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Hello guys.

So I was playing a game earlier and the little skull faces are broken down to two colours black and white. The black ones are fast and the white only die when the rest of the room is cleared. I said just kill the black ones first then the white ones die. I was told that is racist.

This has been happening a lot to me lately and I a, confused as hell if I am in the wrong or if it is just new sjw looking for a fight.

Like earlier I was talking about Pokemon higth and someone said charazard is 5foot 5 and he seems short. I said well the average higth of a male in Japan is around 5 foot 5 so that would be the same as saying he is 6 foot here. I was banned for a racist comment.

Are people just looking for a fight? Or do they not understand seeing a difference between the races is not racist. Claiming one race is inferior because of their race is. Like back in ww2 they said black people could not see in the dark that's racist. ( not sure why they complained no night shift lol) . Saying most white people have pink nipples is not racist it is a comment.

Am I wrong here is the world that sensitive now?

OgreChubbs wrote:
Hello guys.

So I was playing a game earlier and the little skull faces are broken down to two colours black and white. The black ones are fast and the white only die when the rest of the room is cleared. I said just kill the black ones first then the white ones die. I was told that is racist.

This has been happening a lot to me lately and I a, confused as hell if I am in the wrong or if it is just new sjw looking for a fight.

Like earlier I was talking about Pokemon higth and someone said charazard is 5foot 5 and he seems short. I said well the average higth of a male in Japan is around 5 foot 5 so that would be the same as saying he is 6 foot here. I was banned for a racist comment.

Are people just looking for a fight? Or do they not understand seeing a difference between the races is not racist. Claiming one race is inferior because of their race is. Like back in ww2 they said black people could not see in the dark that's racist. ( not sure why they complained no night shift lol) . Saying most white people have pink nipples is not racist it is a comment.

Am I wrong here is the world that sensitive now?

One.. Is a valid tactic.. But maybe black skull faces as a way to make sure you are obviously talking about game?
If the white can only die if conditions met then you target the ones that make it happen.

B.. Yeah average heights in Asia are lower for some reason.... North Korea is one of lowest on earth.
I don,t see that as racist, its a fair statistical comparison.

You just encountered a stupid person. Thankfully people that clueless are a pretty small minority.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Or do they not understand seeing a difference between the races is not racist. Claiming one race is inferior because of their race is.

The division of humanity into arbitrary races based on phenotype is the very foundation of racism. The events you describe don't sound like racism to me, the way you use the concept of race does.

Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if OP left out some part that didn't seem important to him, but would have helped us better understand the seemingly irrational reactions he is encountering.

 Peregrine wrote:
You just encountered a stupid person. Thankfully people that clueless are a pretty small minority.

Sadly, only because a majority of them haven't figured out how to use the internet.

@OP: You have crossed paths with the degradation of the English language.

You're right, the world is becoming too sensitive, and some people are just looking to find racism anywhere they can, even if it includes huge contrivances of the imagination.

Silver lining: I think much of this type of behavior is a symptom of the decline of racism in the West. A certain subset of Westerners have invested a huge amount of their own identity into being anti-racist activists (nothing inherently wrong with anti-racist activism, let me note) , so they are primed to look for racist things to object to, and the fact that they are honing in on paint schemes and other minutia could mean that they are finding less and less actual racism, which of course is a great thing to the extent that it's true.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if OP left out some part that didn't seem important to him, but would have helped us better understand the seemingly irrational reactions he is encountering.

I really wish I did leave something out, it was on gamesfaq talking about why are Pokemon small and then he mentioned charazard.

The first refference was to a game called binding of isiac there is two skulls one black that run around and try to hit ya. Then a white skull that can't be killed to you kill everything in the room. The guy said how do you beat this room. I said kill the black skull heads/faces then the white ones drop dead.

Gee, maybe the game designers were somewhat racist...They should have used Green and Purple skulls, of course...

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if OP left out some part that didn't seem important to him, but would have helped us better understand the seemingly irrational reactions he is encountering.

