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hands_miranda wrote:

Boggy Man wrote:
Being of Irish descent, am I offended by this? Of course not. I don't really subscribe to the notion that it's always someone's choice to be offended or not, but being offended at something in no way malicious is always dumb.

Everyone is allowed to be or not be offended at things, but this idea that people get to determine other people's feelings/emotions is confusing and worrying. People get to feel how they feel, even if you disagree with it. FWIW, I'd defend your right to be offended at whatever offends you when you're the outsider. Being on the inside track of society and telling the guy in the outgroup that he doesn't get to own his own feelings is just a bit offensive.

I'm offended you find that offensive.

Seriously though, it's all kind of a gray area and I generally agree here. I wouldn't tell someone they're wrong for liking/disliking something, or being offended or not by something. It's just how they feel. It doesn't mean I have to agree with them either.

Personally, I find 'Dakkatanas' about as awesome as awesome gets. I'd also find a Nurgle army with beer bellies and vague allusions to Nascar on their banner hilarious too. The tricky part with 'different' is that someone's bound to get upset. The hardest part is letting them be upset and not letting it get you upset either if you really like what you've done.

hands_miranda wrote:

Boggy Man wrote:
... being offended at something in no way malicious is always dumb.

Everyone is allowed to be or not be offended at things, but this idea that people get to determine other people's feelings/emotions is confusing and worrying. People get to feel how they feel, even if you disagree with it....

Yes, and if someone is not being malicious or insensitive, feeling offended is inappropriate and dumb. So we are in complete agreement; everyone has the to be dumb if they want to!
(Hell, I make it look easy, like how I'm prolonging this conversation for example.)

As they say in our friend's land, "kuki wo yomenai hito" which roughly translates as "he cannot read the air." Would it be appropriate to scream obscenities at someone who smiles at you? How about bursting out weeping and accusing someone of cruelty when they just wished you a good morning? It is VERY possible to respond poorly on an emotional level. Despite the hippie/hipster nonsense about listening to your heart, a person's feelings can and often will steer them wrong.

hands_miranda wrote:
The main thrust is that only a member of an outgroup can decide if something is offensive to that group, and only for themselves. Being the dominant social group and defining what is acceptable for the outgroup (As we saw a bunch in this thread with the classic "I'm not X, and I don't see anything wrong with it, so it isn't an issue with X") is at the heart of the whole privilege argument.

There is a point where the group taking offense to trivial matters can be dismissed by others, which has no bearing on the group's feelings of offense. As I noted earlier, there is a line that could be crossed where it would definitely be offensive intentionally and the OP did not cross it by simply sculpting a certain style of armor on his army.

Obviously this is subjective, but the answers given in this thread dismissing the offended party are based on the fact that modelling armor without additional context isn't automatically offensive. This isn't Skaven with yarmulkes and curly sideburns*, it is a warrior culture (orks) wearing warrior gear from a period in history.



*This is the only valid example I could think of for a race and culture linked that would directly lead to offense, sorry in advance.

Having your culture shown as a bunch or soccer hooligans are never something to be happy about.
Heck I did my ork speed freaks based on biker gangs and its was fun and in character.

but then this guy prob don't really understand anything about 40K and orks and is just making a stink because he sees his culture being displayed in a negative manner.
either ignore the guy, or just tell his its a game and you portrayed your ork army as Samurai because you liked samurai.

A WW2 German themed army is not automatically an offensive thing. Its all about context and specific details.

The example of the VC army with the Jewish Zombies and Nazi Vampires would fall under the offensive catagory. A Nazi Zombie army itself wouldn't be, given that Nazi Zombies feature in a popular FPS game which shall remain nameless.

Something using Nazis isn't offensive, something with Nazis that references the Holocaust will be offensive to many people. And understandably so.

I find the idea of that army quite clever actually, and I do feel bad about it. Anyway, moving on...


Context is everything.

Perhaps the person in question is a descendent of a Samurai family, feels the modern protrayels of Samurai to be disgraceful, and decided to take it out on you.

Traditional Asian Cultures can seem very humorless, for lack of a better word, to Western Culture.

We find no issue with making light of our, or anybody elses, Heritage, and not out of any sort of disrespect either.

