The Big Picture: Correctitude

[Tarrker]

What the? I love Jeff Dunham? Meh, oh well. This is, however, coming from the guy who misunderstood most of the subject matter. Being fair to myself, however, I DID grow up in a bubble of a world that is Lancaster County, PA. Oh, and, mad props to Bob for using a clip from the Sega Genesis Beavis & Butthead game at the end of this video

 

[Technicka]

My Mother has a college degree in Bussiness. She minored in Marine Biology. Women currently hold more PHD's than men in Life Sciences, a field which includes such areas as biochemistry and cognitive nueroscience.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/women_and_sciences.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_sciences

That said, if government programs are less inclined to provide tenure to female college professors, as the first link in this post implies, then I am willing to agree that is a problem, though I disagree with tenure in general. I think that it should be possible to fire teachers who do a bad job, so I think tenure should just be discontinued in general.

Well, your mother is obviously awesome, so there's that.

And I don't disagree with you on that. A person should be fired if they're bad at their job. I'm not arguing for blind acceptance of a person simply because they happen to be a member of a group that's been mistreated; I'm arguing that their is still a ways to go before we can start talking about how we treat women, and minorities, as equal in society. Because, sadly, your mom is the exception, and not the rule in far too many cases.

Just something to throw out there that these statistics might not be able to predict. Is there a lower proportion of females over males that hold PhDs due to lack of opportunity, or is it just that less women choose to pursue the opportunities that are available? You can try to even the playing field all you want (or even stack the odds in favor of minorities), but you can't make people choose something they aren't interested in. Also, unless you are advocating a total destruction of culture and diversity, there will always be some group that is statistically favored in some way or another. What matters is that the opportunities are equal, not that the results are even.

But if there's a strong cultural stigma against certain groups aspiring to specific goals, is it really a level playing field? Chris Rock coined it as "If you're white, the sky's the limit. But if you're black? The limit's the sky." There isn't a drive to promote certain career paths to marginalized groups. Which goes back to a previous point I made about history being so important. We didn't just go, "Okay, ladies, you can vote and go to Uni," it was more, "Okay you can do all that...but really, you're better off staying in the kitchen. It's all a bit beyond your comprehension. But if you must work, I suppose you can answer my phone and handle the coffee." The same for minorities - there's a sever lack of support in developmental years to promote all areas of study.


There is no one way to fix all of this; it'll take a combination of factors being set up to truly even out things.

 

[Scars Unseen]

My Mother has a college degree in Bussiness. She minored in Marine Biology. Women currently hold more PHD's than men in Life Sciences, a field which includes such areas as biochemistry and cognitive nueroscience.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/women_and_sciences.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_sciences

That said, if government programs are less inclined to provide tenure to female college professors, as the first link in this post implies, then I am willing to agree that is a problem, though I disagree with tenure in general. I think that it should be possible to fire teachers who do a bad job, so I think tenure should just be discontinued in general.

Well, your mother is obviously awesome, so there's that.

And I don't disagree with you on that. A person should be fired if they're bad at their job. I'm not arguing for blind acceptance of a person simply because they happen to be a member of a group that's been mistreated; I'm arguing that their is still a ways to go before we can start talking about how we treat women, and minorities, as equal in society. Because, sadly, your mom is the exception, and not the rule in far too many cases.

Just something to throw out there that these statistics might not be able to predict. Is there a lower proportion of females over males that hold PhDs due to lack of opportunity, or is it just that less women choose to pursue the opportunities that are available? You can try to even the playing field all you want (or even stack the odds in favor of minorities), but you can't make people choose something they aren't interested in. Also, unless you are advocating a total destruction of culture and diversity, there will always be some group that is statistically favored in some way or another. What matters is that the opportunities are equal, not that the results are even.

But if there's a strong cultural stigma against certain groups aspiring to specific goals, is it really a level playing field? Chris Rock coined it as "If you're white, the sky's the limit. But if you're black? The limit's the sky." There isn't a drive to promote certain career paths to marginalized groups. Which goes back to a previous point I made about history being so important. We didn't just go, "Okay, ladies, you can vote and go to Uni," it was more, "Okay you can do all that...but really, you're better off staying in the kitchen. It's all a bit beyond your comprehension. But if you must work, I suppose you can answer my phone and handle the coffee." The same for minorities - there's a sever lack of support in developmental years to promote all areas of study.


There is no one way to fix all of this; it'll take a combination of factors being set up to truly even out things.

It is true: the environment you are raised in can have a profound impact on the choices you are likely to make later in life. But that's not something that can be changed by external forces. Well not if you want to preserve free culture, anyway. It's also not an excuse. Again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The opportunities are there. You can grow up believing what you're told, and I can understand that coloring your perceptions. But there comes a time when you have to realize that you're not a child anymore and that you are free to form your own thoughts. Which is what education is really about, when it comes down to it.

I find it hard to truly empathize with the sort of mentality that lets one's environment limit them I grew up in an odd situation that resulted in me never having a stabilizing force in my childhood. I got passed from relative to relative, so I guess I missed out on the whole indoctrination bit that makes people follow in their parent's footsteps. I don't know that this makes me any better off, since that sort of upbringing made its own marks on my life, but I've never felt any external push toward one specific way of thinking. And, now I'm starting to ramble, I think. Kinda tired.

 

[Technicka]

It is true: the environment you are raised in can have a profound impact on the choices you are likely to make later in life. But that's not something that can be changed by external forces. Well not if you want to preserve free culture, anyway. It's also not an excuse. Again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The opportunities are there. You can grow up believing what you're told, and I can understand that coloring your perceptions. But there comes a time when you have to realize that you're not a child anymore and that you are free to form your own thoughts. Which is what education is really about, when it comes down to it.

I find it hard to truly empathize with the sort of mentality that lets one's environment limit them I grew up in an odd situation that resulted in me never having a stabilizing force in my childhood. I got passed from relative to relative, so I guess I missed out on the whole indoctrination bit that makes people follow in their parent's footsteps. I don't know that this makes me any better off, since that sort of upbringing made its own marks on my life, but I've never felt any external push toward one specific way of thinking. And, now I'm starting to ramble, I think. Kinda tired.

Not necessarily. A lot of schools dropped thing like Math Teams, Debate Clubs, Chess Teams, etc. They were great ways for kids who wanted something besides band and sports to try something different.

I'm sure that not having rooted to one area did save you from having a certain mindset drilled into you. I can happily boast that I missed out on a lot of the self-defeating behaviors of your typical "black urban" upbringing because I was a military brat. It wasn't until secondary school that the notion of what it was to be really black was ever introduced to me, and by then, I was well set in my ways to tell those kids to piss off.

