As Mhendo knows I play poker for fake money on TruePoker.com.
When you sign up there’s a list of characters you can pick from which other people will see you as.
I picked an Arab guy because I just think he talks funny (they can talk too) plus most people don’t pick him so he’s more unique. It looks like they try to provide as many racially diversified characters as possible. There are even robots and an alien to choose from. Most people seem to pick white people as their character probably because they are white (I suspect that most people with access to the internet are white).
I find it amazing how often someone will come to the table I’m at and start racially harassing me (I’m pretty white). When this happens I usually never let on that I’m white. This last time someone comes in and says: “I hate Arabs”. I say: “You shouldn’t hate anyone. Hate’s not a virtue”. He says: “The only good Arab is a dead one”. Then everyone else at the cyber-table starts getting down on him. I’m assuming that these people are also white.
So I don’t know whether to feel good that people theoretically would come to my rescue or feel horrible that people in this century are so stupid as to literally hate me by what they see on the surface only.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it because it is only the internet.
Now, on worldly matters I feel deeply troubled about our problems with terrorism and our dependency on fossil fuels which creates a presence of Americans (or US’ians) where it shouldn’t be which fuels hatred toward Americans and reinforces their belief that this is a holy war.
That being said I don’t hate every Arab I see, real or not. I can only imagine what it must be like to be other than white.
Well, it just goes to show that the internet somehow miraculously regurgitates the innate kindergarten behaviour which seems to exist in all of us.
Indeed, if you think back to kindergarten behaviour, and how the goal was to try and upset your fellow playmates with the best form of cruelty you could muster at the time, I’m actually pleased with how many people can rise above it to be honest.
And Lord knows, I’ve been baited mercilessly in the past - on another postboard - and I learnt a very valueable lesson. Never bite. Ever. That’s their goal. Just let it all slip by, I reckon.
Yeah, racism’s no good. I mean, harrassing you for your icon is pretty fucked up. Just like if somebody were to say they “suspect that most people with access to the internet are white”."
Heh. Once I was badgered by this dude for ten minutes; he was inquiring deeply into my race, ancestry, ethnic background, skin colour, basically every scrap of DNA in my Canuck mongrel ass, because I had a Japanese screen name.
Another time someone hauled off at me in broken English because I had a Russian one. (I think the Russians must have done something nasty to him at some point… well, some Slavs, at any rate. That’s a pretty all-encompassing sense of hostility, to my way of thinking.)
Is it any comfort to realize that there are troglodytes in every society; have been for all of human existence?
I didn’t think so.
Still, I’d go for feeling good that the other players kick the hater’s butt; there’ve been too many times in history – ours and other nations’ – when comments like that would be tacitly accepted, if not vociferously agreed with.
I hope this is a joke. The avatars in the program that Rooves is discussing all have rather distinctive voices, and the Arab-looking character is not the only one with a funny voice. I often switch between avatars just to try out a new voice.
I play at the same poker site as Rooves sometimes, and i’ve noticed plenty of obnoxious behaviour by ignoramuses.
One guy was slow to bet for five minutes or so, and when he started paying attention to the game again he apologized for his slowness by explaining that he had been half watching the TV, where some show like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” was on. This piece of information elicited a bunch of homophobic comments from some of the morons around the table, including the guy himself. I hate that shit, so i told them they were a bunch of kids and left the table.
At another table, two of the guys started commenting on the breasts of one of the female avatars. I mean, how lame do you have to be to make lascivious comments about computer-generated breasts? Their continued commments obviously made the woman player uncomfortable, because she left the table in a hurry. The morons seemed surprised at her departure.
Even at poker sites that don’t have fancy avatars, there are plenty of rude and obnoxious assholes. Some people seem to look upon the anonymity of a username as an opportunity to say things they wouldn’t (or maybe would) say in real life. I try to ignore them as best i can and just play the game. I am, however, happy to chat with the friendly, decent folks.
I didn’t actually feel like a victim. I just thought I’d point out how wacky it was that people can be hateful towards what’s essentially a cartoon character for being arab.
Ya know what ? I feel as though I’m being cyber-sexually harrassed, so i feel your pain. Every now and again I get an email from somebody wanting to add 3 inches to my weenie and it is giving me a complex. I mean, who are they to want to double the size of my … uh … wait a minute …
Early on in my internet gaming days, I created a user name of Nine_o_Spades. It had to do with the card, as in one higher than the 8 and one lower than the 10. I was amazed at the number of people who thought it meant I was black. Which was ok with me; sometimes I used the nice black female icon. But about once a week someone would get really racially nasty, following me from table to table, calling me a ngger btch, etc. It was a lesson in cruelty. It shook me up and opened my eyes a little. The vast majority of people came to my defense, though. The harrassers tended to be excluded from games very quickly.
Apparently “spade” is a disparaging term for a black person. I didn’t know it either at the time I chose the name, but I’ve always been a little out of it on slang terms.
I was looking for a good church in my new city, so I posted on Beliefnet in my denomination’s message board asking for recommendations.
Someone made one, and I visited it, but didn’t like it. One of the reasons I mentioned was that, in a very diverse city, the church was all white, and that made me a little uncomfortable.
Someone immediately assumed that I was black myself, and suggested that I might be happier in a different denomination.