Asian Culture on the other hand isn't quite at that point and there are people of all ages that will retain an older cultural mindset. One that doesn't appreciate how their culture has modernized.

Boggy Man wrote:

Yes, and if someone is not being malicious or insensitive, feeling offended is inappropriate and dumb. So we are in complete agreement; everyone has the to be dumb if they want to!
(Hell, I make it look easy, like how I'm prolonging this conversation for example.)

Incorrect. You don't get to play the "I don't find it offensive, so no one gets to" to an ethnic minority, at least not in the civilized world. Check your privilege. (Overused phrase I know, but that's the only valid response here) Malice or not doesn't have anything to with the offense people take over things, and certainly not when it's a possibly racist portrayal of someone.

The OP on this thread was pretty obviously looking for a hugbox post (i.e. bunches of "It's fine, screw the haters" posts to alleviate his conscience), and after the piles of responses, I guess he got them. I just hope if he's reading he understands that some people aren't going to let him off the hook.

but then this guy prob don't really understand anything about 40K and orks and is just making a stink because he sees his culture being displayed in a negative manner.
either ignore the guy, or just tell his its a game and you portrayed your ork army as Samurai because you liked samurai.

And what do we call negative stereotypical portrayals of minority societies/groups? Racism and bigotry. That is not cool in any way, intended malice or not.

Please be VERY careful with your language in this thread - it's remarkably easy to slip offensive slurs into conversation, and Bad Things may happen to your ability to post should that occur.

well I just had another run in with the Japanese exchange students as I was checking my blog in the cafeteria, this time a group of about six of them. they loved it they couldn't stop talking about my army of "green samurai oni with machine guns", and after they read some of my fluff there were some understanding of the references made and we all had a good laugh.

That's great news yeri!

hands_miranda wrote:
Not samurai, but the Japanese certainly suffered more than a bit of prejudice during WW2 because of their nation of origin.

Thats a bit of a pointless statement seeing as they fought against allied forces so would obviously suffer prejudice.

If the example with Samurai is hard to imagine, consider this: could you see someone being offended if say an Orc army was done up with the stereotype of Zulus or other Africans? Can you understand how comparing a real life group of people with a fantasy group of subhuman aliens is at least a little problematic?

The problem with this is that every race or faction is heavily based on historical figures or societies. I can see someone getting offended by your example but it logically shouldn't be offensive, as it would be just the same as if someone did a celtic themed ork army or a anglo-saxon. It seems alot of non-european descended people think that every white european is racist (which in itself is racist). There is an interesting example of this when the film District 9 was released, it depicted a group of criminals as being nigerian, to this a campaign entitled 'district 9 hates nigerians' was started, the campaign forgot to mention that Nigeria does have a massive problem with corruption, violence and organised crime, so it was not an unrealistic depiction, the campaigners only focussed on the fact that the film makers were white so using black characters in a negative light makes them racist (they missed the point that the film makers make most of the white characters look really bad as well).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

And what do we call negative stereotypical portrayals of minority societies/groups? Racism and bigotry. That is not cool in any way, intended malice or not.

The problems with this is:
If a 'minority' person made an negative stereotypical remark about a white european it would still be racist and bigotry.
Other cultures, no matter how small, have a 'bad' side, for example, Zulus, a group of people under continual pressure by the goverment look down on tribes that do not own cattle and will use watering holes used by bushmen for their cattle effectivly making it unuseable for the bushmen.

hands_miranda wrote:

Boggy Man wrote:

Yes, and if someone is not being malicious or insensitive, feeling offended is inappropriate and dumb. So we are in complete agreement; everyone has the to be dumb if they want to!
(Hell, I make it look easy, like how I'm prolonging this conversation for example.)

Incorrect. You don't get to play the "I don't find it offensive, so no one gets to" to an ethnic minority, at least not in the civilized world. Check your privilege...

All orks is equal, but some orkz' more equal dan udders! Cool, got it.

Please inform me when I can post in a thread where my skin color allows me to have an opinion.

hands_miranda wrote:
Check your privilege.

Not all complaints of offense are legitimate. Go back to SRS.

Nope, not offensive at all.

Still, at least the other exchange students were impressed.