On the other hand, no matter where I went, I had to deal with the steady stream of being told how a real girl acts. I was actually forced into taking Home Ec despite that I wanted my elective class to be the PC lab. Because it was decided that it would be better for me. My love of video games, as I was informed regularly, meant I was a girl trying to be a boy (no, not simply a tomboy - but apparently suffering some gender identity crisis). But I saw how other girls that had similar interests as myself, but no at-home support for them, didn't fight back for long. Not every child is blessed with the gift of strong convictions early in life; it's easy for them to get disheartened and give up.

 

[Therumancer]

[
I disagree with Bob a lot... but I feel he should be able to represent himself on his soapbox. From his intro video it appears they gave him open intellectual freedoms in his contract. But opinions are like anuses... anusi... whatever everyone has one.

I probably articulated myself badly. The point is that given the purpose of this site he should not be using THIS soapbox for political rants. If that is what he plans to do, then I think they need to re-evaluate his contract or that feature.

On many other sites, what he's saying is fine. I don't think it belongs here however.

I do not believe "freedom of speech" means "the freedom to speak as long as I agree with it". I do however believe that there is such a thing as being off topic for a venue, going off about video games on a site dedicated to old muscle cars for example would be a similar problem. It's one thing when your dealing with a conversation between users in a forum that moves off on tangents as the conversation flows, it's quite another when your dealing with material central to a site.

The Escapist is a site dedicated to geek culture, with a focus specifically on video games. Bob's feature was supposed to be about issues central to geek culture, and things that are "wierd" as he puts it. What Bob is using his platform for is to rant about politics that have no real bearing on gaming. What's more his basic message is one where he's saying that people who disagree with him or what he says, shouldn't be allowed any kind of representation. It's not just an issue with this video, but also his rant on "equal time" a while back. The attitude there, combined with what he's saying here, is painting an increasingly disturbing picture of "let's gag the right wing". Basically anyone that is against political correctness and calls people on it is a jerk, and anyone who thinks they deserve the right to express a contrary opinion is both wrong, and has impractical expectations (this latter point he's right about with certain platforms however, but that's a whole differant discussion).

Bob is entitled to his entire pro-left wing, gag the right-wing and those I disagree with position. I don't even care if he expresses it publically, I mean he's hardly alone with these kinds of political sentiments. If a lot of people didn't agree with him political correctness wouldn't be a societal issue to begin with. I just don't think "The Escapist"
is the place for it.

 

[Technicka]

[
I disagree with Bob a lot... but I feel he should be able to represent himself on his soapbox. From his intro video it appears they gave him open intellectual freedoms in his contract. But opinions are like anuses... anusi... whatever everyone has one.

I probably articulated myself badly. The point is that given the purpose of this site he should not be using THIS soapbox for political rants. If that is what he plans to do, then I think they need to re-evaluate his contract or that feature.

On many other sites, what he's saying is fine. I don't think it belongs here however.

I do not believe "freedom of speech" means "the freedom to speak as long as I agree with it". I do however believe that there is such a thing as being off topic for a venue, going off about video games on a site dedicated to old muscle cars for example would be a similar problem. It's one thing when your dealing with a conversation between users in a forum that moves off on tangents as the conversation flows, it's quite another when your dealing with material central to a site.

The Escapist is a site dedicated to geek culture, with a focus specifically on video games. Bob's feature was supposed to be about issues central to geek culture, and things that are "wierd" as he puts it. What Bob is using his platform for is to rant about politics that have no real bearing on gaming. What's more his basic message is one where he's saying that people who disagree with him or what he says, shouldn't be allowed any kind of representation. It's not just an issue with this video, but also his rant on "equal time" a while back. The attitude there, combined with what he's saying here, is painting an increasingly disturbing picture of "let's gag the right wing". Basically anyone that is against political correctness and calls people on it is a jerk, and anyone who thinks they deserve the right to express a contrary opinion is both wrong, and has impractical expectations (this latter point he's right about with certain platforms however, but that's a whole differant discussion).

Bob is entitled to his entire pro-left wing, gag the right-wing and those I disagree with position. I don't even care if he expresses it publically, I mean he's hardly alone with these kinds of political sentiments. If a lot of people didn't agree with him political correctness wouldn't be a societal issue to begin with. I just don't think "The Escapist"
is the place for it.

I don't think you actually listened to those two videos you have issues with.

His "Fair Game" issue wasn't about "If you're a right-winger, you're wrong" It was, "Not every opinion is equal, nor should it be treated as such." It was about the false equivalency that is being used in far too many debates out there. Not all opinions are equal. In fact, some can be wrong. "The world is flat," is plain wrong, it doesn't deserve having equal time with, "The world is a round" But the doctrine of 'fairness' that gets used these days would have people believe that they should.

The PC thing wasn't about anyone that disagrees with him is a jerk, and should shut up. He was arguing that a lot of people who refuse to show some common decency will quickly "insult" any person that calls them out on their behavior as being some freedom-snuffing PC drone.


You've made the mistake of implying that those windbag hatemongerers, that Bob was calling out, are an accurate representation of the right-wing ideology. He's calling out idiots that can only communicate via lies, half-truths, and slurs. Do you really want to say that those guys are speaking for (general)you? His point was that the media, and people, shouldn't give groups like Westboro the time of day over truly relevant issues. That doesn't mean he suddenly hates Christians. Just the people of WBC.

 

[Madara XIII]

Wouldn't it be eaiser to just stop the hating?

The last guy to say that was nailed to a tree 2 millenia ago.

....yeeeeeeeah about that.

At least he was heartfelt about it instead of just another hypocrite.

I dunno, he had his limits of tolerance for assholishness too. Cf. money-changers, temple, can of Messiah-brand whoop-ass.

Indeed. Could you imagine what he'd do to churches now a days? Man he'd be really pissed.

GO JESUS GO JESUS


<youtube=_ZUezzBFnVM&feature=related>

 

[Burke Moore]

Ah MovieBob. I don't always agree with everything you say, but sometimes you hit it dead the fuck on. This would be an example of that. And even when you don't, you're thought provoking, and I mean that not in some watered sense which just means controversial. I mean you actually make me think and see things differently with these things, and I think of myself as a pretty smart and thoughtful guy, so thumbs up to you.

 

[Madara XIII]

I disagree with almost 100%. I also think you should leave politics of this sort out of your videos.

The problem here is that your disapproval of the "politically correct" arguement is largely that your on the opposite side of the spectrum that uses it, and as such don't like the way it portrays your own personal political biases. Your basically being just as bad, if not worse, as the people you are making a critique of.

