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MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

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Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#711

Post by swayvil »

filleduchaos wrote: post #344
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazi flag is inarguably racist propaganda. The Confederate flag, however, has for decades been a symbol of southern pride for many people. I read somewhere recently that over 40% see it as a symbol of heritage more than racism.

Reminder that the Confederate battle flag was in use for less than five years and solely as an icon of a conflict that was very much about the (rather racist) keeping of chattel slaves. Before trotting out the "it's a symbol of heritage" line, ask yourself exactly what that heritage is.

The association between a symbol and its meaning is arbitrary. No rational basis necessary, historical or otherwise.

If they assert that the confederate battle flag is a symbol of their heritage, then it is.

Are you going to respect that?

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#712

Post by whynaut »

Yetanfou wrote: post #694
breakbread wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is a high school teacher and, until we had our first child, was also the swim team coach. Early last year she made a kid run laps after he low key photo-bombed the team picture by making the "Ok" symbol on one of his thighs. Then she gets an angry text message from the kid's mother who believed her son was being punished specifically for making the "ok" symbol. This woman had found a picture of my wife on Fac…

> My wife didn't respond, of course. She immediately looped in her admin and explained what was going on. Fortunately that was the end of it, but it's not hard to imagine someone getting caught up in a similar situation and it becoming a full on witch hunt. Well, the hunt began when your wife made a kid run laps because he made an OK sign on his leg because he thought that was a 'cool' thing to do comparable to givin…

> The way to avoid these witch hunts is to avoid starting them, not to make the first step and then complain when others follow suit. She could have taken the kid aside and asked him why he made that sign, he probably would have replied he got it off the 'net or from his friends who made him think it was 'cool'. She then could have told him why it is not cool, i.e. that him making that sign would be interpreted by some as him being a supporter of a nefarious ideology. By singling him out to run laps after he low key photo-bombed the team picture by making the "Ok" symbol on one of his thighs she more or less handed that kid's mother all the ammunition she needed to follow in pursuit.

I don't get this - it was clearly a summary of events. The only detail you really have to go on is "after". How you can assume all of this somehow went down without any talking-to or explanation is beyond me. Even so, the admin would probably have said the same at the time.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#713

Post by swayvil »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #510
runako wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> attached to southern identity Southerner here. The South is a very diverse place with a sizable African-American population. Perhaps I'm just missing all the African-Americans who proudly fly the Confederate battle flag, but my perception is the flag is used by a small subset of white southerners as an anti-virtue-signaling device. Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag…

The fact that it isn't a symbol of southern heritage for everyone doesn't mean it's not a southern symbol for many. Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag...? No, and nothing in my comments suggested that. It makes sense that they wouldn't since their relatives probably didn't after the war. For many people, their relatives did identify with the flag. It probably started a…

Look at those downvotes. The reactionary is strong here.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#714

Post by themacguffinman »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #510
runako wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> attached to southern identity Southerner here. The South is a very diverse place with a sizable African-American population. Perhaps I'm just missing all the African-Americans who proudly fly the Confederate battle flag, but my perception is the flag is used by a small subset of white southerners as an anti-virtue-signaling device. Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag…

The fact that it isn't a symbol of southern heritage for everyone doesn't mean it's not a southern symbol for many. Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag...? No, and nothing in my comments suggested that. It makes sense that they wouldn't since their relatives probably didn't after the war. For many people, their relatives did identify with the flag. It probably started a…

Slavery was also something that wasn't considered bad by most around where you live. Thankfully, people not around where you live disagreed. "Universally" is just a weasel word.

It was started as something racist and still remains incredibly racist to pretty much everyone else, despite doe-eyed claims from southerners who want people to believe that a 5 year long pro-slavery rebellion represents the history and pride of the South.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#715

Post by soraminazuki »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #251
soraminazuki wrote: post #221

While it's emotionally pleasing to see racists being kicked out of online platforms, another side of me feels wary of these tactics. For starters, being deplatformed from major online players today would have serious consequences. Although it's true that these platforms are "private property," the entire society has become too reliant on them to be seen that way. I think it's dangerous when platforms function like a…

This assumes that racists are putting confederate flags on their cars in good faith. Also, what kind of discourse is so precious that it should be respected on the ... Forza decal platform?

