this. I only listed the link because it is what got me thinking. Hearing of successful stores with a healthy population and how X-Wing plays there is what I was wanting to see some of.

Yay! Page 7 is finally free of "be ashamed" BS!