BluntmanDC wrote:Thats a bit of a pointless statement seeing as they fought against allied forces so would obviously suffer prejudice.

Considering piles of innocent people were put into detention camps based on being of Japanese ancestry, but similar things weren't done for Germans or Italians, yeah, I'd say it was unwarranted. And really, having a "good reason" to have a racist policy is still racist.

The problem with this is that every race or faction is heavily based on historical figures or societies. I can see someone getting offended by your example but it logically shouldn't be offensive, as it would be just the same as if someone did a celtic themed ork army or a anglo-saxon. It seems alot of non-european descended people think that every white european is racist (which in itself is racist). There is an interesting example of this when the film District 9 was released, it depicted a group of criminals as being nigerian, to this a campaign entitled 'district 9 hates nigerians' was started, the campaign forgot to mention that Nigeria does have a massive problem with corruption, violence and organised crime, so it was not an unrealistic depiction, the campaigners only focussed on the fact that the film makers were white so using black characters in a negative light makes them racist (they missed the point that the film makers make most of the white characters look really bad as well).

Again, you get into very sketchy territory when you start making a connection between stupid, brutal, subhuman aliens and real world cultures, you get into problems. With regard to the actual army I put forward, saying you don't see how making a line between African tribesmen and orc(k)s is offensive when it 100% fits a very common stereotype/ethnic slur, seems to be willfully ignorant. P.S. - the reason lots of non-whites feel the way they do is because the West is still incredibly rife with white privilege and institutional racism at the very least. As someone who it's often considered "safe" (i.e. the slight draw I educated myself out of comes back when I'm around it again) to discuss things around, I also overhear disgustingly large amount of casual racism out of people. EDIT: But in any case, that's probably as close to actual politics as the thread should go-- I just think that an ignorant "get over it" position ought to be called out versus let stand. If you want to continue this, PM me where it's not creating a public issue.

I'll also say I expect many less people to have issues with say Eldar samurai, because Eldar are not considered subhuman. Maybe the trick would be to do closely historical themed armies with a more human or positive appearance.

The problems with this is:
If a 'minority' person made an negative stereotypical remark about a white european it would still be racist and bigotry.
Other cultures, no matter how small, have a 'bad' side, for example, Zulus, a group of people under continual pressure by the goverment look down on tribes that do not own cattle and will use watering holes used by bushmen for their cattle effectivly making it unuseable for the bushmen.

Just going from the sociology stuff I did in school, this is wrong. The outgroup hating back isn't normally considered racism because of the power inequality. Also, it's missing the idea that power is relative to a society (i.e. who has power in a society and thus who has privilege is relative.) But that's not a discussion really for a gaming forum. The discussion should be back with the point that those in power don't get to decide what is offensive for those in an outgroup. My suggestions are good ones, but if someone's doesn't like your stereotypical protrayal of their race/country, it's your problem, not theirs.

Boggy Man wrote:Please inform me when I can post in a thread where my skin color allows me to have an opinion.

You're allowed to have an opinion, just expect to be call out on using your privilege. And effectively telling a minority to get over it/stop being sensitive is the height of modern privilege. Sorry if this is too "hippy/hipster" for you, but that's where modern society is going.

Kaldor wrote:Not all complaints of offense are legitimate. Go back to SRS.

SRS? No clue what this means-- only hit is seriously, and that doesn't fit. And again, why do you get the arbiter of what an outgroup finds offensive? I'm not the arbiter either-- my point here is the offended person gets to be, and all the people telling a minority to shut up about it are being truly disgusting.

 Kaldor wrote:

Not all complaints of offense are legitimate. Go back to SRS.

hands_miranda wrote:
SRS? No clue what this means

Scoliosis Research Institute; helpful for bridge trolls

(God created the ignore button for pc whiners )

What can you do? You can't please everyone all the time. I do theme armies and have used German names for my Traitor Guard before. I'm sure it would offend some because they are German and some because they had family killed by Germans. Clearly your Samurai Orcs offended the guy, but that is his problem and not yours.

hands_miranda wrote:

The problem with this is that every race or faction is heavily based on historical figures or societies. I can see someone getting offended by your example but it logically shouldn't be offensive, as it would be just the same as if someone did a celtic themed ork army or a anglo-saxon. It seems alot of non-european descended people think that every white european is racist (which in itself is racist). There is an interesting example of this when the film District 9 was released, it depicted a group of criminals as being nigerian, to this a campaign entitled 'district 9 hates nigerians' was started, the campaign forgot to mention that Nigeria does have a massive problem with corruption, violence and organised crime, so it was not an unrealistic depiction, the campaigners only focussed on the fact that the film makers were white so using black characters in a negative light makes them racist (they missed the point that the film makers make most of the white characters look really bad as well).