Let me get down to one of the biggest parts of why your point of view is a problem. You are portraying bigotry as always being bad. The thing is that nothing can be changed when there is a problem, unless people acknowlege that it exists. Take American black culture for example which is very much anti-societal assimilation, and anti-intellectual at the very least. You make judgements about it, and of course your a bigot, someone who defends this as being okay or "just the way it is" is being politically incorrect. I look at guys like Bill Cosby (who has a PHD in Children's Education) and how he goes on about Black america's attitude of entitlement, and not taking advantage of the oppertunities that have been provided for it. When you have entire major racial subcultures that see education and getting a regular rut-like job as "selling out" you have an issue, and one that needs to be addressed. Of course you start singling out these aspects of black society, defining them, and trying to take action, and your being a bigot. The problem is being a bigot does not mean that you are always wrong. Bill Cosby only gets away with it as much as he has (and he's been criticized heavily for it none the less) because he's Black and the same culture can't go after him politically the way they could a guy from another race who brings up uncomfortable issues.

A better example would be recent situations with immigrants in places like Texas and California. Please not I am not talking about ILLEGAL immigrants which is another issue, but rather people who have become US citizens. We have problems to the point where we have schools banning kids from wearing the American flag, or putting it on a vehicle like a bike that they bring to school, due to fear of violence and retaliation from immigrants, especially during holidays like Cinca De Mayo (I've posted links all over The Escapist, there have been multiple incidents, not one isolated case). Basically a situation where these people have become Americans, but really just want the benefits and otherwise to be Mexicans (or in cases of other incidents around the country, whatever land they came from), these are people getting violent and making threats over the symbol of what is functionally their own country. Yes it is bigoted to single out immigrants for things like this and point out that something needs to be done, and preacing tolerance of such behavior IS political correctness.

Another big issue is things like property rights. In the USA we have tons of laws in place that are used to prevent white people (the majority) from refusing to sell property to minorities, and "whitewash" certain areas so to speak (not that it's anything like the problem it was decades ago when these laws were created). On the other hand we have issue with various minorities like Chinese, Jews, Cubans, and others who refuse to sell property outside of their ethnic group when put on the market. For all intents and purpose your dealing with a major problem of laws with a dual standard, yet there are people who defend this based on the fact that it's minorities and it would be bigoted to single these problems out to be addressed. The very fact that we have "districts" in cities like "China Town", "Little Havana", and similar things represent the problem. A building in Chinatown goes up on the market, and some white guy/company gives the best offer, and they decide to go with a lesser offer because the guys making it are Chinese, that's an issue. Ditto for situations when it's minorities who won't rent apartments or lease space to people who aren't of the appropriate ethnicity.

Finally, I think it's going waaaay off the deepend when it's being argued that taking long-established characters and changing their ethnicity to make it "more diverse" isn't political correctness. That's politically correct boneheadedness at it's absolute worst.

My long standing arguement is that due to the way society has been for a long time there aren't a whole lot of minority characters in things like comics. Of course then again by being "minorities" you don't expect there to be a lot of them in proportion to whites in the US because there are simply a lot more white guys. The problem as it exists is something to be addressed by minorities getting into things like writing and drawing comic books. It's a very competitive business of course, and this entails you having to see genuine interest within minority groups to see it done with hundreds of people dedicating their lives to it and failing for every one that actually succeeds. You need to see a quality product by the same standards, not someone handing off a contract to a black creator beause he's black. Also like anything else they have to deal with appealing to the market as a whole, a black character with a "'tude" that villifies the white majority (even if just through dialogue) like the world is still stuck in the 1930s is of course not going to work for large scale release for example.

To put things into perspective Asians broke into comics in a big way, this happened because of a lot of interest, and massive amounts of persistance. Right now you see both Manga and Western comics in a sort of symbotic relationship and inspiring each other heavily, and a rising number of asian themed super heroes in general. Heck, we've even got The Japanese doing a version of Western super heroes like "The X-men".

The problem is that while it's bigoted, a lot of the minorities that usually get involved in politically correct arguements, are demanding to see instant success and representation in things, without having to put in any real work or effort over the long term. The "get rich or die trying" attitude so to speak.

I'll say flat out bigotry is what society needs more of right now, people who are willing to flat out ignore political correctness and what's nice, focus on problems like a laser, and work to correct them even if it involves being mean. Honestly I think political correctness perpetuates problems and actually does more damage to the people it sets out to protect than it helps them... largely because it tells them that things that aren't okay are just fine.

Oh and Bob (to address you directly again, if you even read the stuff I write) for the record, those of us who take the other side of these arguements are not generally speaking cowards hiding behind the term "politically incorrect". I'm quite up front about what I think even when I use the term, and I generally deal with the crap I get for it. I might be "mean" but I believe it's for the greater good, not out of some sense of superiority, or the sake of meaness for the sake of meaness. To be entirely honest my "problem" is that I think a lot of the groups that I criticize can do a lot better, they can meet the same standards set by the majority, humans are humans. People who think that these groups need to be protected ultimatly have attitudes that come down to those people somehow being unable to do better, which is why the protection is nessicary. On most levels that's actually far more bigoted than I am, and an even worse kind of sugar-coated racism than what the politically correct hope to decry.

Also as far as "Resident Evil 5" goes, the game was fairly accurate, and I see no real reason why a third world hellhole shouldn't be portrayed as a third world hellhole simply to be nice. If people don't like how that imagery is, then strive to change it. It also comes down to the counter-issue of "why is everything set in the USA". Set a game in the third world trying to protect helpless people from bio-terrorism, and oops all of a sudden it's racist because those people are portrayed as victims who need the help.

Also, I for one can't see why the holy heck Sheeva walking around in sexed up tribal garb or a "Jill Of The Jungle" outfit is supposed to be racist or polically incorrect. It's no differant than white guys dressing up like sexed up vikings or Romans (TOGA PARTY!!!). Granted it's impractical for the setting, but that's the way a lot of alternate costumes are (which is why they are alternate costumes), we have games where the protaganist can do things like run around dressed in a chicken suit in an otherwise fairly serious game as an "unlockable". My attitude about "Resident Evi 5" is that it was just the PC crowd trying to grab a headline, and that's not likely to change. The *only* thing that made it differant from what legions of other games has done is the setting. Set the game in eastern Europe and give the female character a sexy jester costume, or a dominatrix outfit and nobody is going to bat an eye.

....Holy Canolly

You sir are a brave and outspoken man. I can agree with you on this mainly because half of the stuff I go through is nothing more than the preachy PC garbage. In a way this video did seem a bit self righteous.

I can stand by your statement though and can be politically incorrect with a smile on my face.

 

[Synonymous]

A trite post, but this video way upped my respect for Chipman, and I thank him for it.

 

[Burningsok]

I hate how people use PC to try and correct people on a word that, in context, is correct and makes sense for the most part.

