All right, I think I'm starting to understand what you guys have all been trying to explain to me. Please correct me if I'm wrong: in English, slant-eyes and yellow skinned have only strong negative connotations, and could never be used in a merely half descriptive and half SLIGHTLY disdaining way. Thus, it's impossible to read it for anyone that knows those connotations without feeling immediately offended, much like the black=/=negro thing. Am I right?
I agree with this. And D'Espana, I'm sorry, but slant-eyes and yellow skinned is a strangely specific thing to have trouble in english with.
Not that much, if you widen your spectrum. The Spanish equivalents are only slightly derogatory in the worst case, and could be even used in a more or less neutral way. Depends on context and tone, mainly.
I think that this is clearly not the case here. There is no rp context whatsoever for the statement, no IC ethnic group with narrow eyes and yellow skin for Kas the character to hate. The racism seems to be randomly lifted from RL stereotypes and placed entirely without context into the game. If one wants to insult those evil and misshapen Toprakians then there is an argument to be made to allow IC medieval racism (though personally I think it best to be cautious anyway). But this is not the case here, and even if this is some kind of attempt to create "atmosphere" by introducing medieval racism then we should make it very clear that randomly inserting RL ethnicities and racist slurs word for word into the game with no IC or RP context whatsoever is not the correct way to go about it.
I don't know how many times I or anyone else in D'Hara have related Lurians to traitorous bitches that are better dead than alive. That is racism (quite justified by the way) Will I be reported to the Magistrates if I continue to do so?
Morals are relative, you shouldn't assume that everyone everywhere thinks the same way that most Westerners do. Most non-Western countries in fact do not make much of a fuss over racism, or when they do it's usually influenced by American media.
So, in order to not surprise people from non-Western backgrounds it should be made clear that racism isn't tolerated in any forms.
But in the case of Kas's letter specifically, this is much ado about nothing. It's a minor comment that's been blown out of porportion. In order to solve the issue, all that had to be done was to contact Kas privately OOC and warn him that that kind of thing is a bit controversial around here. At this point Kas probably knows not to do it again, so punishment would be useless and unfair in light of the fact that Western moral values aren't universally known.
This.
Good job ignoring the point of the statement! You win a prize.
Were I to start playing an Arabic-speaking online game based in Saudia Arabia, I would spend some time finding out what was acceptable in that culture, rather than just jumping in and start making RPs talking about how much Allah sucks. A tiny modicum of research should be expected if people from other cultures decide to play a game based in a Western country. As opposed to just coming in and talking about "those lazy slant eyes".
Except that I, coming from a Western country, fail to see why this has acquired such an exaggerated significance. It really seems to me that it's not even half as bad in Spanish than in English, Velax. How the hell could I know, or anyone else for that matter, that this is reaching the seriousness of shouting "Bomb!" in a US airplane?
A lot of websites have a very short disclaimer that racism, homophobia and discrimination are not allowed. That seems like a comprehensive list of Western taboos, so it could easily be implemented without being absurd in length.
Could have avoided all this, yes. However, you'd have the problem of insulting other realms without falling in the racism cathegory. How does it sound: Fight those Arcaean bastar- Oops, I meant honorable warriors, honorable Arcaean warriors, of course. They stin- I mean, they're beautiful. And honest. And good guys too. Well dammit, let's just attack them and shut the !@#$ up, 'cause a Magistrates case would be opened if some Arcaean reports this. Duh.
Most boring BM ever.
