SBminisguy | 18 Jun 2020 9:14 a.m. PST |
During this past week I have noticed essentially loyalty statement demands from group moderators and active members across many Facebook gaming groups -- Solo Boardgames, Space 1889, Twilight 2000, various other RPG groups, etc. as well as demands on manufacturer and review groups like Everything Board Games to adopt a statement endorsing or supporting Back Lives Matter, and on members to also support it. This has led to nasty flame wars. Has anyone else noticed this? |
Bede19002 | 18 Jun 2020 9:57 a.m. PST |
I've stopped visiting several PC game review websites that felt the need to let me know the USA is a systemically racist country when all I came there for was to read about computer games. |
Patrick Sexton | 18 Jun 2020 9:58 a.m. PST |
Get onboard the loyalty train. Long Live Big Brother. |
nickinsomerset | 18 Jun 2020 9:59 a.m. PST |
If these people get their way our evening entertainment will be sitting around reading Mao's little red book and evil war models will be consigned to history, Tally Ho! |
Bede19002 | 18 Jun 2020 10:11 a.m. PST |
If these people get their way our evening entertainment will be sitting around reading Mao's little red book and evil war models will be consigned to history, I took a fascinating course in college called "Nazism and the atomization of Society ". It was a history of how the National Socialist party infiltrated every facet of life in Germany in the 1930's-40's. Your local stamp collectors club became the National Socialist Stamp Collectors Club, complete with loyalty oaths and party information along with your discussion of stamps. The Nazis found it an excellent way to control the population. |
USAFpilot | 18 Jun 2020 10:16 a.m. PST |
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Fitzovich | 18 Jun 2020 10:23 a.m. PST |
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rvandusen | 18 Jun 2020 10:50 a.m. PST |
I've learned lately that the orcs I used in RPGs 30-something years-ago are apparently "racist", though it never dawned on me that orcs were stand-ins for ethnic minorities all those decades past. I'm happy that I came of age in the Pre-woke period. It must be quite the ordeal to be young these days. |
Tom Reed | 18 Jun 2020 11:08 a.m. PST |
Nope, none of the groups I frequent have been doing this. |
SBminisguy | 18 Jun 2020 12:19 p.m. PST |
I've learned lately that the orcs I used in RPGs 30-something years-ago are apparently "racist", though it never dawned on me that orcs were stand-ins for ethnic minorities all those decades past. I'm happy that I came of age in the Pre-woke period. It must be quite the ordeal to be young these days. Yep, I hear ya. And being a Tolkien geek I know the Orcs he imagined were Elves twisted by Morgoth's magic into brutal, loyal foot soldiers and not based on any ethnic group. If anything Orcs may be seen as a sort of stand-in or reflection of his experiences with the brutally effective German Army in the trenches of WW1 (the Somme, etc., also perhaps being the origin for Mordor, Dagorlad, etc). |
Tgerritsen | 18 Jun 2020 12:24 p.m. PST |
Don't worry. You will be assigned a local commissar who will make sure you only do right think. We've come a long way from counter culture rising up against 'the man.' It's amazing to see the world come full circle back to the tactics and purity demands we all once collectively rejected. I fear individualism and freedom of thought is, if not dead, on the endangered list. |
Dan Cyr | 18 Jun 2020 12:26 p.m. PST |
Double yawn… +1 Fitzovich None of my groups have done that. |
USAFpilot | 18 Jun 2020 12:39 p.m. PST |
The so called "woke" crowd is just rebranding of the same old tired commie ideologies. |
dddd99 | 18 Jun 2020 1:06 p.m. PST |
I think we're going to see more and more of this as time marches on. Due to the George Floyd tragedy, momentum has propelled this movement forward and its mass has increased at such a rate that it is unlikely to go away any time soon. The resolution of all this looks like it will not be brought about government policies, but rather by how people spend their money. It seems most businesses now have a support BLM type policy. Even the NFL has made their BLM support stance clear. I see people being fired everyday for racist activities and more and more commerce being tied to an explicit support for BLM. I think this is only going to get more severe as time marches on. These ideas are now very firmly implanted in the collective conscience. This then leads me to believe the majority of dollars being spent in the USA are spent by people who support BLM or at the very least do not support racism. So I think the market will decide for all of us. I guess this will spillover into gaming groups as well. This will spillover in many more places too: places of employment (work life), social life (like your gaming group example), religious life, etc. By the way, this is from a citizen of USA and this may not apply to other countries, etc. And to be clear, I do not support racism and that includes racism against black people too. I do not really belong to any groups so I have not really seen any of these flame wars. |
