Are We ALL Welcomed Here?

it includes a free copy of Troll Monthly

Here's the problem though; I believe you, like most people, have fundamentally misunderstood what constitutes true racism. To dislike a certain ethnic group is not necessarily racist - racism is the assumption that another ethnic group are in some way inferior. A person could dislike Arabs for example, but not consider them to be inferior in any way.

Example;

1) Saying "I am white and prefer the company of my own kind even though I don't necessarly have any beef with any other ethnic group" is not racist, although many people would think it is (they are simply wrong).

2) Saying "I am white and prefer the company of my own kind because we are better than anyone else. Oh, and I hate niggers." Is racist - there is an assumption of superiority.

It's all in the context.

Are you using the usual internet-wide meaning for the word troll, or the meaning used on this forum? Here on RA "troll" generally means "someone who says something you disagree with."

I think it's not so much the assumption of superiority - lots of cultures and subcultures harbor that notion - as it is the expression of hostility toward the target person or group. You can have as high an opinion of yourself or your group as you please without having to go around attacking other people because they're in some category you consider lesser. Eliminate the hostility - verbal or otherwise - and you eliminate the problem.

Well i figured why not wiki it and see what they say about it..

Racism has many definitions, the most common being that members of one racial group consider themselves intrinsically superior to members of other racial groups. Racism inherently starts with the assumption that there are taxonomic differences between different groups of people. Without this assumption, prejudices against different peoples would be categorized as being prejudices related to national or regional origin, religion, occupation, social status or some other distinction.

The term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Noun: racist reysist

1. A person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others
- racialist

Adjective: racist reysist

1. Based on racial intolerance
"racist remarks"

2. Discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion

That's still xenophobic , and fundamentally ignorant. You'd have to believe that an ethnic or racial group can be defined in ways beyond purely superficial traits. No group, racial, ethnic, national, religious, or whatever ese is homogenous enough to elevate such a view above irrational xenophobia. It's no more valid than saying "I don't like people from Seattle." There's no way you can name any common trait that all people from Seattle share that would be a rational or valid reason to dislike them as a group. There might be some particular trait that many people from Seattle share that you dislike and it might be rational or valid to dislike that particular trait (though it would be a very shallow reason to dislike people you've never met individually), but to assume that all people from Seattle share it would be irrational.

PREACH brotha!

*claps and starts speakin in tongues*

Indeed. But I think you misunderstood my point. To take your Seattle example further; it may be that I am from, say, Baltimore. I have nothing against people from Seattle - I'm sure they are a fine bunch - it just so happens that I get on better with other people from Baltimore; we go to the same restaurants, read the same local papers and have more to talk about. That doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike people from Seattle any more than, say, people from Las Vegas or people from Kansas City - or even that I dislike them at all. It simply means that it is natural to gravitate to those one has most in common with.

It is a fact that people from different cultures and different backgrounds are different. There is no getting away from this fact. "Different" does not necessarily mean "inferior", but to choose to associate with those who are the same as you is not racism.

Unfortunately with something as worldwide as Second Life is, there is always going to be minds that are closed to anything different or extremely intolerant of others based simply on race, culture, so on and so forth. As much as we like to think we live in a 'civilized' world, there are still groups of people who see themselves as better then others for no reason and aren't afraid to make that fact clear...

One thing you noted, is that you are proud of who you are. That right there is great. Be who you want to be and never let anyone tell you otherwise. I hope your time in SL is enjoyable besides this one event.

If this is extrapolated into RL then it is even more idiotic!

It reminds me of the very posh, elderly English lady, who replied to a derogatory comment that "all the French are like that!", by saying:

"Indeed? - and do you know them all?"

Making sweeping generalisations solely based upon human skin colour is just stupid - so I can only repeat that such a person can't have two thoughts in their head worth rubbing together.

As the question was "are we all welcome here?", my answer is that a stupid, racist person isn't welcomed by me anywhere, and my advice is to treat them like the posh, old lady did and point out the sillyness of their thinking to everyone.

JIG!!!!!
Welcome back, my dearest love. I missed you so. I haven't eatten or slept since you went away. Life was just so cold and gray. Now that you are here, the winter is gone. Birds are singing of your return and flowers bloom in an effort to glimpse your grace and beauty.

In all seriousness, I missed your posts. They always gave us something to think about.

To take your parallel, the abusive person in the OP's tale was from Baltimore. He has a perfect right to gravitate towards other people from Baltimore and associate with them.
However, he chose to walk up to someone not from Baltimore and abuse them because they were not from Baltimore.

In any parallel, the person abusing the OP was a moron.

We don't know this person was abusive. We only know that Jig thought this person was abusive. Jig, for some reason, has chosen not to tell us what he/she said.

I have this very silly mental picture of a guy in a Caterpillar hat, backwards on his head, sitting typing into RednecksConfess.Com's forum: "I was mahndin mah own biznis awn secund lahf tuday when dis BLACK gah comes up and objected when ah cussed him aht. Whuh are mah RAHTS..."

The issue isn't really about whether you (jig) are welcome: it's more, what makes you respond automatically from the position of the victim. Malcolm Gladwell has covered a lot of this subject in "Blink", and there's famous impromptu experiments along these lines, especially the weird stuff that used to go on during the filming of the original "planet of the apes".

As ever, it's as well to stand back a bit from those emotional reactions and acknowledge that what you have as an avatar isn't actually a reflection on *YOU* - unless you let it be. For what it's worth, I get a lot of the same kind of presumptive negativity from the various female type environments, who tend to automatically assume that a hunky guy avatar must be a newb looking ofr a shag. it's just unthinking reaction, and the worst you can do is fall into the trap right alongside 'em.

According to Post#1, the person "used deadful language in describing what they thought of my skin colour".

Perhaps Jig doesn't like to post dreadful language on the forums?


OR
Maybe Jig is a total drama queen. Maybe she asked this person what they thought of her skin colour, and the person said something like "Hey nice skin colour, but most people from Baltimore might not like it so much."

Precisely. All we have is Jig's opinion.