I really wish I did leave something out, it was on gamesfaq talking about why are Pokemon small and then he mentioned charazard.

The first refference was to a game called binding of isiac there is two skulls one black that run around and try to hit ya. Then a white skull that can't be killed to you kill everything in the room. The guy said how do you beat this room. I said kill the black skull heads/faces then the white ones drop dead.

I mean, you did leave out the fact that you were on a gakky forum, and not talking to someone in person. Maybe you shouldn't make sweeping generalizations based on online interactions with anonymous people?

Honestly, since these were forum posts, I'd like to see a link to both.

 infinite_array wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Maybe it's just me but I am wondering if OP left out some part that didn't seem important to him, but would have helped us better understand the seemingly irrational reactions he is encountering.

I really wish I did leave something out, it was on gamesfaq talking about why are Pokemon small and then he mentioned charazard.

The first refference was to a game called binding of isiac there is two skulls one black that run around and try to hit ya. Then a white skull that can't be killed to you kill everything in the room. The guy said how do you beat this room. I said kill the black skull heads/faces then the white ones drop dead.

I mean, you did leave out the fact that you were on a gakky forum, and not talking to someone in person. Maybe you shouldn't make sweeping generalizations based on online interactions with anonymous people?

Honestly, since these were forum posts, I'd like to see a link to both.

It's almost as if communication doesn't translate well over text.

Someone accused someone else of being racist on the internet?

So it ain't so!

The common denominator in not realizing stuff is racist seems like you

 Ouze wrote:
The common denominator in not realizing stuff is racist seems like you

Hah! I remember that. Yeah, I'm leaning towards OP makes comments he doesn't think are racist, is actually super racist.

I remember that shirt thread too.


Regarding the OP, I had a situation similar to his back in high school while talking about Magic cards. I forget which card my friends and I were discussing but it severely impacted black cards. One of the guys in our group always ran a killer black deck and this new card was going to be a major thorn in his side so we were pretty happy about using it in future games.

In my excitement I uttered, "Oh my god! If you're black you're screwed!" right at the exact moment the 6'4" black security guard for the school was walking by. Of course he came over to the group of four 16-year old white boys who he thought were making racial comments. After a quick explanation he walked away shaking his head at us nerds.

So, context is key. This statement is clearly not racist:

The black ones are fast and the white only die when the rest of the room is cleared. I said just kill the black ones first then the white ones die. I was told that is racist.

Whomever in the game thought that statement was racist overreacted for sure, especially since they are playing the game and supposedly have awareness of the contextualization of the statement. Still, some of the gaming phrases we utter can be misunderstood when the context is not known by the listener.

That's the thing I grew up in a world with out rasicm. Hell I have friends who are white black Asian and everything in between since birth. I didn't even know their was a difference until I was 18 and cnn and other news broadcasters told me their was.

So I tend not to see race as anything but a classification like tall, short, chubby, thin, black white, bald and so on. It got me in trouble on the Internet from people who see racism and hate everywhere.

Like at my college they had a bunch of weapons on display we where talking about them I said I much prefer the sword to the stick with a rock tide to it. Then the teacher gave me a lecture how that was insensitive to Indians. Then my friend who was Indian said but the rock does suck. So we where both sent to sensitivity training.

And omg that is crap 5 things to never say to a woman according to the lady at sensitivity training

1 you are looking nice today (even if you are dating her) it may creat a hostile inviromemt for other women who hear that and think they are less pretty.
2 what's your plans for tonight. ( even if you say this to other men it be considered sexually agressive)
3 talk about children or child birth with them. ( it is not your place as a man to comment on it)
4 ask them if they ate yet or would like something to eat. ( many women are worried about their weight and you should mind your own buisness.)
5 say a woman's name is doing really well in anything. ( women should not be taught to compete against ech other.)
Oh I forgot never open a door for a woman, it is personifying a male gender role and women are able to open the door themselves.
So if you leave a room and a girl is trying to get out slam the door fast or your rude lol.