Again, you get into very sketchy territory when you start making a connection between stupid, brutal, subhuman aliens and real world cultures, you get into problems. With regard to the actual army I put forward, saying you don't see how making a line between African tribesmen and orc(k)s is offensive when it 100% fits a very common stereotype/ethnic slur, seems to be willfully ignorant. P.S. - the reason lots of non-whites feel the way they do is because the West is still incredibly rife with white privilege and institutional racism at the very least. As someone who it's often considered "safe" (i.e. the slight draw I educated myself out of comes back when I'm around it again) to discuss things around, I also overhear disgustingly large amount of casual racism out of people. EDIT: But in any case, that's probably as close to actual politics as the thread should go-- I just think that an ignorant "get over it" position ought to be called out versus let stand. If you want to continue this, PM me where it's not creating a public issue.

I'll also say I expect many less people to have issues with say Eldar samurai, because Eldar are not considered subhuman. Maybe the trick would be to do closely historical themed armies with a more human or positive appearance.

.

So you say it is not ok to have an ork samurai army, but is ok to have an eldar samurai army, although the Eldar are well known to be a genocidal, self aggrandising race, who only care about themselves. The problem with you view is you miss the part of 40k fluff that shows that every race has a lot of bad in it, especially humans.

The problems with this is:
If a 'minority' person made an negative stereotypical remark about a white european it would still be racist and bigotry.
Other cultures, no matter how small, have a 'bad' side, for example, Zulus, a group of people under continual pressure by the goverment look down on tribes that do not own cattle and will use watering holes used by bushmen for their cattle effectivly making it unuseable for the bushmen.

Just going from the sociology stuff I did in school, this is wrong. The outgroup hating back isn't normally considered racism because of the power inequality. Also, it's missing the idea that power is relative to a society (i.e. who has power in a society and thus who has privilege is relative.) But that's not a discussion really for a gaming forum. The discussion should be back with the point that those in power don't get to decide what is offensive for those in an outgroup. My suggestions are good ones, but if someone's doesn't like your stereotypical protrayal of their race/country, it's your problem, not theirs.

.

I don't know what school you went to but we were taught everyone is equal and a racist is a racist no matter what their background. To counter your interpretation, what would you call a derogatory statement made based on colour to a poor white person made by a Afro-Caribbean barrister? Racial hatred is still racial hatred no matter what a person's colour or racial group

At time like this I see how different the american or western mind set is from the asian one . You guys say that samurai orcs are not offensive [at least for you], but your not getting the fact that for a most people in japan there is no such thing as samurai no from Japan . It is a best a parody and at worse considered stealing stuff. And before you say funy stuff is ment to be funy , remember that all groups are ok when a member of it makes the joke . Stupid polak jokes told by polaks ? can be funy , told not by polaks the fun stops . the use of the N word is accepted or not depanding on your color . make some jokes about beans , pasta or pierogi while not belonging to specific national group and check what happens .
you dont even have to do that go to a bar or pub where your home team fans sit , in an opposing team shirt and talk about how bad this seson was for your home team . Check what happens .

So you say it is not ok to have an ork samurai army, but is ok to have an eldar samurai army, although the Eldar are well known to be a genocidal, self aggrandising race, who only care about themselves.

yes , because eldar are better then humans and being better then others is part of most asian ways of thinking about your race/nation. Orcs are depicted as stupid , vulgar and uncontroled . specialy the third one is a cardinal sin for any asian culture . breaking the order of things is the worse thing to do , worse then killing , stealing etc because all those can be made part of the order of things.

hands_miranda wrote:
SRS? No clue what this means-- only hit is seriously, and that doesn't fit. And again, why do you get the arbiter of what an outgroup finds offensive? I'm not the arbiter either-- my point here is the offended person gets to be, and all the people telling a minority to shut up about it are being truly disgusting.

