To be frank, the only people that can afford to ignore racism, sexism, or really any sort of system of oppression are the people that benefit from it. It's because you don't have to deal with respectability politics. We can wipe out racism by not talking about it in much the same way that we can pretend Ulcerative Colitis doesn't exist. I mean, it almost worked for my sister- no, wait, that almost killed her. While awaiting the removal of her large intestine, neglect [EDIT: From the nursing staff who was supposed to be prepping her] almost killed her, because the toxic megacolon that had developed was about ready to burst.

Look around you today. People of color are being murdered in America for little to nothing by vigilantes and police (like playing music too loud), and then their parents have to go on national television to say how good they are to counter the inevitable bad press where they find the worst picture of the victim and subtly imply that z/s/he deserved it. When a white person commits a crime, the first thing the news does is point out how bright the person was, and what a "shame it is" that they made such "bad decisions". Heck, sexism and rape culture is so prominent that the Stubenville rapists are now back playing football after raping a poor young woman and then effectively bragging about it. And then the media and the judge keep mourning over the damned rapists, as if this was their personal tragedy. We openly create laws to racially profile people.

This doesn't end with lack of discussion, this ends when we create a society of justice and egalitarianism. This ends when we stop condescending when we talk about Africa. This ends when a woman can walk down a street without constant harassment about how she looks. This ends when lesbians can be judged by who they are, and not "how she's too pretty to be a lesbian", or even "not gay enough to hang out". This ends when a transgender or transexual or genderqueer person can feel safe to express themselves without most of society treating them like crap, or trying to "confirm" their gender (which is usually then followed by violence because how dare someone be attracted to someone that doesn't conform to gender norms, it might mean we have to challenge heternormative gender roles). This ends when America doesn't repeal protections it has in place to protect people from racial discrimination- because it was only HOURS that someone tried to pass legislation to prevent PoC from voting and registering to vote as effectively. This ends when we don't have EVEN ONE MORE dead person as a result of ignorance, learned hate, and an apathetic system that would just let it pass. This ends when a woman is never told she was "asking for it". This ends when all victims are not blamed for the crimes of others. This ends when the idea of inclusion is not so virulently met with cries of "pc police", or accusations of quotas, or the especially ignorant "white male fans are the only fans, so pander to us because we have a finite set of things we are able to see and process". This ends when feminism is no longer seen as misandry or "hysterical, angry hags", but instead seen as a facet of several movements (like racial equality, LGBT rights) for complete and total egalitarianism (which itself is inter-sectional).

And it doesn't only stop with ending hate. It's with spreading love.

This ends when you can name women, people of the LGBT community, people of color, etc. involved in pretty much every facet of global history, because they're there. Sometimes their stories are altered to gloss over details, sometimes their stories are barely told at all. This ends when Neil Degrasse Tyson isn't just exceptional, but a norm in a diverse scientific community. This ends when all three branches of Monotheistic Judaism, Atheism, Buddhism, Hinduism, are able to live in peace, not only in tolerance but in acceptance. This ends when we not only stop judging each other based off of differences, but openly allowing every culture into "us" instead of "other".

Anyway, I'm sure you're a smart person, and can recognize it. If not now, then hopefully someday. Because these problems will always be here, so long as we refuse to do anything about it.

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Um, I am one of those people. And really, I only say you can't compare those two things if they really are too different. For example, you can't demand the same amount of plot heaviness of romance you see in a Dating Sim also in an RPG. Those two are different things, they target different audiences, players expect different things from them and unless the romance is really 100% necessary to the plot of the game, the romance aspect will suffer in the RPG department. Because RPGs are generally more focused on the story/world aspect and character development. Romance may help in that last section, but if it isn't too important, it won't be as heavy as in a Dating Sim.

C-A

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You are comparing those two types of games in your explanation, though.

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But in a way to show that it's dumb to try to compare the two in that aspect since the target audience is different.