After 2 sensitive training course 1 a guy in the class mentioned boobs and all men where forced to go to it..... fair huh.

OgreChubbs wrote:
That's the thing I grew up in a world with out rasicm.

No you didn't. Seriously, you did not.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
That's the thing I grew up in a world with out rasicm.

No you didn't. Seriously, you did not.

Maybe I am lucky but we spent 6 or more years hanging out together after school every day all weekends and ect. Hell we even went to camp together.

I never once heard anyone say a race or a vulgar term to me or any one of my friends. Even when we where at their house we never knew anything was different expect travis' mom sucks at cooking lol

We all had around the same grades, we all had around the same family size house income ect. I really didn't see a difference. The only thing I tought that was wrong is I thought you where either Christian or Jewish because all Christmas cartoons did one of each.

OgreChubbs wrote:

And omg that is crap 5 things to never say to a woman

1 you are looking nice today (even if you are dating her) it may creat a hostile inviromemt for other women who hear that and think they are less pretty.
2 what's your plans for tonight. ( even if you say this to other men it be considered sexually agressive)
3 talk about children or child birth with them. ( it is not your place as a man to comment on it)
4 ask them if they ate yet or would like something to eat. ( many women are worried about their weight and you should mind your own buisness.)
5 say a woman's name is doing really well in anything. ( women should not be taught to compete against ech other.)

I'm going to give you a friendly piece of advice. If you say something like this with innocent intentions, and the person you're talking to takes great offense, that's a sign of something wrong with them, not something wrong with you. It's a red flag that maybe this person isn't worth pursuing a friendlship with. Life is too short for the chronically offended.

I'm going to give the friendly piece of advice that assuming that all women are going to react in the same way to something is misguided at best.

 jasper76 wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

And omg that is crap 5 things to never say to a woman

1 you are looking nice today (even if you are dating her) it may creat a hostile inviromemt for other women who hear that and think they are less pretty.
2 what's your plans for tonight. ( even if you say this to other men it be considered sexually agressive)
3 talk about children or child birth with them. ( it is not your place as a man to comment on it)
4 ask them if they ate yet or would like something to eat. ( many women are worried about their weight and you should mind your own buisness.)
5 say a woman's name is doing really well in anything. ( women should not be taught to compete against ech other.)

I'm going to give you a friendly piece of advice. If you say something like this with innocent intentions, and the person you're talking to takes great offense, that's a sign of something wrong with them, not something wrong with you. It's a red flag that maybe this person isn't worth pursuing a friendlship with. Life is too short for the chronically offended.

Honestly? I don't believe for a second this actually happened. This sounds like the kind of "sensitivity training" example and reasoning that comes out of the Onion, or a far-right rag. Also, your college sent you to sensitivity training about supposed remarks comparing weaponry... and it covered women? Uh huh. Sure.

Ummm...it's been about 20 years since I went to college. I don't remember ever having to attend sensitivity training. We had a diverse student population, and for the most part, we all got along just fine.

EDIT: Sorry, I guess when you said "you", you were referring to OgreChubbs.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Hello guys.

So I was playing a game earlier and the little skull faces are broken down to two colours black and white. The black ones are fast and the white only die when the rest of the room is cleared. I said just kill the black ones first then the white ones die. I was told that is racist.

This has been happening a lot to me lately and I a, confused as hell if I am in the wrong or if it is just new sjw looking for a fight.

This roots of this go back quite a few decades...

If we go back to 60s, 70's and 80's it was quite prevalent that 'black' was considered bad and 'white' was considered good (and it goes back even further than this, for example how many angels do you see dressed in black?). This came about because of bias/racism in the populace in general (if you go back far enough it probably has roots in slavery and sub-conscious bias being pushed from parent to child). From the 90's when this became more widely recognised there has been an effort to try and drive out this sub-conscious bias/racism and those little things (in books, games etc) have been discouraged to break the cycle.

