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Thread: WotC bans cards for racism

  1. #141

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    Or could it be (even if these mention statistical analysis are robust and meaningful) people now just realize what is really going on and are more contingent of it?
    That's a fair point. Or it could be both? We don't know. But what we do know is that racial tensions seem to be at a high point dating back to the 60s. I think everyone can agree things are infinitely better and more equal than they were in the 60s. So why is it that tensions are so high? It can't purely (or even primarily) be due to actual conditions. It has to be the rhetoric.

  2. #142
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Purple Blood View Post
    I find this to be most disagreeable sentence in this entire thread. People are not children or babies. They do not need to be shielded from "offensive" material, particularly when that term is ever-changing, has no agreed upon meaning, and is inherently subjective.
    Actually, they are legally responsible to adhere to certain regulations. That's why you can't buy pornography until you're 18 and they put warning labels on CD's (if anyone even buys those anymore.) You can have an opinion on whether those laws are correct or not, but I don't think WOTC would take unnecessary risk by breaking those laws.

    In fact, I would go as far as to say you are doing the whole world a disservice by engaging in this type of paternalism. For example, in high school (at least when I was there decades ago and during essentially the pre-internet era) we were exposed to quite a number of books with racist themes that I'm sure were highly offensive to some of the teenagers reading them. This was a good thing.
    I don't disagree with this. How am I being paternalistic? Some people are actually children and babies. I'm not saying you are, but many children are young when getting started in magic. I'm not saying things should be censored, but people certainly need to know what they are buying.

    Why you might ask? It sparks conversation. It sparks introspection. It sparks growth in individuals.
    Don't disagree, completely agree.

    In today's climate, I don't think we could have had those important conversations. Someone would get offended. Their parents would complain. And the teacher may get in trouble or fired. This is a step in the wrong direction.
    Imagine a world where we didn't need to constantly have troubling conversations about injustice. Imagine a world where injustice gets smaller and smaller and the only place you read about it is in school. History will always be offensive, which is one reason we teach it, to show progress. If a parent complains about something used as a tool for teaching they are fighting against progress. I didn't imply this at all; I'm talking about a children's card game that is bought as entertainment, not History class in schools. Even still, reducing the amount of offensive material as much as possible for future products is only a net positive. Recognizing that older cards are bad? That's probably a good idea, if only to give historical context. I think we actually agree more than it seems here.

    The wrong approach is to "root it out" which really just means ignore it or pretend it never existed which is what we're really talking about in the context of this conversation. By that logic, they should just stop teaching slavery in school and pretend it never existed. As you say, too offensive. Just root it out.
    I apologize, I mean root it out for future actions. Root out the idea that its ok to print racist material. Recognize how it used to be? Sure, great, and put out statements why those older cards are bad. It opens up that all-important conversation you mentioned a few lines above.

    The right approach is to face ourselves as imperfect human beings head on. That is the only way for growth and real change as opposed to pandering and virtue signalling.
    Absolutely! However, I don't see this as pandering and virtue signaling. Maybe I'm just an optimist in that I think it's a start to potential progress. Then this whole conversation about racism in the game can become just history instead of current events.
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  3. #143

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    I'm going to go ahead and call this wrong. Viewers don't construct context, they construct interpretation. The context is the framework, the boundaries defining a situation. Interpretation is deciding what those boundaries actually mean.

    Context: a person pulls out their wallet at a store and drops $20

    Interpretation 1: money isn't very important to them, they drop it and don't even notice!
    Interpretation 2: that person isn't aware of their surroundings, maybe they are impaired?
    Interpretation 3: hey, they dropped $20, I should return it to them
    Interpretation 4: hey, they dropped $20, it's my lucky day! Hope they don't see me picking it up before they realize its gone.

    The context won't change: someone dropped $20 at a store. The rest is interpretation unless investigated, opening a line of communication to discover the real answer.

    Rant over.
    Viewers construct the context because it's a different thing from interpretation.