C-A

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What also annoys me are the countless posts of motivational quotes and songs on social media.

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I agree with you wholeheartedly, but unfortunately, that isn't going to happen. As long as there are different types of people, there will be prejudice, there's no way to completely get rid of it. We can reduce the tolerance of hate, most definitely, especially by increasing the harshness of the punishments for these sort of hate crimes, but to completely remove hate is impossible, a fairy tale, really. I wish I could say otherwise, I really do, but I consider myself a realist, and this is what I find.

Speaking of which, I hate in when people assume that I'm homophobic just because I'm Christian. It's people like the Westboro Baptist church that give Christians like myself a bad name. Because of these small, but very vocal, minorities, people assume that all Christians are like that, and that boils my blood. I personally take everything the bible says with a grain of salt, after all, it also says that you can own a slave as long as they're not from your country. The bible wasn't actually written by God, it was written by the people, and they might have misinterpreted a few things or added their own opinions for all we know.

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Likewise I get a lot of crap from my friends for being a "Good little Catholic boy". It gets old fast, I don't see why I should have to answer for the sins of other establishments. I consider myself a good person, I ain't done any of the horrific things they complain about. So I don't care for all the jokes being made about it as if I'm somehow worse for it.

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Please understand, what I'm not talking about is erasure of all hatred and prejudice. One might as well try to bargain with a phone tree. What I am talking about is a society in which the system in and of itself doesn't lend itself towards benefiting some while oppressing others. A system of benefits or hindrances based on your skin color, ability, size, gender, sex, sexual orientation, religion (and lack thereof), et cetera ends up not really helping anyone but a very small number of humans. A system that treats everyone equally under the eyes of the law and brings justice for an often-beleaguered mass of people (like women, PoC, the LGBTQ community, Atheists, Jews, Muslims, et cetera) is what I'm aiming for. Because the laws do not consider all people equal and frequently target oppressed groups, and our social system often punishes people for not being one thing or the other.

I'm a Christian. A Methodist, in fact- we're basically one of the least restrictive of the sects of Abrahamic Monotheism. But just because I'm not an assholes doesn't mean I can ignore what's happening. True, Westboro Baptists don't represent me, but you can't just go "hashtag-not-all-x", because "not all" indicates that there's too many already. Because it's hard to ignore when a right-wing nutjob thinks that their brand of Christianity is the "correct" Christianity. It's difficult to turn away when there are still several churches which post anti-LGBTQ messages on their sign boards. It's especially difficult to deal with anti-intellectualism from conservative religious jerks who mess with public school programs, forcing the teaching of abstinence-only courses that not only have been proven to not work, but frequently involve misinformation about the effectiveness of prophylactics (and how sex works in general), slut-shame both males and females alike, and frequently exclude any helpful information to LGBTQ students.

It's cool that you're not jerks (as far as I know). But as the good book teaches us, evil wins when a good person stays silent.

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The whole "#NotAll[insert group here]" business bugs me not just because of its own nature, but also how some people react to it. To start, as has been pointed out, distancing oneself from the troublesome elements of one's group, while a welcome show of opposition, doesn't actually address the problems that said troublesome elements cause. Case in point: I'm a man who views women as equal to men. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that there are men out there who only think of women as prizes to be won, and my distancing myself from such men is not going to help solve the problem.

There are two reactions to such a clarification that I find annoying, though. The first is, of course, tacitly ignoring it by assuming people like me are either the exception or just outright lying. I've seen it all the time with Muslim-haters; no matter how many condemnations of terrorism and counter-terrorism campaigns you bring up with those lot, they'll either say those Muslims are the exception or just attribute their words to taqiyya (which is something that is only practiced when there is sufficient reason to believe that telling the truth will lead to persecution) and say their actions are just putting on a show for the West.

