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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

#801

Post by Kallrian »

cgrealy wrote: post #657
takeda wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand removing confederate flags and movements from public areas, but I don't think it is necessary to ban people for using it in games like Forza. I mean Microsoft can do whatever they want, but it is overreacting. Most people who would use it wouldn't have any bad meaning behind it and most likely would be used more as a joke. When playing Forza I remember I liked skin that made my car look like a beater car…

The difference is that your beater car skin doesn't remind an entire demographic of a time a whole bunch of people went to war so they could keep said demographic as property. If you want to be funny about the confederate flag, go do an open mike. There's no context in a racing game... so while it might be some hilarious meta-commentary on the ridiculousness of racism, the only thing another player sees is "there's s…

You’ve never heard of the Dukes or Hazzard have you? Their 1969 Dodge Charger is one of the most iconic cars in tv history, and Forza happens to have a ‘69 charger as a drivable car

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

#802

Post by ceejayoz »

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #799
ceejayoz wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was fined for training a dog to make the Nazi salute to the phrase "Do you wanna gas the Jews?". I'm 100% fine with slipping that far down the slope.

Do you realise what comedy is? This guy was a comedian who had performed on stage, so he certainly fits the bill. Think of all the current celebs who have said far worse on stage. I'm British, here, almost all good humour is targeting/focusing around some group in some way (e.g. Monty Python, Fawlty Towers). We call it black comedy because it's horrible out of context. So, are you in favour of getting rid of comedy?

If your comedy act leaves an audience member trained to do Nazi salutes, yes, I oppose it.

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

#803

Post by notyourday »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #536
notyourday wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was even in Gothamist. So I'm sure it is also in NYPost and Daily News.

https://cms.prod.nypr.digital/images/62499/fill-661x496/ Found this on Gothamist. Can you point to the swastika? Or is this a different NYC Subway campaign for The Man in The High Castle?

There was at least one set of ads of Smith standing with in a profile with swastika on his sleeve visible.

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

#804

Post by notyourday »

rsynnott wrote: post #471
notyourday wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so they did it all over NYC subway a few years ago. To a point where I had to do a double take before I realized it was just an Amazon promo. There are quite a few Eastern Europeans and Jews in NYC. Why was that OK?

Wasn’t aware of that. I’d argue that that wasn’t okay, personally, and that the city shouldn’t have permitted it.

MTA said its policies were not violated as it was not political advertisement.

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

#805

Post by iamstupidsimple »

ceejayoz wrote: post #802
iamstupidsimple wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realise what comedy is? This guy was a comedian who had performed on stage, so he certainly fits the bill. Think of all the current celebs who have said far worse on stage. I'm British, here, almost all good humour is targeting/focusing around some group in some way (e.g. Monty Python, Fawlty Towers). We call it black comedy because it's horrible out of context. So, are you in favour of getting rid of comedy?

If your comedy act leaves an audience member trained to do Nazi salutes, yes, I oppose it.

Then you are not in favour of free speech, and logically should believe that mainstream comedians like Jimmy Kimmel, Jack Whitehall, Jimmy Carr, etc.. should all be deplatformed and their lives destroyed, just like this man's. They've all said terrible, mean, things to formulate jokes.

Or does your rule only apply when the little guy does something offensive?

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

#806

Post by marcusverus »

timsally wrote: post #782
SamReidHughes wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were defending themselves against invasion by the U.S. Army.

How can someone be "defending" themselves when they initiated hostilities? [1] Unilateral succession is illegal. Those flying the confederate flag were not defending themselves, they were committing treason. Our Union is an indestructible one. It was safeguarded then by the U.S. Army who will continue to safeguard it as long as America endures. It feels me with great sadness to think of the blood that was spilled, bu…

> Following the declaration of secession by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army surreptitiously moved his small command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance of Charleston Harbor. An attempt by U.S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area except for Fort Sumter.

To summarize: 1) South Carolina secedes. 2) South Carolina demands the Union remove its troops from their soil. 3) The Union refuses, garrisons a fortress on foreign soil, and attempts to resupply said garrison. 4) South Carolina offers an ultimatum--remove your soldiers or we will attack. 5) The union refuses to remove their troops from foreign soil. 6) South Carolina's militia attacks Ft. Sumter.

