Emphasis mine. This is a factual statement. However, I am not, nor is anyone else, responsible for your assumptions. YOU are. You want to see this poll/thread as hateful/racist/etc then you certainly will.

Seriously, the Realms is a big place. If you're offended, you can 1) stop coming back, 2) put me on ignore so I don't offend you with future posts, or 3) report me to a mod who can chastise me properly, as your status leaves you incapable of doing so. Free society, and all that.

Having said that, it certainly wasn't my intention to offend. When I try to offend someone, I go all out. Ask Munchoboy.

What Thrumble said. Which I'm pretty sure means the apocalypse is nigh.

So when is this thread going to get closed?

Illegal as an option was pushing it. It is just in bad taste.

There's a subtle difference here that you're missing.

Illegal was an option given that one could choose to describe Munchoboy. It is the mention of Munchoboy that was in bad taste.

Munchoboy is one of those LPC guys

I hate those guys.

According to a previous post by Trader, he's not. So you can like him if you want! Send trader a note in the next period if you do!

I'd like to think Haven's missives cut to the chase in a utilitarian way.

Yes I do have my sensitivity meter ramped up a tick. I'm married to a woman who gets this sh*t daily, and it pisses her off. She comes home and kvetches at me about it, so that's why. My sister in Law, a former news personality, gets this sh*t so often she has to have a set of stock answers ready and invariably it comes up whenever the two of them are together. My Wife changed her last name so people would quit with this sh*t, but on and on it goes.

So yes, I do have my sensitivity meter ramped up, because for my family, it's a sensitive subject. My older boy, who looks just like his mom, gets this all the time too, my younger son doesn't - why? because my older son is browner than my younger boy. My younger son gets white privilege, my older son doesn't, and as their father- well that irritates me.

As to why I know the question is "why are you brown" well like I said earlier when my wife or her sister answer "Oh, I'm half Slovak", I've never seen it answer the question the other person was asking, they always look confused.

So maybe where you live this isn't a matter of Majority privilege, but where I live it is.

I recognize that people are allowed to joke about whatever they want, but I'm allowed to say that I find the question objectionable. However far more offensive than the OP is those people who somehow are sure that my objection is somehow unwarranted or made up, that I'm somehow looking to be offended. I'm not looking to be offended, but I'm not going to pretend I'm not offended to facilitate your sense of humor.

Had I accused you of that specifically (which I would, if I felt it warranted), you'd have a point. I didn't. I DID say that it happens. Come and visit Cambridge, MA, for a day and I'm sure you'll see a bevy of examples.

Question: what does being "offended" actually achieve? What does it get you? Is there any sort of utilitarian (sorry, dig that word) aspect to it?

At what point does one stop saying "I'm offended" and start saying "Maybe I shouldn't take the exhortations of jerks so seriously" or "Alright, that bothered me a bit, but in context it really wasn't an issue?"

I've never said you intended to be offensive. A person doesn't have to intend to be offensive to be offensive. I have no evidence at all that you are racist, and wouldn't make any such statement. I do know that at least where I live that question is an assumption of white privilege and hence is vaguely racist. That's an experience, not an assumption. It's a very large country and the realms stretch far beyond our borders. Not everyone here is from where your from or walks in the same circle as you. Your not from Where I'm from and don't walk in the same circles as me. Your free to post whatever you like and I'm free to respond. Just because you didn't mean it to be racist doesn't mean every response is not racist.

let's say I name my DnD Dwarf Kaffir Axeblood, having no Idea what the first name means in South Africa, that doesn't make me a racist. However when someone from South Africa points out how offensive that name is I at least would be obliged to consider their point of view. Furthermore I can't say they are being oversensitive, it is a horribly offensive name.

You more or less directly implied I was being oversensitive. In my opinion I'm not oversensitive. I'm as sensitive to the subject as is warranted for someone in my position.

As to what being offended actually achieves - it reminds us of those things we consider sacred and important. In this case Equality and more specifically my Family is threatened. Somehow my wife and older son have to account for being brownish, and I and my younger son don't have to account for being pale.

I realize - now - that the poster and the man in the picture are friends, but there's no way to know that from the first page or two. Furthermore just because the OP and the man in the picture are friends doesn't mean that everyone else responding isn't racist. The context is an international forum, not the OP and Munchoboy's personal relationship. I responded to the most available context - that of an international Forum where this is easily taken and responded to in a racist manner - not to the OP's intended context, which was no way available to me or others outside of those in the know.

What I saw was a picture of a random Brown person and a question "what is he". From my experience that's racist. I'm offended because that's an attack on equality and my family - those are things I hold sacred, and I won't apologize for those things being important to me. What I saw could've been a picture of my son in 20 years and that same stupid question.

1. You and I have VASTLY different definitions of the word racism, particularly in the obviously disparaging/derogatory manner you're throwing it around. To say nothing of flat-out calling folk racist.

