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jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Thursday, August 13

Rick Stumpf and Swampfox1776 should be unwelcome in gaming circles

I understand and appreciate the turn of phrase “assume good faith, until proven otherwise”, but using a flying confederate flag as your avatar (its animated!) allows me to dispense with the effort and move on to the matter which must be dealt with. The matter of driving out and burying those who believe such racist signaling is permissible in society. Not to be debated with or educated or have a reasonable discussion with. Just marginalized and refuted passage on public forums dedicated to (well, anything else) the civil act of playing games.

I look forward to the day when such abhorrent displays of unethical attitudes held will be as embarrassing in civilized society as walking around and showing off your favorite child pornography.

The moderator has decided my position is in the wrong, so one can only assume Rick Stumpf (the moderator) holds the same ideology and hopelessly biased perspective. Perhaps he is one of those who sees good people on both sides?

Here is the recent exchange with this darkness.

 




 

I suggest this group on mewe be made to go bury their heads in the next “lowest rung” of society somewhere else. Forced to go find a place to set up shop on the melting iceberg which is racism. If Rick Stumpf is going to be permissive of this inappropriate, provocative and violent signaling he shouldn’t be welcomed in the greater gaming community. My guess he is not.

Anything in the greater game community.

So marginalizing this group and signaling to others it is not a good gaming group to support is a legitimate and lawful action to take against this kind of stuff. Pointing out the bald inappropriateness of this behavior and making them unwelcome in larger gaming circles makes for fewer racists in the world, eventually.

Not to spend too much time on this point before I make my plea, I did not go looking for this. I didn’t wake up this morning and decide I’m going to search the gaming forums to perform and get pats on the ass for stating the obvious. This is more of a toxic waste dump I have to pass on my way to school every day. I’m going to do something about it. I’m feeling it as a “local” problem, not something abstract and remote. Matter of fact, don’t comment on this post if you support my position, instead please inform the micro forum of gamers there promoting, and permissive of open displays of racism in a game forum that they need to take confederate symbols down and if not, good-faith efforts will try and get their ass booted. That is my plea. I can only tell Mewe and other gamers on the site this is not cool once. Mewe gets a 100 then you are going to get some action. I could be wrong, but that is all I know to do, ethically. Public shame racism trying to hide out in the open.

I did get a private chat request from Rick and in short, he told me I better watch it. There were two salient points he put forth as legitimate reasons for me to “watch it”. OF the first it is he is of mixed race? Not sure what to make of that. I guess I know more personal details about this person than I care to now? Second, his father flies the confederate flag. Really. That’s the whole of the argument for tolerating open displays of racism in a public game forum? It is a lovely display of how racism is taught generation to generation, the passing of the torch, so to say.

This isn’t the first time I have brought this up at Tabletop Roleplaying group. I noticed it the first time I checked it out. Yes, I play games and I check out gaming groups on the internet. And I got plain with the guy flying the flag avatar and got the same garbage back you see here. But I had left this sewer after saying my peace and heard encouraging words from other users, other members of this particular game group. I must have totally misunderstood at the time, but I thought I was told Rick had asked SwampFox1776 to take down the image. Because I was wrong about that.

So I said it again, as you can see.

Take the time if you can and report this crap. It’s a good time to push back on permissive happenings of overt racism. The majority of the world rightly assumes owning people as property, slavery, is wrong. You won’t end up having to face public displays alone. You will get support. Flying the confederate flag means you are okay with that. Complain to moderators who are exposed to public pressure and get that shit off the gaming walls and halls.

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