South Carolina's militia fired the first shots, but I'm not sure how you can say that they 'Initiated hostilities'. Occupying foreign soil has always been considered an act of war. History is written by the victors, I suppose.

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

#807

Post by greenie_beans »

soraminazuki wrote: post #721
greenie_beans wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're banning a hateful symbol. That's totally fair game for censorship. I don't know where you come from, but in my home state where we JUST THIS WEEK removed the Confederate emblem from our state flag, only people with real hatred towards non-white people use that symbol.

> we JUST THIS WEEK removed the Confederate emblem from our state flag That was long overdue, but it has little to do with the point that I'm trying to make. What I'm saying that we should be more careful about what we wish for, especially for something as dangerous as censorship, because things never work out the way we want it to. If the system worked as intended, there wouldn't be a problem of systemic racism now.

The system is working exactly as intended, that’s why we have systemic racism. If you look at the history of Reconstruction in the South and how it ended and gave rise to Jim Crow rule, you’ll see that we are very much an intentional system of white supremacy.

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

#808

Post by henriquez »

jcranmer wrote: post #644
henriquez wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I believe slavery was the straw that broke the camel’s back but it wasn’t the primary factor of conflict. Slavery and protecting the property of rich plantation owners was not the reason poor southern kids were fighting and killing their own family members. To completely dismiss the more prominent factors at play including states rights as “historical revisionism” is itself historical revisionism.

> To completely dismiss the more prominent factors at play including states rights Question #1: Name three states rights the South supposedly aruged for. Question #2: Count how many of those rights they actually granted to their own states. For it being supposedly such a major factor in their succession, states rights are conspicuously silent in both the ordinances of succession, contemporary oratory, and in the text…

Your questions miss the point. The Confederate states wanted to be free from federal economic control. Such a freedom is not an individual liberty that would be conferred by the state upon its citizens but rather an organizational mainstay that would define the state’s relationship with the federal government.

Slavery was the tipping point but the conflict goes much deeper than that.

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

#809

Post by naasking »

filleduchaos wrote: post #736
naasking wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazed or not, symbol or not, political or not, a person displaying a flag is quite literally not propaganda. Honestly, look it up: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda And I'm not American in case you were referring to me.

I know people in the West are socialised to think that propaganda is something Other People do (preferably ones that can be thought of as Bad) but I'm afraid I have to inform you that displaying political symbols (such as flags) _is_ part of spreading propaganda. Why exactly do you think that there is an entire etiquette surrounding the proper display of a flag, or that flying particular flags has been variously crim…

> I'm afraid I have to inform you that displaying political symbols (such as flags) _is_ part of spreading propaganda.

While propaganda requires displaying symbols, displaying symbols does not necessarily entail propaganda. The entailment is simply not bidirectional, ie. surgery requires a scalpel, but cutting my steak with a scalpel does not make it surgery.

> At best you can say that one is simply being an unwitting vehicle of propaganda, but to claim that the public display of such a strong political symbol as a flag is not intended to spread and reinforce what it represents is just absurd.

No it's not. Someone who grew up on the Dukes of Hazzard maybe just really loved that car and associates it with great memories of a happy childhood. To call this "being an unwitting vehicle of propaganda" is losing the plot completely.

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

#810

Post by garraeth »

marshray wrote: post #563
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really odd social phenomenon. It's one thing to say "We don't like X and find it in poor taste. Please don't do that" I don't like it when folks say such things, but I understand it. Instead, what many folks seem to be saying is that based on one thing they can tell what the person is like inside . It's an amazingly-broad generalization and people seem to be enormously confident of themselves when they make it…

I don't believe that you don't actually understand the difference between "shoe or shirt color" and flashing hand signs for a photo.

Read about the Bloods and Crips in the '80's, '90's. Schools were banning wearing red and blue because those gangs had hijacked those two colors. Anyone not in those gangs would take care to not wear anything containing those colors.

The op is not wrong for supposing it's possible for someone to be targeted due to wearing "shoe or shirt color".

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