2. How, specifically, is your family threatened in the strictest sense of the word? I'm not being facetious, I'm just not seeing it.

3. Define "account for" if you would. Because the way I'm reading it, you're viewing the question of "what nationality are you" as a veiled attack. I see it as just one more example of banal small talk.

4. Using words like "privilege," again being thrown around as it is here, doesn't do much to facilitate discussion IMO. Rather, it enhances stratification (eg. "Of course you would say that, coming from a position of privilege").

How? Because all I'm seeing is a picture and a list of races.

Now I'll grant that the "what IS he" could be misconstrued, but the rest?

Let me put it this way: if I, out of curiosity, were to ask your wife what nationality/race she was, would I be automatically considered racist?

If so, what you see as "racist" I see as one of many directions in which a casual conversation can go.

How? Again, not seeing it.

How often are you asked to account for your race/nationality? In St Louis she gets asked this all the time, but I don't. Why should she be singled out for this question?

But she isn't singled out, no there is a specific category of people of mixed ethnicity who are asked this question. People constantly expect them to offer up this information, so they can't help feel it's important. That is the well established effect of repetition. Note it's not their ethnicity that's being reinforced as important though, (that's a a personal thing that is reinforced through community and family), no it's other people's interest in their race that is being reinforced. It's clearly not ethnicity that is being asked about - as my wife is essentially ethnically Slovak - but that does not answer the question. What the constant repetition of that question enforces is the notion that her being brown is important and something that other people really want to know about. Furthermore why she is whiter than a browner person is not important (again slovak doesn't answer anything). Its not something unique to her that is important, nor is it something personal to her, what is important is why she isn't whiter.

The question is racist because of selective repetition. It's a privilege for me, because I don't constantly have to be reminded and account for the fact that I'm whiter than a browner person, whereas she is constantly reminded and has to account for being browner than a whiter person.

Note this is not by any means uniquely a St Louis thing, as My sister in Law goes through much of the same thing in Cincinnati. So having this question come from a similar Southern Midwest City in between those two cities (the pic was pretty clearly from Indy Gencon) implied to me it was probably the same sort of thing.

I have not called one single person a racist. I've said that certain phrases are racist within a given context.

It's like buying heroin produced by the Taliban - that doesn't make you a terrorist. However your purchase contributes to terrorism. Your intention in the matter isn't important, what's being discussed is the effect of your act.

No one has to think a racist thought to ask "what are you". You don't even have to know what you're asking is really "why are you brown - in fact knowing that that is what you are asking more or less gives away the game. All the questioner has to know is that it's OK to be curious about what a person "is" and to know that certain responses aren't appropriate. My sister in Law is considered rude when she answers "Slovak" - she's been taken to task for it. Her husband has overheard people talking behind her back about exactly that. I'm considered rude when I ask "do you mean why is he darkskinned?" in response to "what is he" when asked about my son.

As the subject of this (good-natured, I assure you all) thread, I feel it is incumbent upon me to speak up here.

I am a person of color and I am from Vermont, arguably the whitest state of the Union. I know what racism is, have experienced it countless times (both interpersonal and institutional) and have been and continue to be a advocate and agent of equity in my travels and travails.

I know what it is like to be conflicted by ignorance, and I know what it is like to be confronted with violence.

Furthermore, I am half-white, meaning that I have also experienced much of the same from members of my other community as well. So this is not simply a "brown person" issue. This fact does not excuse that racism, at its core, is about power, but it does shed additional light on an otherwise murky and oft-ignored issue.

One of the many tools in my arsenel is comedy; I can joke about my ethnicity, about the ignorance of others, and the things that both divide and join us all. I think it is alright to see difference; it is part of what makes us all who we are. It's the folk who actively look for those same differences as a means to subjugate or disenfranchise whom I take umbrage with.

I like it when folk ask me questions and want to understand who and what I am. I also understand that folk's ignorance impairs their ability to ask questions in a manner I would prefer at times. What is important to me, again-as a person of color, is that folk are earnest and as respectful as their (arguably) limited experience allows.

It all reminds me of this:



It's funny, because this happens. Hank and Bill aren't out to denegrate Khan, their limited experience just doesn't allow for them to consider any other options than "Chinese or Japanese". So it falls to Khan to take the opportunity to bring them up to speed or not. That's what being an agent of change is all about. We get to make that choice and I for one am grateful to have that opportunity most, if not all, of the time.

"Labels" only have power if we allow them so. I do not live within the narrow confines others may attempt to build around me, and my humor and is meant to be similarly liberating. I believe if we can all become more comfortable with our differences, only then can we concentrate on moving past them in a manner that respects all sides.

Regardless, if you have any issues with this thread, please feel free to direct them my way, since it was my idea. I thought, and continue to think, it funny that folk cannot tell "what" I am. That said, I will mention that I will not debate the merits of comedy in this matter any further.

And for the record, "illegal" was my idea as well (and what I voted for).

And with that, I think we're done.