    Since you like metaphors so much consider this:

    You get a new lego playset -> card/artwork
    You add some of your legos ->context
    You build something new with it -> interpretation

    You either do it voluntary, by ignoring certain things or regarding the as not related to the case at hand, or involuntary, by just not knowing things e.g. about the author, but you yourself create the field on which you build your interpretation.
    Interpretation comes from perspective and every perspective is different.


    The question is where do we go from here?

    Will they vet all cards based on some more or less arbitrary moral code?
    Will they make a change in designing cards and staffing?
    They have demonstrated numerous times that they are unable to adapt to anything really.
    Let's see what mess they come up with this time.

  4. #144
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Watersaw View Post
    Murder and rape are different things. The man demanding the woman remove the curse implies that she placed it on him. He wants healing, but will accept revenge. She is making a fireball as they speak.
    Please show me the part of the post where I said the card depicted rape. I said it could be seen as showing violence against women.

    Quote Originally Posted by Purple Blood View Post
    I disagree that you can neatly separate areas of society/life that can be censored from areas that cannot be censored. Once you have a society that accepts censorship, it will permeate the entire society likely in a rapid and insidious fashion. If you don't make a stand early on this issue, it will spiral out of control until we are literally banning books in school, which oh by the way is already happening for the very same reason and why people are justifying these bans.

    My disagreement with the banning of these cards is purely based on principle so if you are going to say "well this doesn't have a big effect so it's worth sacrificing it on the altar of not being offensive" I will say I disagree fundamentally with that notion. There is no degree of censorship that should be allowed in any aspect of society purely for some subjective notion of being offended.
    This is not censorship. In what way do you imagine your freedom of speech has been violated? Have they taken your cards from you? Has the state put you in jail?

    No, Wizards makes a statement about things they run. You can still say whatever you want. Heck, Wizards can still print whatever they want. They have made a statement about what will be permissible at events they Sanction and what they will show on their privately owned website. That's not censorship, that is branding and marketing.
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  5. #145

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Actually, they are legally responsible to adhere to certain regulations. That's why you can't buy pornography until you're 18 and they put warning labels on CD's (if anyone even buys those anymore.) You can have an opinion on whether those laws are correct or not, but I don't think WOTC would take unnecessary risk by breaking those laws.
    Personally, I find those regulations to also be ridiculous. A 12 year old can go online and watch porn to his little hearts desire. Somehow society decided that's OK but apparently not OK to publish way less graphic material on a CD. Just get rid of censorship and let parents do the parenting. Society and government is not here to parent your children.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Imagine a world where we didn't need to constantly have troubling conversations about injustice. Imagine a world where injustice gets smaller and smaller and the only place you read about it is in school. History will always be offensive, which is one reason we teach it, to show progress. If a parent complains about something used as a tool for teaching they are fighting against progress. I didn't imply this at all; I'm talking about a children's card game that is bought as entertainment, not History class in schools. Even still, reducing the amount of offensive material as much as possible for future products is only a net positive. Recognizing that older cards are bad? That's probably a good idea, if only to give historical context. I think we actually agree more than it seems here.
    Even in this hypothetical world, people should be taught history and that includes troubling conversations about injustice. When we get into this possible future, do we just pretend slavery and the Holocaust never happened? The same applies for the history of this game. The fact they would go as far as to delete the images from their online catalog shows you what they goal is: erase history and virtue signal.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    I apologize, I mean root it out for future actions. Root out the idea that its ok to print racist material. Recognize how it used to be? Sure, great, and put out statements why those older cards are bad. It opens up that all-important conversation you mentioned a few lines above.
    I'm not advocating for reprinting Invoke Prejudice on the next Masters set so this is irrelevant to the conversation.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Absolutely! However, I don't see this as pandering and virtue signaling. Maybe I'm just an optimist in that I think it's a start to potential progress. Then this whole conversation about racism in the game can become just history instead of current events.
    I fail to understand how you don't see that. A former employee puts out a scathing article about how Hasbro has racist hiring practices. In response, Hasbro virtue signals to the world that they are against racism by banning a handful of cards no one even plays with so they can signal that they are the good side and wash their hands of the whole situation having done nothing.