However, Bob is right. The other side has it's douchebags as well. People getting mad about PC and using that argument whenever they get something wrong.

I guess Bob is trying to look unbiased which is fine

 

[Therumancer]

[
I don't think you actually listened to those two videos you have issues with.

His "Fair Game" issue wasn't about "If you're a right-winger, you're wrong" It was, "Not every opinion is equal, nor should it be treated as such." It was about the false equivalency that is being used in far too many debates out there. Not all opinions are equal. In fact, some can be wrong. "The world is flat," is plain wrong, it doesn't deserve having equal time with, "The world is a round" But the doctrine of 'fairness' that gets used these days would have people believe that they should.

The PC thing wasn't about anyone that disagrees with him is a jerk, and should shut up. He was arguing that a lot of people who refuse to show some common decency will quickly "insult" any person that calls them out on their behavior as being some freedom-snuffing PC drone.


You've made the mistake of implying that those windbag hatemongerers, that Bob was calling out, are an accurate representation of the right-wing ideology. He's calling out idiots that can only communicate via lies, half-truths, and slurs. Do you really want to say that those guys are speaking for (general)you? His point was that the media, and people, shouldn't give groups like Westboro the time of day over truly relevant issues. That doesn't mean he suddenly hates Christians. Just the people of WBC.

I most certainly have listened to them, see the issue is that he reinforces his intent with specific examples. A good example here is when he claims that making Heimdall black in the recent Thor movie and similar things isn't "politically correct" but a matter of being in a progressive society. The idea being to dismiss people who object to established characters being changed into minorities, as opposed to creating new minority characters as the minority groups come up and influance this kind of popular culture more (as asians did with comics over a period of time) as a bunch of jerks. You don't need to be a member of the Westboro congregation to think that a Norse God, should look you know... Norse, or a supervillain like "The Kingpin" who is routinely called "cueball" due to his shiny white bald head
should be played by a white guy, yet that is EXACTLY the kind of thing that he's calling out.

What's more his comments on the "equal time doctrine" did use some ridiculous examples, but also involved a far more down to earth commentary which of course fed into his leanings, the basic idea being that if he disagrees with something political, to the point of him feeling the other side is the equivilent of making a flat earth arguement, that it's right that it's not being given equal time.

Overall the disturbing part of this whole thing is the trend, you take both of these videos together, both being against the whole idea of equal time, and what he's considering to be ridiculous viewpoints, and it paints a pretty disturbing picture.

Take big issues on things like gay rights, abortion, the rights (or lack thereof) of terrorists and those accused of terrorism, the exploitation of affirmitive action laws and the dual standards it creates, the education and adaption of various subcultures. On all of these things there is a massive divide with the nation being split pretty close to 50-50
down the middle that's why they are major issues. People on both sides of the fence are pretty vehement of their beliefs and think the other side are a bunch of idiots. Bob's
basic arguement amounts to justifying silencing the other side, both by argueing why they shouldn't be given the abillity to express it, and also because making arguements against political correctness "which is just being nice to people" generally makes people jerks.

It's one of those cases where the examples he gives, definatly makes his opinion apparent. Saying that making Heimdall black isn't PC, and the attitude he takes towards people who have an objection definatly makes it apparent he's not addressing people that are as off their rocker as the Westboro guys... which is incidently a group MOST people have issues with nowadays, and which probably wouldn't warrent an installment of "The Big Picture".

I understand what he's saying quite well, he wasn't exactly ambigious about it with his own examples, illustrating the kinds of things he meant.

 

[SkullCap]

Wouldn't it be eaiser to just stop the hating?

The last guy to say that was nailed to a tree 2 millenia ago.

....yeeeeeeeah about that.

At least he was heartfelt about it instead of just another hypocrite.

I dunno, he had his limits of tolerance for assholishness too. Cf. money-changers, temple, can of Messiah-brand whoop-ass.

15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, ?Is it not written: ?My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it ?a den of robbers.??
Mark 11:15-17

Tolerance: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.

Jesus wasn't trying to be tolerant. Jesus entered the temple, which is meant for prayer and worship to God the Father, and found that it was being used like a marketplace. If the marketplace was anywhere else he would have no reason for driving the money-changers away. However, this was at the TEMPLE, a holy place to worship the Lord. It's disrespectful and offensive to treat it like a parking lot. Jesus showed love, patience, and tolerance to those rejected by society; those who mocked him; even his own disciples that would often question his power. Yet this? Unacceptable. Shalom.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

Oddly enough, I find Achmed the Dead Terrorist to be in the same vein of what Movie Bob defended in Four Lions. It is the defanging of terrorism as a scare tactics and portraying terrorists as morons. I find it odd to show that kind of hypocrisy without qualification of some sort.

Other than that, I don't have issue.

Also, fighting tribal zombies in Africa never seemed that off to me. They do have tribal folk out there still. The costume just seems like the usual fan wank that nobody would give a shit about if she wasn't black. *shrugs*

/inb4crucification

 

[HyenaThePirate]

The first reason I said was for the sake of consistency, so don't look at me.

Haha, okay my friend. I'll give you that much. This conversation has been enjoyable. Thank you.

 

[Technicka]

I most certainly have listened to them, see the issue is that he reinforces his intent with specific examples. A good example here is when he claims that making Heimdall black in the recent Thor movie and similar things isn't "politically correct" but a matter of being in a progressive society. The idea being to dismiss people who object to established characters being changed into minorities, as opposed to creating new minority characters as the minority groups come up and influance this kind of popular culture more (as asians did with comics over a period of time) as a bunch of jerks. You don't need to be a member of the Westboro congregation to think that a Norse God, should look you know... Norse, or a supervillain like "The Kingpin" who is routinely called "cueball" due to his shiny white bald head
should be played by a white guy, yet that is EXACTLY the kind of thing that he's calling out.

Firstly, the Thor movie isn't a depiction of Norse mythology. It's a depiction of a bunch of advance space aliens that were thought of as gods. This movie isn't a retelling of another culture's beliefs. It's an adaptation of a comic book that plays fast and loose with the idea of what a god is, and just so happens to use the Norse pantheon as it's springboard. Notice there's no outrage over the Asian actor cast as an Asgardian. Ignore that the comics have made a point that the Asgardians can take on physical forms that aren't typically associated with them (Loki decided to be a massive troll and take on a female form, after all). No, the outrage is all about just the black guy. it's not about the integrity of preserving Norse mythos.

Cueball is not a term that is restricted to race. Bald people are typically referred to as that. And, again, the movies are not the comics. They are a separate world. An alternate dimension, if you must see them in connection to the comic-verse. So they aren't obliged to stay slavishly faithful to the comics. Marvel even said the movies were not the same world of the comics. So they don't have to play those rules. Did you get outraged when Final Crisis showed that another universe has a Black Superman. Do you protest against the so-called political correctness of Marvel saying Janet Van Dyne is Asian in Ultimates?