Playing a game by the rules in the best way to win is not racist (it would be the same whether they were green and yellow) but there is a possibility that the person that designed the game was either sub-consciously or actively biased and by using these colours was imposing a type of world view that is best discouraged. If all the games you play have this same colour bias in them then your world view can become sub-consciously biased as well over time (you learn to get rid of the black ones first). It's not really logical, but more how our brains are wired and how we learn.

Hence 'black' bad, white 'good' and vice versa type of things are generally frowned upon (again it doesn't make you a racist though).

 jasper76 wrote:
Ummm...it's been about 20 years since I went to college. I don't remember ever having to attend sensitivity training. We had a diverse student population, and for the most part, we all got along just fine.

EDIT: Sorry, I guess when you said "you", you were referring to OgreChubbs.

Yeah, sorry. Should have made that more clear in my post.

Black = bad and white = good is a lot older than racism. Specifically it goes back to the Romans, who associated White with life because of the sun and black with death cause you were buried underground away from the light. Early Christians inherited this dynamic, expanded on it heavily, and it actually probably played into how these people were able to help justify to themselves that people of darker skin were inferior to people of whiter skin. Look at some good old Southern writing and you'll find authors use idioms like "they wear their sin on their skin" to refer to people of African descent. Today we still have this tradition that white = good and black = bad. You'll find it just about anywhere, but I wouldn't associate the theme colors of Magic with racism. Especially since these days its pretty popular to present dark is not evil and light is not good.

The op situation sounds like someone being stupid, though I also think the op themselves might need to do a little introspection.

Curious fun fact, early Semitic cultures actually reversed this. Black was good, because it was the color of fertile soil, and white was bad because people turned pale when they died. Remember that kids the next time someone tells you the Punic Wars didn't solve anything

 infinite_array wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

And omg that is crap 5 things to never say to a woman

1 you are looking nice today (even if you are dating her) it may creat a hostile inviromemt for other women who hear that and think they are less pretty.
2 what's your plans for tonight. ( even if you say this to other men it be considered sexually agressive)
3 talk about children or child birth with them. ( it is not your place as a man to comment on it)
4 ask them if they ate yet or would like something to eat. ( many women are worried about their weight and you should mind your own buisness.)
5 say a woman's name is doing really well in anything. ( women should not be taught to compete against ech other.)

I'm going to give you a friendly piece of advice. If you say something like this with innocent intentions, and the person you're talking to takes great offense, that's a sign of something wrong with them, not something wrong with you. It's a red flag that maybe this person isn't worth pursuing a friendlship with. Life is too short for the chronically offended.

Honestly? I don't believe for a second this actually happened. This sounds like the kind of "sensitivity training" example and reasoning that comes out of the Onion, or a far-right rag. Also, your college sent you to sensitivity training about supposed remarks comparing weaponry... and it covered women? Uh huh. Sure.

We where sent to two one was less sensitive training more of a cultural learning class after school. It was a class that talked about the history of native Americans in Nova Scotia and their history. The teacher never forced us to go but said he would be looking for us so we would respect his culture.

The second was in my 3rd year of college when the teacher said who would you like to be. This guy in the corner said Angelina Jolie because of her big and did a boob jesters. Then she slammed her books down said he was a rude pig, he said she has nice assets then she stormed out of the class room. The principal of the college came in within 5 minutes and gave us a talking to about being rude and such. Then said do to no one pointing out the culprit who was the transgressor we would need to talk about this further. Got a email about 3 days later about a woman sensitivity training that our class must attend. Only the men where there along with a few other guys and we had to do the 2 hour course. Then got a piece of paper thanking us for completing the course. Which the principal asked to see later that day.

There is literally nothing about me ever considered sensitive.

There is however appropriate. In the workplace, behavior should be kept professional.