  6. #146
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    This debate is uninteresting because its always the same. There are those who are more interested in a more inclusive world and see that aggregate effects of small or systemic prejudices and are asking people, companies and governments to be more selective and mindful in the messages they choose voice and the messages they choose to acquiesce to. Then there are those that consider any form of self-censorship as an evil, who see self-censorship instead of a personal choice or even cynically as a capitalist calculation as an imposition by the government, society, group mind or the mob. I don't believe these two groups will ever agree on any action that has to do with retracting an image or message, they can't as their views are fundamentally at odds. One asks for self-censorship as a minimum and the other claims that their is no such thing as self-censorship, censorship is always top-down from some entity and such censorship is always a slippery slope.
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  7. #147
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    From H:

    The issue is not really safetyism or protectionism, but rather, making the game friendly, inviting and inclusive. You want to talk about topics such as racism, sexism and the like? Do that within a facilitating context, not a card game. Not everyone wants to have that discussion in a leisure activity. To expect Wizards to facilitate such discussions through Magic cards themselves is not a burden they could ever fulfill to anyone's satisfaction.
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  8. #148

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    This is not censorship. In what way do you imagine your freedom of speech has been violated? Have they taken your cards from you? Has the state they put in in jail?

    No, Wizards makes a statement about things they run. You can still say whatever you want. Heck, Wizards can still print whatever they want. They have made a statement about what will be permissible at events they Sanction and what they will show on their privately owned website. That's not censorship, that is branding and marketing.
    I never said they were censoring me that's not really my point. But technically speaking, they have censored any player who wanted to use these cards in tournament play. That's besides the point though. They are engaging in self-censorship.

    Right. Branding and marketing aka virtue signalling.

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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Purple Blood View Post
    I fail to understand how you don't see that. A former employee puts out a scathing article about how Hasbro has racist hiring practices. In response, Hasbro virtue signals to the world that they are against racism by banning a handful of cards no one even plays with so they can signal that they are the good side and wash their hands of the whole situation having done nothing.
    Call me 'thick' or whatever, but I wasn't aware of this article from a former employee. I was looking at all of this discussion with only the context of the recent bannings and how they relate to social unrest surrounding recent events. Do you have a link?
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  10. #150

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    Well, I have read it, how does it clarify that it is not violence against women again? The only context the card gives is a man threatening a woman.
    What's the problem with that?

    Is violence in general bad?
    Is violence between men ok?
    Is violence between women ok?
    Is it ok if a woman is overpowering a man?

    Violence is real regardless of gender and you have to be able to show that.
    If you make it only about the gender instead of the "lore" of the scene then it becomes sexist.
    This card clearly gives at least some clue on a broader story and ignoring that just because it's not shown is just as bad.

    True equality is showing things color blind (same for sex, blabla).

  11. #151

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    This debate is uninteresting because its always the same. There are those who are more interested in a more inclusive world and see that aggregate effects of small or systemic prejudices and are asking people, companies and governments to be more selective and mindful in the messages they choose voice and the messages they choose to acquiesce to. Then there are those that consider any form of self-censorship as an evil, who see self-censorship instead of a personal choice or even cynically as a capitalist calculation as an imposition by the government, society, group mind or the mob. I don't believe these two groups will ever agree on any action that has to do with retracting an image or message, they can't as their views are fundamentally at odds. One asks for self-censorship as a minimum and the other claims that their is no such thing as self-censorship, censorship is always top-down from some entity and such censorship is always a slippery slope.
    That's a fair assessment. I would just say one of these is the right way to think about this and the other way is just rationalizing. Like I said previously, changes to societal norms creep in insidiously. Things will start as seemingly innocuous behavior that can be rationalized as part of the "good" and then you wake up one day living in a society resembling CCP ran China. Some may say we are already nearly there. I'm sure you've read 1984. Tell me that's just a bunch of garbage. Or admit that's where we are heading.