What's more his comments on the "equal time doctrine" did use some ridiculous examples, but also involved a far more down to earth commentary which of course fed into his leanings, the basic idea being that if he disagrees with something political, to the point of him feeling the other side is the equivilent of making a flat earth arguement, that it's right that it's not being given equal time.

Overall the disturbing part of this whole thing is the trend, you take both of these videos together, both being against the whole idea of equal time, and what he's considering to be ridiculous viewpoints, and it paints a pretty disturbing picture.

Firstly, he isn't a political journalist, he's a ranting guy on the internet. He doesn't have to be "fair". That jerky answer aside, if an opinion can be seen as wrong, there is no need to treat as if it has any validity compared to the truth. Your opinion can be that Obama is a Muslim. He self-identifies as a Christian, so guess what? Any other opinion as to his spirituality is invalid, and doesn't deserve to be debated as a pertinent issue.

Take big issues on things like gay rights, abortion, the rights (or lack thereof) of terrorists and those accused of terrorism, the exploitation of affirmitive action laws and the dual standards it creates, the education and adaption of various subcultures. On all of these things there is a massive divide with the nation being split pretty close to 50-50
down the middle that's why they are major issues. People on both sides of the fence are pretty vehement of their beliefs and think the other side are a bunch of idiots. Bob's
basic arguement amounts to justifying silencing the other side, both by argueing why they shouldn't be given the abillity to express it, and also because making arguements against political correctness "which is just being nice to people" generally makes people jerks.

Gay rights is more of a 70/30 thing. An overwhelming majority of people just don't care what two grown men, or women, do with one another. Abortion may be a hazy issue - but there can still be wrong opinions on the matter that don't warrant being legitimized. An extremist that goes around assaulting/murdering doctors, staff, and patients doesn't deserve the same credibility as doctors and theologists (if you want to debate it on moral grounds). Cries of ~reverse racism that talk of affirmative action almost always devolve too, are silly. And shouldn't be given the time of day because it always takes the topic away from reality. White people aren't losing their jobs because of affirmative action. They're losing their jobs to outsourcing, which has less to do with racial diversity, and more to do with corporate greed. But that issue never gets touched on, because it's easier for blowhards like Anne Coulter to point a finger at some phantom black guy and say it's all his fault. And like clockwork, white America caves to the fear of that scary boogeyman of the stereotypical black guy/Latino crypt walking into some Fortune 500 and literally taking their job from them. Are there issues with Affirmative Action? Sure. No system is without it's flaws an loopholes. But most of the work-arounds have been for the benefit of white people.


And once, again, you are more than capable of disagreeing with a person's beliefs, and not have to resort to hatespeech. Your posts prove that, which was the intent of PC. You spoke on your complaints with the casting of Heimdall - and you didn't have to use the N-word to communicate the fact that you didn't agree with the race switch. The over-reaching of PC is bad. Bob pointed that out when the super PC crowd get's trigger happy with trying to change words that are offensive, but serve a purpose beyond what the word represents. He was also using fairly public, and well-known examples that people would more than likely be able to recall. The sad reality is, far too often we're treated with the jerks who are offensive for no redeeming reasons. When Limbaugh goes on his tirades, he isn't trying to invoke deep thought, and discussion on social topics. He wants fear and anger. And how can a person tell this? Simple; because when an asshole is just talking out their ass for the sake of being an asshole, they never have a response to someone refuting their claim - it's automatically an attack on their freedoms to disagree, or to tell them to piss off. There are plenty of conservatives that can get their point across without have to be unnecessarily dickish. You don't have to call someone a w-back in order to say they're wrong. The notion, as another poster mentioned, that bigotry is a good thing is mindbogglingly stupid. There is, in no way, that a practice of being cruel, spiteful, and threatening to a group of people that you don't like for being different is ever a good thing. The person who claims that unjustified hate is a good thing is someone that's proclaiming that stance from the safety of their privilege. But that's what the asshole subgroup of the anti-PC crowd honestly thinks. And those people don't deserve to have their opinions treated as enlightened.

 

[Therumancer]

[
Firstly, the Thor movie isn't a depiction of Norse mythology. It's a depiction of a bunch of advance space aliens that were thought of as gods. This movie isn't a retelling of another culture's beliefs. It's an adaptation of a comic book that plays fast and loose with the idea of what a god is, and just so happens to use the Norse pantheon as it's springboard. Notice there's no outrage over the Asian actor cast as an Asgardian. Ignore that the comics have made a point that the Asgardians can take on physical forms that aren't typically associated with them (Loki decided to be a massive troll and take on a female form, after all). No, the outrage is all about just the black guy. it's not about the integrity of preserving Norse mythos.

Cueball is not a term that is restricted to race. Bald people are typically referred to as that. And, again, the movies are not the comics. They are a separate world. An alternate dimension, if you must see them in connection to the comic-verse. So they aren't obliged to stay slavishly faithful to the comics. Marvel even said the movies were not the same world of the comics. So they don't have to play those rules. Did you get outraged when Final Crisis showed that another universe has a Black Superman. Do you protest against the so-called political correctness of Marvel saying Janet Van Dyne is Asian in Ultimates?

What's more his comments on the "equal time doctrine" did use some ridiculous examples, but also involved a far more down to earth commentary which of course fed into his leanings, the basic idea being that if he disagrees with something political, to the point of him feeling the other side is the equivilent of making a flat earth arguement, that it's right that it's not being given equal time.

Overall the disturbing part of this whole thing is the trend, you take both of these videos together, both being against the whole idea of equal time, and what he's considering to be ridiculous viewpoints, and it paints a pretty disturbing picture.

Firstly, he isn't a political journalist, he's a ranting guy on the internet. He doesn't have to be "fair". That jerky answer aside, if an opinion can be seen as wrong, there is no need to treat as if it has any validity compared to the truth. Your opinion can be that Obama is a Muslim. He self-identifies as a Christian, so guess what? Any other opinion as to his spirituality is invalid, and doesn't deserve to be debated as a pertinent issue.