> This assumes that racists are putting confederate flags on their cars in good faith.

I wouldn't call them "racists" if I believed that.

> Also, what kind of discourse is so precious that it should be respected on the ... Forza decal platform?

It's not only games that are doing this.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#716

Post by klyrs »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #700
FireBeyond wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may have been made up, but I'm willing to bet that a not insignificant portion of people who are _now_ making it aren't doing so to make a point of saying "everything is just fine". My town had an issue with a cop posing out with a bunch of 3%ers at their gun store. This is in the PNW, and the owner of the store, born and raised in the PNW, has a Confederate flag neck tattoo. This was during some street protests.…

What is a 3%er? Is it like a 1%er but... less rich? What does it take to qualify as a 3%er?

In their words,

> It is from these Minutemen where the 3% name originated. It is a rough estimate that only 3% of the colonists were actively fighting in the field against British forces at any given time.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#717

Post by IncRnd »

krapp wrote: post #706
IncRnd wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an intentional misrepresentation of what I wrote.

I don't believe it is. This is what you wrote, verbatim: > While the Nazi flag may be a racist symbol, the Swastika, however, is not a racist symbol. You deliberately distinguished between the Nazi flag and the Swastika, an element incorporated into the Nazi flag, and claimed that between the two, only the flag was racist. And I'm merely pointing out that in the Western world the only part of the Nazi flag even consi…

My original comment was in error. I had meant to write, "While the Nazi flag may believed to be a racist symbol, the Swastika, however, is not a racist symbol." The swastika symbol may exist in Chinese, but the word swastika is from another large country of people.

Symbols are not racist, which is what should obviously be taken away from this.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#718

Post by whynaut »

freehunter wrote: post #692
Dylan16807 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Symbols are not literally the things they represent.

No, but they do symbolize the things they represent. That's actually where that word comes from.

When your parents buy you a Hot Wheels set for your 18th birthday, and say, "What are you waiting for? Hit the road, [freehunter]!" you'll be fine. It symbolizes transportation.

When your brother aims down the sights at you in Call of Duty and - gulp - pulls the trigger, you'll necessarily have him sent to jail.

That's okay, though - when you're counting on your fingers and get to three, and... hey.. are your thumb and index kinda.. touching? you'll be right there with him.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#719

Post by klyrs »

DevKoala wrote: post #472
jacobolus wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a NY Times summary: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/ok-sign-white-power.ht... > The 4chan hoax succeeded all too well, and ceased being a hoax: Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white nationalists began using the gesture in public to signal their presence and to spot potential sympathizers and recruits. For them, the letters formed by the hand were not O and K, but W and P, for “white power.”

It also weaponized the outrage and ruined the lives of innocent people. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin... I don’t understand how people can justify the collateral damage; it is going too far.

That's a great reason to pick an innocuous symbol for this purpose. We don't reasonably expect everybody to stop using the gesture. But when the symbol does attract unjust backlash, that becomes the story; nevermind the many more instances where the gesture has been used as a genuine symbol of white nationalism. It's the perfect dogwhistle.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#720

Post by [deleted] »

BEEdwards wrote: post #621
holler wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, ok... Is saying "fuck!" spreading hate? what about "you asshole!"? Sometimes humans just express their emotion using words. It isn't always about race. Gaming in particular evokes lots of emotions and always has. Personally I don't like when words are scrambled such as the case with Rocket League, because as someone else pointed out, you end up with barely being able to say anything without some part of it be…

That is a disingenuous comparison and you know it. Calling some an asshole vs calling them a racial slur are not in the same ballpark. That you don't think you can communicate without swearing and slurs says more about you and gaming culture than it does about censorship.

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