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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Purple Blood View Post
    My disagreement with the banning of these cards is purely based on principle so if you are going to say "well this doesn't have a big effect so it's worth sacrificing it on the altar of not being offensive" I will say I disagree fundamentally with that notion. There is no degree of censorship that should be allowed in any aspect of society purely for some subjective notion of being offended.
    +1

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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Purple Blood View Post
    That's a fair assessment. I would just say one of these is the right way to think about this and the other way is just rationalizing. Like I said previously, changes to societal norms creep in insidiously. Things will start as seemingly innocuous behavior that can be rationalized as part of the "good" and then you wake up one day living in a society resembling CCP ran China. Some may say we are already nearly there. I'm sure you've read 1984. Tell me that's just a bunch of garbage. Or admit that's where we are heading.
    I respectfully disagree that company self-censoring to be more marketable leads to government control over your individual speech. But I also understand we are never going to see eye to eye on this topic. I think you're being ridiculous and you think I am being naive, don't really see a way forward since this is literally a debate about liberalism that has been going on since liberalism was a topic.
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  14. #154
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Purple Blood View Post
    I never said they were censoring me that's not really my point. But technically speaking, they have censored any player who wanted to use these cards in tournament play. That's besides the point though. They are engaging in self-censorship.

    Right. Branding and marketing aka virtue signalling.
    And what are you doing here? By taking your "anti-censorship" stance, this is not the same thing? The ideal that anything but some sort of "virtue signaling" is possible is kind of absurd. What should Wizards do? Nothing, ever?

    And no, again, did they censor everyone from running Lurrus in Legacy? How about censoring everyone from running Chaos Orb? Nope, sorry, not buying this notion of "censoring."

    Again, a children's card game is not the place for discussions of the historical effects of racism or sexism as this very thread clearly shows, in fairly explicit detail.
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    Please show me the part of the post where I said the card depicted rape. I said it could be seen as showing violence against women.
    My mistake, I jumped the gun and lumped in your criticisms with some others I had heard.

    Triumph of Ferocity depicts violence against a (and this is clear if you do nothing more than RTFC) dangerous, malevolent character who happens to be female. "Violence against women" implies a societal ill, systemic "violence against ALL women." This card shows violence against A women. I apologize if I seem hostile here, but I have no tolerance for language games.

    Magic has several instances of violent art. Do all of these promote systemic violence? Does the fact that I can hit Thalia with Mugging promote violence against women as well?

  16. #156

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    @morgan_coke they need to start teaching the real history of countries. Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner who raped on the side, Christopher Columbus committed genocide and definitely shouldn’t have a day celebrating his life, etc...

    The problem is when you have educational institutions which fail to teach the bad stuff. Those who want to have the simple viewpoint of “we’re the good guys” need to stop being surprised when there is more to the story, and others are upset when it’s ignored.

    These bannings happening today are lip service to the BLM protests going on all over the US (specifically). This isn’t some slippery slope down to what some small amount of ultra-leftists in some dark corner of the internet think. Hasbro sent out a memo to all their managers and they instituted a hollow reform to say they did something, welcome to how corporations work. This system of meaningless process improvements (instead of ever going to an employee who screwed up and saying “that was dumb, don’t do that again”) is what you should be reacting to if all the changes irk you. It’s not worth trying to play whack-a-mole against barely meaningful groups trying to take your words; focus on leadership, business, and all those business administration masters programs pushing process improvement over actually dealing with a problem head-on.
    You need to start learning the real history of some countries that aren't the USA. If you judge people in history by today's standards, they are all, literally 100%, monsters. You and I will be too to future generations. The US is generally viewed by the well educated as "the good guys" not because we've ever been, or ever will be, perfect, but because we've always been better than everyone else contemporaneously. Columbus isn't famed for his managerial or diplomatic skills, he's famed for expanding the known borders of the world. Jefferson was a slave owner who had sex with his slaves? He also advocated for an end to slavery in newspapers. People are complex and multifaceted. So were half the Founding Fathers, and they propagated the greatest expansion of human freedom and liberty in history.