Gay rights is more of a 70/30 thing. An overwhelming majority of people just don't care what two grown men, or women, do with one another. Abortion may be a hazy issue - but there can still be wrong opinions on the matter that don't warrant being legitimized. An extremist that goes around assaulting/murdering doctors, staff, and patients doesn't deserve the same credibility as doctors and theologists (if you want to debate it on moral grounds). Cries of ~reverse racism that talk of affirmative action almost always devolve too, are silly. And shouldn't be given the time of day because it always takes the topic away from reality. White people aren't losing their jobs because of affirmative action. They're losing their jobs to outsourcing, which has less to do with racial diversity, and more to do with corporate greed. But that issue never gets touched on, because it's easier for blowhards like Anne Coulter to point a finger at some phantom black guy and say it's all his fault. And like clockwork, white America caves to the fear of that scary boogeyman of the stereotypical black guy/Latino crypt walking into some Fortune 500 and literally taking their job from them. Are there issues with Affirmative Action? Sure. No system is without it's flaws an loopholes. But most of the work-arounds have been for the benefit of white people.


And once, again, you are more than capable of disagreeing with a person's beliefs, and not have to resort to hatespeech. Your posts prove that, which was the intent of PC. You spoke on your complaints with the casting of Heimdall - and you didn't have to use the N-word to communicate the fact that you didn't agree with the race switch. The over-reaching of PC is bad. Bob pointed that out when the super PC crowd get's trigger happy with trying to change words that are offensive, but serve a purpose beyond what the word represents. He was also using fairly public, and well-known examples that people would more than likely be able to recall. The sad reality is, far too often we're treated with the jerks who are offensive for no redeeming reasons. When Limbaugh goes on his tirades, he isn't trying to invoke deep thought, and discussion on social topics. He wants fear and anger. And how can a person tell this? Simple; because when an asshole is just talking out their ass for the sake of being an asshole, they never have a response to someone refuting their claim - it's automatically an attack on their freedoms to disagree, or to tell them to piss off. There are plenty of conservatives that can get their point across without have to be unnecessarily dickish. You don't have to call someone a w-back in order to say they're wrong. The notion, as another poster mentioned, that bigotry is a good thing is mindbogglingly stupid. There is, in no way, that a practice of being cruel, spiteful, and threatening to a group of people that you don't like for being different is ever a good thing. The person who claims that unjustified hate is a good thing is someone that's proclaiming that stance from the safety of their privilege. But that's what the asshole subgroup of the anti-PC crowd honestly thinks. And those people don't deserve to have their opinions treated as enlightened.

Okay for the easier one first, your entirely wrong about Thor. It's been suggested in the past that the various "gods" might be aliens, largely because there was some concern decades ago from Christian groups about the comics promoting paganism. This definition has been used in elseworlds-type stories like the whole Earth/Universe/Paradise X series, but has never remained in the canon very long as anything other than a theory. Indeed we had an entire event involving Ragnarok and the end of Asgard involving Thor where everyone died while he took a "homey don't play that" approach to the whole thing by refusing to participate in the prophecy and forcing the overgods hands leading to it being undone (long story). Not to mention the interrelation of the Asgardians with various supernatural/magical forces including demons. They are definatly a magical/supernatural group of deities.

What's more the origin of Thor was pretty straightforward with Doctor Donald Blake finding the hammer and becoming posssesed by the spirit of Thor. That's why he's blonde, it has to do with the host body. A lot of the later contreversy came about when they stopped doing the "power of" thing so much and had Thor walking around as a god all the time, claiming to be a god, etc... but it did die down.

Now you might ask "why couldn't Heimdall be possessing the body of a black guy", the answer to that is quite simply because it's one of Thor's unique tricks. It's been exploited several times over the years in cases where Thor has been transformed into a frog for example and managed to keep his power. Various very powerful norse gods can shapeshift or use illusions, Loki, and The Enchantress could appear as any ethnicity they wanted to, Karnilla (Asgard's Sorceress Supreme) could doubtlessly do it but I don't remember her ever assuming other human forms off the top of my head, and Odin can do pretty much anything, but gods like Heimdall, Fandral, Volstagg, Baldur, etc... don't have that kind of power. That's why it usually comes down to a celestrial slapfight between the more powerful gods, and the rest get casually mopped up whenever someone defeats Thor, Odin, and occasionally Sif if she's even around (tends to be forgotten).

I've gone on long rants about Thor in the past, both related and unrelated to this topic. I *DO* know what your talking about, and why it's been suggested, but it's not the general case in the canon.

If you want to get technical you could have a black Thor and justify it better than a black Heimdall because we've had Thor in the body of women and stuff before at various times. He was also using the body of an EMT guy for a while like during the "Worldengine" story arc Warren Ellis wrote. You might also remember part of the brawl during "Infinity Gauntlet" where Thor got reverted to a mortal and was floating through space dying, but then the host managed to again grasp the hammer, turn back into Thor, and re-enter the fight.

-

As far as the rest goes, let's just say that to address a lot of those specific points would make this post a LOT longer than it needs to be and get increasingly off topic as we'd start to talk about those points more than anything, and totally derail this discussion.

The problem with what Bob is saying is that he's saying that someone who believes that casting Heimdall as a black guy and claims it's political correctness is being a jerk. The use of the 'N' word or anything like that doesn't come into it. Bob is saying that the casting is a sign of being "progressive", and that anyone who claims it's politically correct is being a jerk and isn't worth being listened to. That's the entire problem with his attitude.

Now, I disagree with you about the split on gay rights and it's actual percentage. I think the situation is a lot closer to 50-50 than you'd like to believe, and the fact that the media presents your numbers as being close to the truth usually is one of the big arguements made for left wing media bias. HOWEVER let's say that you are right and that the issue *IS* divided 70-30, with the favor going to the pro-gay side. 30% of the population is a HUGE number of people and while they definatly aren't going to be setting policy, by the arguement being made they shouldn't be allowed to get any representation of their point of view?

I'll go one further by saying that in past decades most "liberal" issues had the overwhelming majority against them. During the turn of the last century what do you think the anti-gay sentiment would have been in the USA? 90% or so? What about the percentage of racists, or any other social group that has overcome massive pressure? By Bob's arguement and the one you seem to be making the people who spearheaded the reform should never have been allowed to get any kind of representation of their point of view at all because they were so hugely outnumbered. What's more they caused chaos in society, right up there with hate speech sine they were fighting to overturn what the majority of people wanted.

It's not a one way street, the basic arguement made by a lot of left wingers is that they are right in their own minds on the issues they support, and thus any alternative viewpoints need to be demonized and surpressed as hate speech. Even if they had the left-wing super majority that is being claimed (they don't) they still have no right to claim that the guys who disagree with them on any grounds are "jerks" and unworthy of having their points of view represented or given "equal time" just because they disagree with them.

Due to some recent issues I've come to question certain aspects of my own free speech ideas. However I still believe that "freedom of speech" does not mean the freedom of people to say only what you want to hear.