No, one person never gets to be the arbiter of what offends them. Or rather, they can but only the rest of society can validate that offense for them. For example, I could choose to be deeply offended by people with brown eyes. And that's my right. It's also the right of the rest of society to tell me I'm being stupid.

Not all claims to offense are legitimate. Sometimes, people simply need to get over it. Here's an example of a conversation:

"That's offensive!"

"No it's not"

"Well, I'm offended"

"Then you're an idiot"

And none of those statements are untrue. You see? An individual can have any reaction they want to anything. They can fear tissue paper, adore serial killers, or be offended by samurai orks. But that doesn't make those reactions normal or rational.

If you're not from SRS, maybe you're from Tumblr? Phrases like 'check your privilege' don't grow in the wild.

KtheNecron wrote:
The guy is just being a prick. Name your war boss after him and really get him going.

I literally LOL'd at this. I guess I can see how he might be offended because they're Orks but honestly I don't think this is overly offensive. If the guy wants to complain, he's going to complain. If you don't agree with him then ignore him.

yes , because eldar are better then humans and being better then others is part of most asian ways of thinking about your race/nation

Gee, your description of Asians as a murderous, genocidal group that prefers other races die in pointless ways and often are caused by them is pretty Racist

The only thing offensive about your Samurai Orks is that they are not my own.

The person overacted

For those of you defending the Japanese guy's sense of offense, kindly look up what the Japanese did to the Chinese people before and during WWII. Also look up how they treated prisoners of war and why. The Japanese as a people have no room to gripe about racism.

The background for this reaction is something like this:

1.) Before and during WW2, Japan invaded several of its neighboring states including China. They treated their neighbors as inferior beings and committed war crimes. So in Asia, they are still hated by some people like Nazis in Western culture.

2.) Orcs are the fantasy exaggeration of dumb and brutal humans, like Elfs are the fantasy exaggeration of noble and sophisticated humans. Orcs look similar to how enemies are represented in racist propaganda posters, esp around WW2.

3.) In recent political discourse, China used racist propaganda against today's Japan, like in Poland anti-German propaganda with Nazi-symbols has been used by the major nationalist party. So racist propaganda is part of recent politics, not just historical.

4.) Some Japanese are extremely nationalist. These are more prone to be offended by anti-Japanese propaganda. I guess, the first Japanese student you met, belonged to this faction and took your army as anti-Japanese propaganda because they indeed look similar in that context, even if your context is a different one (maybe like this: "I love Orcs, I love Japan, let's do Japanese Orcs"). Also takes some humour to not be offended

 Kaldor wrote:

hands_miranda wrote:
SRS? No clue what this means-- only hit is seriously, and that doesn't fit. And again, why do you get the arbiter of what an outgroup finds offensive? I'm not the arbiter either-- my point here is the offended person gets to be, and all the people telling a minority to shut up about it are being truly disgusting.

No, one person never gets to be the arbiter of what offends them. Or rather, they can but only the rest of society can validate that offense for them. For example, I could choose to be deeply offended by people with brown eyes. And that's my right. It's also the right of the rest of society to tell me I'm being stupid.

Not all claims to offense are legitimate. Sometimes, people simply need to get over it. Here's an example of a conversation:

"That's offensive!"

"No it's not"

"Well, I'm offended"

"Then you're an idiot"

And none of those statements are untrue. You see? An individual can have any reaction they want to anything. They can fear tissue paper, adore serial killers, or be offended by samurai orks. But that doesn't make those reactions normal or rational.

No I don't see, because that always allows a bigoted society to wash its hands of what it does. Again, it's up to you what you do when someone's offended about what you do, but using your privilege to shout people down for not toeing the line is disgusting.

If you're not from SRS, maybe you're from Tumblr? Phrases like 'check your privilege' don't grow in the wild.

No, I picked it up over at somethingawful. I have no idea what SRS is or even why it's relevant. Google isn't helping unless it has something to do with learning Chinese or Audis. I've maybe been to tumblr of a link a half dozen times, but I don't know what an art site has to do with the discussion. I get the feeling you're driving at something-- put it out in the open, don't keep beating around the bush.