    Now, why I mentioned the history of other countries at the start, this post is truly troubling, because so many folks appear to agree with it nowadays.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox
    Watch Song of the South. Yeah the song “Zipadee-do-dah...my oh my what a wonderful day” is kinda catchy, but we remind ourselves not to sing that b/c that movie is racist. Michael Jackson has some catchy songs too, but you really shouldn’t be playing those in public either - certainly not around children.

    Magic’s age recommendation isn’t 18+, it takes time for children to develop complex [adult] views. Some card names and/or art is inappropriate for minors, and it doesn’t look great for the game when a parent sees their kid playing with a card whose art features Klansmen or the title Disruptive Student with a clearly racist caricature.

    While banning Cleanse in a fantasy setting with Paladins is kind of a stretch, the embarrassing thing here is the timing coinciding with the mass BLM protests. The timing puts this somewhere between cowardly and insincere, regardless it’s long overdue.
    This is literally the reasoning behind Mao's Cultural Revolution, and it's the same stuff that the Nazi's and Communist's did to their own history. In a more modern American context it's very similar to the reasoning Bush used to get us into Iraq with "pre-emptive war" - a war I fought in by the way, that is and was incredibly more messed up than any of you who weren't there realize. History is messy and violent and full of terribleness, much like the present, every time some ideological movement comes along and tries to "purify" the past it ALWAYS ends really, really badly. Great art, like Jackson's music, is often made by awful human beings, that diminishes the person who made it, not the art itself.

    Schools of thought like what you're advocating are what lead someone protesting police brutality - like say, Colin Kaepernick - to wear a t-shirt of Fidel Castro (noted abuser of human beings via secret police and torture) at a press conference about why it's bad when government police forces hurt citizens.

  17. #157
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    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    What's the problem with that?

    Is violence in general bad?
    Is violence between men ok?
    Is violence between women ok?
    Is it ok if a woman is overpowering a man?

    Violence is real regardless of gender and you have to be able to show that.
    If you make it only about the gender instead of the "lore" of the scene then it becomes sexist.
    This card clearly gives at least some clue on a broader story and ignoring that just because it's not shown is just as bad.

    True equality is showing things color blind (same for sex, blabla).
    Actually the answer to all of these is a resounding no.

    However, society runs on normative claims. The normative claim in the US (I can't speak for everywhere) as far as I can tell, is that the answers would be maybe, mostly, unclear, probably. And so, that is what will be seen a normatively alright.

    We don't have "true equality" or true equity, at all. That is part of the problem. But that card does nothing to solve that, at all, in fact, that "series" of cards only makes things worse.
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  18. #158

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    And what are you doing here? By taking your "anti-censorship" stance, this is not the same thing? The ideal that anything but some sort of "virtue signaling" is possible is kind of absurd. What should Wizards do? Nothing, ever?

    And no, again, did they censor everyone from running Lurrus in Legacy? How about censoring everyone from running Chaos Orb? Nope, sorry, not buying this notion of "censoring."

    Again, a children's card game is not the place for discussions of the historical effects of racism or sexism as this very thread clearly shows, in fairly explicit detail.
    Maybe Wizards can start by hiring an external auditor to determine whether they truly do engage in discriminatory hiring practices. The second step of course depends on the results of that audit.

    I said it before, you cannot neatly separate things in society and cast aside something because it's dealing with a "children's card game." Either you allow societal norms to develop or you don't.

  19. #159

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    I respectfully disagree that company self-censoring to be more marketable leads to government control over your individual speech. But I also understand we are never going to see eye to eye on this topic. I think you're being ridiculous and you think I am being naive, don't really see a way forward since this is literally a debate about liberalism that has been going on since liberalism was a topic.
    Listen, Liberal

  20. #160

    Re: WotC bans cards for racism

    I think I've said close to everything I personally feel the need to say on this subject.

    I will just say in closing, I really respect the level of discourse in this thread and feel like everyone I am interacting with here, regardless of whether I agree with them or not, is contributing to this discussion and myself personally in a positive way.

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