Please understand another thing as well, I am not saying that Bob does't have the right to these opinions or to express them. I just don't think they belong on THIS platform, because The Escapist is a platform for escapism and nerd culture, not for political rants. You might not believe it, but even if you brought out an "Anti-Bob" to argue exactly the opposite side of things in an "equal time" sense, I'd be against it because that isn't what this site is for. Bob is here to share his insights into geek culture and the hobbies of the wierd, that's the purpose of the site, not to grind his political axes, and that's pretty much what he's used "The Big Picture" for twice now.

When I call this site and check out these articles and videos, I do it to get away from crap like that, not to have it spoonfed to me. Sure we might talk about stuff like this in the forums from time to time, but that's not a product of The Escapist itself, and what Bob has in his videos is since they are hosting him as a draw.

We'll probably wind up having to agree to disagree on a lot of this (and I apologize if I misunderstood what you wrote), but understand that my problem isn't so much the content, though I have addressed it, as much as the fact that I don't think it belongs here as a feature. I think Escapist management should pretty much keep Bob on-topic, and I don't think that's exactly going to be a blow, because the guy has other platforms where he does other videos like "Game Overthinker" and such where he can go off on politics and stuff.

 

[the clockmaker]

words

44-sec, the only manner in which it exists is as a shield for jerks to defend themselves when people point out that they're jerks.

This ignores the very real issues faced by the inevitable clash of differant cultures as they try to merge into something that can coexist, the struggle to find points of compramise whcich are acceptable to both sides or indeed the multitude of sides and the inevitable missteps that occur. Its tone is also very insulting, it does not leave room for, 'oh this is only if you have nothing else to say' It is clear, unambigous and more importantly, opes the bloody video.

Imagine if the opening to my post was 'the only people who agree with bob are jerks who cannot cope with the real world' despite being blatantly false, it does nullify any attempt at reconcillation I make in the same post.

46-its like some sort of satanic rhetorical judo.
Yep, still piling on the hate, and no qualifier yet in sight, lets keep on truckin (do you yanks still say that?)

47-say something bigoted and hurtful- Well that could be a qualifier, if he bothered to point out that not all non-PC comments are bigoted and hurtful.

2:06-A tiny minority took it to redicoulous extreames,-Recognition that all was not well with the concept, but still the language implies that it is an issue the same way taht being killed in an elevator is an issue. The tone pretty dishonestly plays down the whole thing and, since it is followed by a picture that claims the ninetees sucked, it implies that the whole thing is in the past and that PC has evolved beyond them.

2:12-Since it was the ninetees, that nice ambivalent happy spot-I have to agree that the ninetees was the last time that we had nothing to worry about but the use of the WTF is unessecarily dismissive. As of yet, I am still not seeing the part where you claim it to be only directed at real racists and sexists.

2:33-displaying anyone who opposes PC (remember, we have still to gain any qualifier on who this is based against) as an old racist, claiming that anyone who disagrees has bought into a 'media driven mythology'. Cue Glen Beck, becuase hey, its not a spectrum of differant views, you either agree with bob or you agree with that guy.

3:24-Words mean things and most of what being said is just being nice- A bit condescending there, ignores that fact that simple disagreement that PC is simply being nice is possible.

To my mind, most of what drives political correctness (and note that bob ignores all non-language forms of this) is a value judgement made by others with regards to what is and is not culturally acceptable. In my country, several councils have banned ham at meetings as the consumption of ham has been deemed to be culturally unacceptable to Jewish and Muslim people and therefore politically incorrect. There are designated days where all men are banned from swimming pools because men swimming with women is deemed culturally unacceptable and thus politically incorrect. There are children suffering abuse who are ignored because to help them would be culturally unacceptable and thus politically incorrect.

That, to my mind is the issue with politcal correctness and thus far, this video, and indeed your posts have been geared not towards differentiating my moderate views from the extreame, but rather lumping us all together and claiming that none of us even have a point worth discussing, that our views are nothing more than a sheild to troll from. No one here is defending racism, no one here is defending sexism (at least I don't think so, this is a long thread) what many of us are trying to point out that it is offensive to make value judgements on the mores of one culture compared to the mores of another, and then to force the mores of the minority upon the rest of us.

Also, the best way to rob these words of their stigma, is to use them in a light hearted context with the friends that are supposed to be offended by them, I remember being out camping a while back witht he cadets, when me and a turkish bloke were making cracks about each other, him about how lazy I was and me about how his country was backward and why hadn't he had a puch up with the greek kid yet. In this situation, both of us were comfertable enough with each other to make comments of that nature in jest, and yet I was placed in a great deal of trouble over being racist, even though the only turkish person there was in on the joke with me. That is my problem with politcal correctness, in insists on mollycoddling us.


3:33-Hooray, some qualifier, only most people who disagree with him are racist, sexist jerkwads, not all of them, wanna pave the way for some concilliation with the moderate bob... bob...


3:46- Now I understand the rational for not putting in that sheva costume, people legitimatly are offended by it, but I don't really understand where that offense comes from, I mean, do scandinavian people complain about viking imagery, do italian people complain about roman costumes, I mean, Italy of today has slightly less corruption than rome did, and all in all is not a whole lot like its ancestor.

4:19-I wouldn't quite say that it is an acknowledgement that this is the twenty first century, mostly because in the settings discussed (thor doesn't count because valhalla is not a real historical setting) people of other ethnicities weren't present. There weren't black doctors during the korean war, WWII units weren't intergrated etc. I mean its like John Wayne playing ghengis khan, sure it was inclusive of anglo saxons, but it was also really really stupid.

4:20- On second viewing, he does claim that his use of the 'meathead voice' was aimed only at actuall sexists, so I appologise, that's on me. However, that is the only time that non-PC views are given a word in, so it doesn't really help his case

Closing seconds-Uses 'for the most part' which is a step forward, but still gives no recognition to either the 'we do this so that language can become more inclusive through de-stigmatizing offesensive language in genial circumstances' or 'I disagree with making cultural value judgments' groups, leaving those groups with the impression, as conveyed by the tone and props, that at least some of the hate was directed at them.

See, none of this would be an issue if this was just the OP of a thread, bob could clarify, issue concilliatory responses, move towards a healthy consensus so that everybody can get back on the track of beating up the real racists. But as this is a video, it exists almost in a vacuum, and any response from bob in video form would be just as insulting as his responses to the furor over his being 'out of touch' and the anger over his comments about the expendables. The meathead voice would be included.

Also, I would like an appology for your claim that I was 'obviously a troll who hid behind a PC shield', I pride myself of how inclusive I am, and how I regard everybody as equal until proven otherwise.

 

[the clockmaker]

words

I think you have misinterpreted both of the examples that I put forward.

One, it is not that jewish people/Muslim people are forced to eat ham at council meetings, it is that eating of ham is banned. I would have just as much issue if the consumption of alchohol was banned to make way for baptists, or if taking the lords name in vain was banned to make way for catholics. It is a value judgement being made over which culture is acceptable and which one isn't.