USAFpilot | 18 Jun 2020 1:43 p.m. PST |
Yes, the market place will determine. We still value capitalism in this country. NFL ratings will continue to plummet. The backlash from normal, non-racist, fair minded people who are sick of all the politically correct crap is going to be great. |
Desert Fox | 18 Jun 2020 2:08 p.m. PST |
NFL ratings are not plummeting, quite the opposite. NFL viewership was up 3-5% last year, depending on the source. |
M1Fanboy | 18 Jun 2020 2:20 p.m. PST |
During this past week I have noticed essentially loyalty statement demands from group moderators and active members across many Facebook gaming groups -- Solo Boardgames, Space 1889, Twilight 2000, various other RPG groups, etc. as well as demands on manufacturer and review groups like Everything Board Games to adopt a statement endorsing or supporting Back Lives Matter, and on members to also support it. This has led to nasty flame wars. Has anyone else noticed this? Oh, I have noticed, and the tone of the moderator on the Twilight: 2000 board darn near caused a riot. I actually took my complaints to Marc Miller himself. |
Tgerritsen | 18 Jun 2020 2:50 p.m. PST |
I seriously doubt there is much disagreement with the idea that racism is bad. However, when you demand performative proof and require that people repeat mantras in order to be accepted, or even tolerated, we're in a brave and scary new world. There is a movement now to go back into people's pasts, including children, calling out and exposing anything stupid they may have said. When your goal is to expose something someone said when they were 12 on their social media account, you really need to question your motivations. Show me a person under 21 and I will show you a person who probably shouldn't be taken seriously online, let alone castigated and publicly shamed forever. link |
oldnorthstate | 18 Jun 2020 5:04 p.m. PST |
"NFL viewership was up 3-5% last year, depending on the source"…yeah, last year. After all that has happened with the kneeling issue, combined with the virus, the NFL and other sports are kidding themselves if they think they will simply resume their revenue stream with half empty stadiums and more and more out of control players who now seem to run the league. I won't watch. |
StoneMtnMinis | 18 Jun 2020 5:38 p.m. PST |
It was up last year because it had dropped twice that the previous year. The shine is off the "shield". |
whitphoto | 18 Jun 2020 6:35 p.m. PST |
I'm in a couple dozen groups on Facebook and not one has had any posts like you describe. Frankly there's ten times more whining about supposedly ‘SJW' crusades than the slightest bit of PC enforcement in any of the groups I'm in. The exception being in the wwii groups when someone calls out ‘Japs' as being a racial slur, and everyone foams at the mouth at having their first amendment rights infringed by the radical left. |
Rudysnelson | 18 Jun 2020 8:15 p.m. PST |
It is not up among my family. My mother, brothers their wife's and my wife and I none of us watch NFL football. We stopped watching with the kneeling disgrace. So it is not back up here. |
Howler | 18 Jun 2020 9:47 p.m. PST |
taking a knee means I stop watching. |
Thresher01 | 18 Jun 2020 11:55 p.m. PST |
Yep, I stopped watching quite some time ago, since I grew disgusted with the NFL players' antics, including even standing/applauding the British National Anthem, but acting disgracefully when their own was played in the UK. The NFL is totally irrelevant to me, as are their overpaid, over-hyped "heroes". Seems like a lot of season ticket holders and others aren't going to the games either, due to ALL the empty seats at many venues. Apparently, coverage of the crowds watching the games has been cut back a bit to hide that. The real "heroes" are the ones that protect and serve our nation, are underpaid, and go about their jobs, day and night, quietly, and with little to no recognition. They are the true "heroes". I haven't missed the games a bit. I now have a lot more free time to do other things on weekends. |
Yesthatphil | 19 Jun 2020 1:27 a.m. PST |
No … I haven't noticed that. I am only on historical groups though. Phil |
ZULUPAUL | 19 Jun 2020 2:48 a.m. PST |
I also stopped watching the NFL after the "kneeling" crap & this has just been re-enforced this year. |
robert piepenbrink | 19 Jun 2020 3:19 a.m. PST |
Worth noting that the Woke are defining "racism" in a new way, both including race-blind behavior and excluding outright racial bigotry so long as the bigot isn't white. Almost every modern white American is opposed to racial bigotry, but that's not what BLM and company are talking about. |
Dn Jackson | 19 Jun 2020 4:00 a.m. PST |
