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ShumaGorath wrote:
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the name calling and emotional personalization in this thread is a distinct sign of immaturity and that by using such terminology you are in fact painting yourself as a "kid" (whatever those are, brazilians probably).

Painted kids:

There is one Warhammer 40k Gaming club in my town. It is pretty much made up of middle aged white guys. I was thinking about joining it but I fear social auckwardness would come in to play. Because I am of Maori desent.

Eh, I'm black, and I've observed at least some amounts of 'color' at the FLGS I go to every now and then, although I've no idea about the religious or other demographics situation there.

As to why there aren't more of 'us', the broader question to ask would be why are there not more 'dark people' into geeky things in general, which is a question with a rather complicated answer, I would imagine. Any number of factors come into play, so speaking in the context of black Americans: possibly, it's the pressure to adhere to social norms, in greater degrees than found among America's white population(the requirement to be 'black enough'); possibly, it's the lack of rich educational environments where the things geeks are typically into are lacking or altogether absent. There's only speculation, no definite answers.

LORD_PANTERA wrote:There is one Warhammer 40k Gaming club in my town. It is pretty much made up of middle aged white guys. I was thinking about joining it but I fear social auckwardness would come in to play. Because I am of Maori desent.

Do you have any reason to suspect that they would care?

As I pointed out earlier, there are no non-white gamers at my store, but that doesn't mean the robes come out anytime someone who has dark skin walks into the store.

Melissia wrote:Because black people are evil people with glowy red eyes and demonic black skin.

Let's face it, GW's reasonings might seem sound, but they're still highly questionable to insiders and arguably racist to outsiders.

But the Salamanders aren't especially evil (well, IMHO the imperium is evil). They are actually pretty nice to non space marine humans. I don't think GW was even really thinking about people of african descent at all when they created the fluff for that chapter. I think it was more like "it would be cool if these guys had pitch black skin because they are from a lava planet".

But that doesn't change how it is interpreted.

Melissia wrote:But that doesn't change how it is interpreted.

Or the fact that they've been described as being of a dark complexion and pictured as black (but not drow black) in official GW art and models before.

Play EVE Online, it's literally the cold war. Everyone's pretty much waiting for the Russians to expand there empire and wipe everyone out.

Trust me, it's so similar to how it played out in real life it's not even funny.

Its up to us to make the tabletop more diverse, and its not that hard. A guy I used to play with had the best gaurd army I've ever seen. Mexi-chans!
Also, I'm not sure how much of a factor cost is to minorities. I mean, just about anyother hobby I see people engaged in is more expencive. Cars, boats, golf, motorcycles even videogames are all more expencive.
I'm mexican and I live in an area that's about 80 percent hispanic or of mexican decent or whatever. I think it has more to do with really geeky things being precieved as "white" and the desire to "stay mexican". If you work in english and dress white and act "white" then you might be trying to do more "mexican" activities in your free time.

We have above the average mix of people at our local store, given the statistics in the local population.

This is all approximation.

The area is about

92% white
2% hispanic
3% asian
2% black
1.2% native american

Yet the "regulars" at the game store number about 30.

21 white - about 72%
2 native american - about 6%
1 black - 3%
2 asian - about 6%
1 hispanic - 3%
3 women - 10%

Playing everything from Warmahordes, 40k, L5R, Infinity, Malifaux

There are several jewish guys, and at least 5 lgbt.

Obviously this may be different depending one where you live, but yes tabletop games are expensive.

I'm a pacific islander.

I'm black, and I can usually be seen hanging around 2 FLGS's. I was brought in by my other geeky friends from middle and high school (mainly white area, but starting to mix it up now which is nice.)

I personally just had to deal with that I'd make my guys and gals black instead of the normal pigments used. I thought about using both so I wouldn't be thought on as favoritism, but I said screw it and all my guy's are black, well at least the helmet-less ones.

I once asked about why the mini's are always painted as white in photos and such, and people gave me some bs answer that the white skin shows up more in pictures.. Crocodile games doesn't seem to have a problem photoing and painting black people in its game though.

Though to get back on topic, I'd say there is less exposure, its seen as geeky/nerdy, and why would i care to make a force where they're always shown as white?

(Salamanders will always be black to me, cuz there's no way I'm gonna repaint them for the crap they changed it to. And how is Nocturne made up of mainly white people? Unless you mean those cave dwellers which should be a smaller population to the rest of the nomads and city dwellers.)

Alexzandvar wrote:Play EVE Online, it's literally the cold war. Everyone's pretty much waiting for the Russians to expand there empire and wipe everyone out.

Trust me, it's so similar to how it played out in real life it's not even funny.

You're a bit behind the times; the Russian bloc everybody feared so much fell to bits, just like every other bloc has. Red Alliance are getting humped in Delve, Legion of Death lost all their sovereignty and can't even take space in Vale and Geminate, and Solar Fleet only hold space because nobody else wants the Drone Regions.

Back on topic, I couldn't really venture a reason why, but I'd wager it's the same reason that the turnout at metal gigs, comic book signings and sci-fi conventions is likewise close to 100% white, male and middle-class.