SHowing courtesy to Muslim people would be to provide certified halal food at meetings, showing courtesy to Jewish people would be to provide kosher food at meetings, showing courtesy to the vaguely agnostic/ culturally indifferant mishmash of Australians would be to allow them to eat foods which are a part of their culture. Most Australians, especially those of the groups in question, are not in favour of this impossiton, but it occurs due to the wel intentioned miss steps of people like you, who insist that people be treated differantly due to their race/skin colour/beliefs. It is similar to the fact that we provide a vegitarian option, but do not ban meat.

In the situation with my friend, he made a joke about steriotypical aspects of Australians that he thought existed (that is, the steriotype exists, not that we are like that). I made a joke about steriotypical aspects about his culture that I thought existed (that is the steriotype, not that turkish people are like that) a third party, the adult officer, who was an anglo saxon, took offence and I got in trouble. I frankly don't see how that is anything more than two mates dicking about.

I am not demanding 100% assimilation, from either side, but in a multi-cultural society, as the differant cultures come to the point where they can co-exist as a semi-unified amalgamation, there will be miss steps as well intentioned decsions to accomodate one side or the other cause offence. Consider, the white Australia policy, that which determined who could and could not enter the nation, in order to facillitate a more open and tolerant society, that was dropped, and rightly so, anyone who wants to work and who wants to be Australian can be, that's how it works. And so we made a step towards an acceptable, semi-unified amalgamation as a people and thousands of immigrants from asia and south east asia poured in, bringing new, hard working citizens.

Then consider the allowance of Shiek Taj-din-al-Hilali into the nation, he overstayed his visa, retained his egyptian citizenship and preached that it was the fault of women who were raped for not wearning concealing clothing. Most Muslims in Australia, the ones who identified as Austrlian, were not in favour of this man, but he was allowed to stay due to the well intention miss step of people who thought that Australian politics required a stronger muslim voice.

Consider the vote to allow abborigonals vote. Obviously the right descision, so we take a step forward.

Then consider the requirement to thank the tradional owners before every public event, creating a chasm between the fifth-fourth-third-second and first generation immigrants and the land that is their home. Forcing upon them a disconnect and a feeling that they don't really belong here. Again, not a moral mistake, but a well intentioned error to include those who were wronged in the past.

No, despite what you assume I do not favor assimiliation, I favour accomodation, the provision of options for all to live as they want without forcing that way of life upon others. The Jewish people of Australia, the Muslims, the catholics, the abborigonals, the masses of kiwis, the communities of Indians, pakistanis, Chinese people, yanks, poms, germans italians, all of the ones I've met have at least been mostly tolerant of each other. The ones who are not are those well intentioned people in canberra and Melbourne who insist on defining us by our differances.

And trust me mate, on that, there is still a reasonable, multi-sided debate.

 

[lastjustice]

I'm sure similar stuff eben said, but since I made a perfectly good rant I'll post it here regardless.

I found your argument Bob for the video correctitude to be a bit of a sweeping overgeneralization. Particularly on the whole Thor casting bit. It?s actually the epitome of being Politically correct.(oh look one nonwhite in the movie?see we?re being fair and just.) So wait, since it's the 21st century there's so now affirmative action for the entertainment industry even if the source material , historic accuracy(let?s put Jet Li in the kings speech, that would been a movie worth seeing.) , or mythos don't fit it if it has to do with white people because their background doesn?t count apparently? Anyone who is opposed to it is just racist and being jerk, not because there?s several well thought out reasons to being opposed to it?

So it's perfectly ok to steam roll and crow bar in any secondary character's background if they re white but changes to minorities aren't? I?m sorry that's bunk. I mean makes it seems like there's something wrong if everyone in a story is white.(sure there's plenty of stories where it happens still.) Which in real life it's highly common for there to be a ton of people of the same race flock together.( I live in Chicago land area, one of the most segregated cities in the US.) Why can't we just have characters be what they are for them being compelling first and for most, if they happen to be diverse secondary?

I come up with characters for stories and games, and being a white male majority of them are white.(in terms of gender I'm probably about 50/50.) I don't see as racism , so I can understand comic book writers writing what they know. To automatically say all done out of racism is not quite the case. I feel comfortable writing what I know, as most the character I come up with are based off people I know. I don't have that many black friends(mostly White, and Hispanic.), so I don't have as many sources to draw inspiration from. Does that somehow make me a bad person? I don't think so.

I wouldn?t dare accuse Jack Kirby and Stan Lee as racist when they created the characters for Thor?s cast.(given your VGO video 23 you?d figure you?d have a pretty grasp on this whole system.) Given it?s a norse myth in a heavily white land it?s easy to understand how they arrived at that conclusion. It?d be like casting Sam Jackson in crouching Tiger hidden dragon, though it might be kind of awesome admittedly; it?s completely out of place.
My thoughts are if you really wanted to make a alter version of a character with similar powers, Why not create a brand new character? Say if you wanted to character a black superman, we saw this a bit with Hancock.(which during the middle of the movie when he saves the bank he really came across as a geniune super hero, as he was damn heroic. Something I could have really got behind.) In the case of we didn't see them beat us over the head with the fact Will Smith is black all film. It was an aspect of his character, but he was still a 3 dimensional character not a sterotype to the end. It suffered from some hang ups from a disjointed story but it had nothing to do with race.

It's not that I even care about Heimdell(or when they cast Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin.) being change to a black actor, as it will likely have zero impact on the movie. It's the sentiment of the only way to get a successful black character is to hollow out a successful white one for them to replace. So basically every new comic film/show we should expect the Smallville treatment and some secondary or less important character will be offered up to the altar of diversity and everyone who isn?t white will somehow fall in love with comics. I mean it?s kind of insulting for a lot of reasons to all sides of the issue.

From the white stand point, being white is a blank slate and not considered the least bit defining or important to a character when in reality it is as important as any other group. And from the minority stand point, hey we gave you the equivalent of giving a girl a get well card 3 days after our anniversary and standing you up on our date, showing what an afterthought they are. Don?t expect us to actually try and get a minority lead any time soon.

I think everyone should have a character they can identify with too, and feel like who they can be the hero of a story. I can understand people wanting to see more diverse characters, but change isn?t something you can just force feed upon people and expect them to like it at any cost.(or you?re evil for caring about continuity or valuing source material.) The best solution, create brand new characters steadily over time that are compelling not sterotypes. That?s the hard route, but It is a far more elegant solution and actually adds new continuity rather than just paving over the old and pretending it doesn't exist. Yes, racism is bad. Pretending a person?s race doesn't influence who they are is worse.