"There is a movement now to go back into people's pasts, including children, calling out and exposing anything stupid they may have said." The hypocrisy of the anti-racist movement is appalling. A soccer player was fired because his wife said all lives matter. Yet the governor of Virginia proudly put a picture of himself and a friend, one in black face, the other in a KKK outfit, in his yearbook. He still has a job and is leading the charge to take down Confederate statues to show his wokeness. |
Irish Marine | 19 Jun 2020 6:55 a.m. PST |
I've seen on Amazon Prime they have an advert for BLM. I'll take BLM seriously when they are marching in Detroit, Chicago, and Washington D.C to stop the almost daily shooting of black men by other black men, until then the movement is a joke. |
BrockLanders | 19 Jun 2020 10:08 a.m. PST |
Currently at 288 homicides year to date in Chicago, the vast majority of both victims and perpetrators black. Not a peep out of the hypocritical BLM or other race grifters 🤷♂️ |
Ed Mohrmann | 19 Jun 2020 2:49 p.m. PST |
There is no tyranny to be feared as much as the tyranny of the mob… |
dddd99 | 19 Jun 2020 8:10 p.m. PST |
I wonder how many black people read this thread. I wonder how they would feel about it. I wonder about how many black people are in your gaming groups. I think poster Bede19002 put it best in that I (we) came here to read about X (video games / war games), but now I have to read about Y. I don't know how to solve this problem, but I think a good way to prepare would be to read this thread. Hopefully it all turns out nice. I wouldn't mind if we got some good news in 2020. Tally Ho! |
Coyotepunc and Hatshepsuut | 19 Jun 2020 8:31 p.m. PST |
I haven't noticed it anywhere on Facebook. |
Bellbottom | 20 Jun 2020 2:26 a.m. PST |
Certainly in the UK the BLM movement is not about racism. Go and look at their stated aims on their UKBLM gofundme page. It's an extension of the 'black power' movement, driven by political activists, wholly anti-British, and, in my view, advocating insurrection. |
bruntonboy | 20 Jun 2020 3:39 a.m. PST |
Here in GB our ethnic communities and citizens suffer disproportionately higher disease, have less income, worse housing, poorer job prospects and suffer more from higher rates of police mistreatment and imprisonment compared to the majority white population. Even official statistics bear this out. When the injustice and inequality is ended than BLM will be gone as unnecessary, until then it has a place and in my experience is accepted and welcomed and indeed supported it in it's aims by the wider population- even if some of the hangers on's antics are not. Either you are against injustice or you tacitly support it even if without realising it. Of course whether it is important when wanting to read board games reviews or on a toy soldier site is another issue so I do have some sympathy with the view that it shouldn't be part of hobby sites. Though as I like to think that our hobby contains thoughtful, tolerant and intelligent people who wouldn't dream of condoning any abhorrent racist behaviour withing our society therefore I cannot personally see any problem with accepting such statements on websites. |
COL Scott ret | 20 Jun 2020 7:31 a.m. PST |
IMHO, I look forward to a time when we judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Here in America there is one thing that is the greatest determinant of crime and lower economic status – having no father in the house. Any government that encourages policies that add to this issue are adding to the root cause of disproportionate crime and economic advancement. |
Thresher01 | 20 Jun 2020 10:48 a.m. PST |
Facebook is certainly pushing very hard on the support the leftists front, given their ads on the site. Yes, they are anarchists and insurrectionists backed/pushed and financed by communists and socialists, just like back in the 1960s, though apparently they've got a lot more support, funding, and traction now. |
Howler | 20 Jun 2020 3:04 p.m. PST |
And ending the "nuclear family" is a core tenet of the BLM organization. Crazy that a reasonable solution is tossed aside by an organization that claims it wants to improve the lives of African Americans. |
Dan Cyr | 20 Jun 2020 10:18 p.m. PST |
+1 Bruntonboy Lots of white privilege being trolled here. Luckily a younger generation will succeed this older one and hopefully be more open to accountability and transparency of our police forces. I do enjoy the comments about "…communists and socialists…" that gets dragged out every time someone white disagrees with a threat to their white privilege. |
Thresher01 | 21 Jun 2020 7:10 a.m. PST |
There is no such thing as "white privilege". It is a false construct pushed by many in order to further their political aims. |
USAFpilot | 21 Jun 2020 7:14 a.m. PST |
To say "white privilege" is race baiting. A term used by whites who feel guilty. The term is actually racist. |
USAFpilot | 21 Jun 2020 7:43 a.m. PST |