Check your privilege is faster and somewhat nicer that saying "stop using your position of unearned social dominance to smugly dismiss people". I know the concept that people (including myself) may have started life on third instead of at bat is a tough one to swallow, but it's the reality of the situation. Again, this isn't a political board, so I don't think the mods want a discussion of the politics of it.

BairdEC wrote:For those of you defending the Japanese guy's sense of offense, kindly look up what the Japanese did to the Chinese people before and during WWII. Also look up how they treated prisoners of war and why. The Japanese as a people have no room to gripe about racism.

Under this line of thought, practically any nationality should have "no room to gripe". The Japanese did horrible things during the War, but frankly so did the rest of the Axis as well as the Allies, and that's only looking at the broad brush strokes of that conflict. All nations that exist now involved some amount of blood on people's hands to get where they are. While evreyone should be ashamed of that, it doesn't excuse the current dominant group from acting the same way towards them when the tables turn.

Pretty much every nation on Earth, past or present, has at some point been extremely gakky to some other nation. Britain and America aren't exactly beacons of tolerance and compassion if you look at their histories either

We're human. Humans are tribal. Non-tribe members are subhuman in the tribe's eyes.

If you don't think modern humans are tribal, find the supporters of two opposing football teams after a tough match.

Orcs are at least somewhat based on the football hooligan mindset (and that was really big in the UK back when 40K was born. 40K was based heavily on popular culture from that time)

They are war hooligans though. Much more fun!

 yeri wrote:
well I just had another run in with the Japanese exchange students as I was checking my blog in the cafeteria, this time a group of about six of them. they loved it they couldn't stop talking about my army of "green samurai oni with machine guns", and after they read some of my fluff there were some understanding of the references made and we all had a good laugh.

glad it turned out ok may you have no more problems like this in the future.

hands_miranda wrote:
No I don't see, because that always allows a bigoted society to wash its hands of what it does. Again, it's up to you what you do when someone's offended about what you do, but using your privilege to shout people down for not toeing the line is disgusting.

Is it? Is it really?

So like, when I disagree with you, I'm not toeing your line. So you proceed to 'shout down' at me and anyone who disagrees with you, with phrases like "It's disgusting" and "check your privilege".

And that, people, is irony.

For your records:

SRS

Tumblr

Caution, NSFL language through links.

 Kaldor wrote:

hands_miranda wrote:
No I don't see, because that always allows a bigoted society to wash its hands of what it does. Again, it's up to you what you do when someone's offended about what you do, but using your privilege to shout people down for not toeing the line is disgusting.

Is it? Is it really?

So like, when I disagree with you, I'm not toeing your line. So you proceed to 'shout down' at me and anyone who disagrees with you, with phrases like "It's disgusting" and "check your privilege".

And that, people, is irony.

For your records:

SRS

Tumblr

Caution, NSFL language through links.

Thank you Kaldor.

Hands_Miranda is the typical "raceblind" person who focuses waaaay more on race than the average person. They claim to be "open-minded", but only (of course) when it suits them. Some of these people are so "open minded" that their brain appears to have dropped out of their head!

Makumba wrote:
At time like this I see how different the american or western mind set is from the asian one . You guys say that samurai orcs are not offensive [at least for you], but your not getting the fact that for a most people in japan there is no such thing as samurai no from Japan . It is a best a parody and at worse considered stealing stuff. And before you say funy stuff is ment to be funy , remember that all groups are ok when a member of it makes the joke . Stupid polak jokes told by polaks ? can be funy , told not by polaks the fun stops . the use of the N word is accepted or not depanding on your color . make some jokes about beans , pasta or pierogi while not belonging to specific national group and check what happens .
you dont even have to do that go to a bar or pub where your home team fans sit , in an opposing team shirt and talk about how bad this seson was for your home team . Check what happens .

The difference is (and this may just be how I have interpreted the OPs post) that he isnt claiming they are samurai orks. They are orks who landed on a feudal Japanese like world, killed some samurai in the war and thought their gear was cool. I dont see anything offensive in that. He isnt saying samurai are like orks, nor is he saying orks are like samurai. So I would say this army isn't any more offensive then the entire ethnically themed IG regiments.