OgreChubbs wrote:
That's the thing I grew up in a world with out rasicm. Hell I have friends who are white black Asian and everything in between since birth. I didn't even know their was a difference until I was 18 and cnn and other news broadcasters told me their was.

...

Wut.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

And omg that is crap 5 things to never say to a woman

1 you are looking nice today (even if you are dating her) it may creat a hostile inviromemt for other women who hear that and think they are less pretty.
2 what's your plans for tonight. ( even if you say this to other men it be considered sexually agressive)
3 talk about children or child birth with them. ( it is not your place as a man to comment on it)
4 ask them if they ate yet or would like something to eat. ( many women are worried about their weight and you should mind your own buisness.)
5 say a woman's name is doing really well in anything. ( women should not be taught to compete against ech other.)

I'm going to give you a friendly piece of advice. If you say something like this with innocent intentions, and the person you're talking to takes great offense, that's a sign of something wrong with them, not something wrong with you. It's a red flag that maybe this person isn't worth pursuing a friendlship with. Life is too short for the chronically offended.

Honestly? I don't believe for a second this actually happened. This sounds like the kind of "sensitivity training" example and reasoning that comes out of the Onion, or a far-right rag. Also, your college sent you to sensitivity training about supposed remarks comparing weaponry... and it covered women? Uh huh. Sure.

We where sent to two one was less sensitive training more of a cultural learning class after school. It was a class that talked about the history of native Americans in Nova Scotia and their history. The teacher never forced us to go but said he would be looking for us so we would respect his culture.

The second was in my 3rd year of college when the teacher said who would you like to be. This guy in the corner said Angelina Jolie because of her big and did a boob jesters. Then she slammed her books down said he was a rude pig, he said she has nice assets then she stormed out of the class room. The principal of the college came in within 5 minutes and gave us a talking to about being rude and such. Then said do to no one pointing out the culprit who was the transgressor we would need to talk about this further. Got a email about 3 days later about a woman sensitivity training that our class must attend. Only the men where there along with a few other guys and we had to do the 2 hour course. Then got a piece of paper thanking us for completing the course. Which the principal asked to see later that day.

I would have told him to shove his course up his...

 Whirlwind wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
Hello guys.

So I was playing a game earlier and the little skull faces are broken down to two colours black and white. The black ones are fast and the white only die when the rest of the room is cleared. I said just kill the black ones first then the white ones die. I was told that is racist.

This has been happening a lot to me lately and I a, confused as hell if I am in the wrong or if it is just new sjw looking for a fight.

This roots of this go back quite a few decades...

If we go back to 60s, 70's and 80's it was quite prevalent that 'black' was considered bad and 'white' was considered good (and it goes back even further than this, for example how many angels do you see dressed in black?). This came about because of bias/racism in the populace in general (if you go back far enough it probably has roots in slavery and sub-conscious bias being pushed from parent to child). From the 90's when this became more widely recognised there has been an effort to try and drive out this sub-conscious bias/racism and those little things (in books, games etc) have been discouraged to break the cycle.

Playing a game by the rules in the best way to win is not racist (it would be the same whether they were green and yellow) but there is a possibility that the person that designed the game was either sub-consciously or actively biased and by using these colours was imposing a type of world view that is best discouraged. If all the games you play have this same colour bias in them then your world view can become sub-consciously biased as well over time (you learn to get rid of the black ones first). It's not really logical, but more how our brains are wired and how we learn.

Hence 'black' bad, white 'good' and vice versa type of things are generally frowned upon (again it doesn't make you a racist though).

It goes farther back than decades. Take the image of the black knight from Arthurian legend. Black Knights are considered pariah or outside of a community because they were loners and lacked squires to take care of their armor. The black knights would paint their armor black to prevent the armor from rusting, but in doing so they broke from the traditions of the time. They are untrustworthy because they do not follow the conventions of chivalry.

Black and white are tied up in so much symbolism across time and cultures that I don't feel comfortable assigning negative intentions to the game designer in the OP.