Muhammad Ali's son says dad would have hated ‘racist' Black Lives Matter On the fourth anniversary of his death, Muhammad Ali's only biological son says that his father would be against Black Lives Matter, calling the movement "racist" and the protesters "devils." The legendary boxer and activist stood up against racism throughout his life, but Muhammad Ali Jr. says his dad would have been sickened by how the protests have turned to violence and looting after the death of George Floyd. "Don't bust up s–t, don't trash the place," he told The Post. "You can peacefully protest. ‘‘My father would have said, ‘They ain't nothing but devils.' My father said, ‘all lives matter.' I don't think he'd agree. link |
Dan Cyr | 21 Jun 2020 6:55 p.m. PST |
Sure, deny it. That will make it go away. |
dddd99 | 21 Jun 2020 9:26 p.m. PST |
Wow USAF, exciting commentary. This topic was originally about the sometimes requirement of "loyalty statements" to [BLM] in social groups as a prerequisite to participation, but you meandered from sarcastically saying that you were unfamiliar with facebook, to calling BLM participants people who re-brand "commie ideologies", to saying NFL ratings will plummet (completely missing the point that an historically anti-BLM organization had 180'd to become pro-BLM) when I was simply pointing out that organizations are becoming increasingly intolerant of racism and that that is now tied to their bottom lines due to the increase of dollars being spent by non-racists. And then you outdid yourself. When presented with people saying that police people murdering subdued, unarmed black people -- which can be collectively grouped under the umbrella of BLM -- you said they were racist for invoking the term "white privilege" as a means for explaining these disturbing situations (police murdering black people). What exactly would you call this phenomenon? Also, posting a giant blurb about Muhammad Ali's son (which I read was an estranged relationship) is ultimate comedy. Do you realize he is one person and does not speak for all black people? I guess in the end when you say that saying that "white privilege" merely can exist is racist, in the face of the multitude of facts (online audio/visual presentation of these injustices), I think to myself that yes, that is your opinion, but based upon reading all your words, a reader may come to the opinion that Anyway I do hope 2020 starts to improve. Take care. |
USAFpilot | 22 Jun 2020 6:38 a.m. PST |
Chicago this past weekend. 99 shootings 8 dead including a 3 yr old and 13 yr old. And not a peep from BLM. Do you know why? |
USAFpilot | 22 Jun 2020 6:56 a.m. PST |
" The "Black Lives Matter" Movement is the worst kind of racist organization. They extort money and demand power by shaming anybody who disagrees with their so called "victim" status. The BLM has nothing to do with actual "equal opportunity" or "freedom of speech." Their goal is to tear down civil order and replace it with a "new order" where BLM followers control "social justice" through reparations and other payoffs. The "defund the police" chants are just one way they plan to disarm those who enforce the law and order they want to overturn." The BLM is NOT about "protections" in the Bill of Rights. It is about throwing out the Constitution and replacing it with a political system where the leadership of the movement is in charge. "Racism" is the dividing issue the BLM uses to further their cause. Do not lie to yourselves. Many of those funding the BLM are NOT Black. If they really had Black citizens interests in mind they would not be focusing their destructive tactics in primarily urban black communities. |
Asteroid X | 22 Jun 2020 10:28 a.m. PST |
USAFPilot is spot on. These groups are playing on emotions to disguise their real objectives. link YouTube link link I think there also may be a correlation between some who are attracted to rpg's and being out of touch with reality. The WalkAway movement's declaration is what these sites should have. |
USAFpilot | 22 Jun 2020 3:53 p.m. PST |
brucka, Chicago this past weekend. 99 shootings 8 dead including a 3 yr old and 13 yr old. Those are the facts. BLM doesn't care. It doesn't fit the narrative, so you won't hear about it. Wake up! |
dapeters | 22 Jun 2020 4:59 p.m. PST |
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USAFpilot | 22 Jun 2020 5:01 p.m. PST |
How about extending some compassion for our fellow citizens and wishing them the same protections under the Constitution {the part that doesn't make them 3/5 of a person anymore] that most others enjoy? No one is 3/5 of a person today. What century are you living in? Or are you just trying to be dramatic. What citizen alive today doesn't have protection under the Constitution? Where are you coming up with this nonsense? By the way, my ancestors weren't even living in America during the time of slavery. When they came over there were signs in shop windows which read, "Hiring workers, Irish need not apply". So who exactly am I suppose to be compassionate too? The rioters? |