The second, however, is the "they need to police their own kind" reaction. In my opinion, it's exactly the same as the "#NotAll[insert group here]" reaction. I've seen this kind of excuse used for viewing black people as inferior. "Why can't they stop all the black-on-black violence?" Being a black person with a clean record doesn't give you an excuse to do nothing about the problem. However, at the same time, my being white does not give me an excuse to do nothing about the problem. People are connected in ways that are independent of such things as religion, ethnicity, and nationality.

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I like you.

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It doesn't matter if we have a completely balanced system that treats blacks, whites, hispanics or whatever race the same way! We're talking about racism! The thing that happens for no good reason. The racist people who are most vocal simply hate those races because. It's not because they're somehow treated better than themselves, it's not because we see ourselves as better than them. They just hate them.
Which is why it's impossible to get rid of prejudice or racism. Which is why I said if people keep their mouths shut, we won't have to hear it. After all, what are we supposed to do? Break the kneecap of anyone who is vocally racist?

C-A

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Cat she explicitly did not say we could erase racism entirely, and we certainly shouldn't go around breaking the kneecaps. All she was asking was that in a legal sense we abolish racism. If someone wants to harbour racist views in their personal life, that's another issue and one we probably can't do much about. However if we change the system to be completely fair to all walks of life in a legal and professional sense (no racially motivated police abuse, no tolerance on slander towards LGBT individuals, no preferred hiring of one kind of employee over another equally competent employee on grounds of religion or gender). That sort of stuff can be changed with proper legislation and increasing awareness. Yes there will always be racism, but if we can get more people to realise the injustices of discrimination and persecution for things like racism and gender then those people will work for change too. That's how governments do change, to the will of the people (unless you live in Scotland).

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Pierre basically sums it up here. The only thing I want to add is that racism, homophobia, sexism, and these things generally refer to the systems in place regarding political policies and social stratification- not the personal bigotries of people. That's some of what the problem is: our generation has finally learned that racism (sexism, etc.) are bad, but we weren't taught what it is.

Someone that crosses the street the moment they see a someone that looks "dangerous" is probably at least a little bit of a bigot.

The isms that haunt us usually are the multitude of social microtransgressions (having entire languages subtly putting people down through common idioms like you "x like a girl", being followed in a store because of the color of your skin, etc.), laws that oppress people (targeted drug laws that more harshly punish drugs more common in PoC communities as opposed to those more common in white communities, laws that expand probable cause to be pulled over for a citizenry check to the color of your skin, etc.), and an utter lack of representation in the media (the reason there's a BET is because pretty much every other channel doesn't usually feature black people, Marvel taking one step forward and two steps back with its representation of women, the infamous season 3 of Veronica Mars where yet another narrative has their female heroines be strong and intelligent but distance themselves from those "crazy feminists", pretty much any coded gay "fop" archetype in Disney and the Ace Attorney universe, etc.).

Of course, not like I expect you to utterly change your views or willingness to talk about it further, Cat. But I would like to explain my view, as I too am someone with kneecap-have, and would like to be kind to those that are also of plentiful, healthy kneecaps.

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Not really... that isn't something put into our heads via society or media or similar. That's more a natural instinct - someone who may look "dangerous" to someone looks fine to someone else. The opposite is just like that. Someone thinks this one person looks beautiful, where as someone else thinks differently. Cause it's a natural thing that really is just in the eye of the beholder.

C-A

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Well Cat "Not really" is over simplifying it. "Not Necessarily" sure. There's plenty of crime and 'rough' areas of Glasgow where if I see a squad or a 'team' sauntering up the road I might cross. Partially to get out of their way as there's not much room on the pavement, however these gangs often consider violence a social obligation of being part of a 'team' as well. If a specific individual has a reputation for violence that's been established towards you in the past...well maybe. If you are at school and you see a known bully who has harassed you before then you've got good justification to avoid that person on grounds of your previous encounters. Sure nothing might happen if you walk by but it boils down to fear, I wouldn't hold it against anyone for avoiding the person if they've actively harassed and called them harm before.

HOWEVER, I can't think of many justifiable reasons for this in adult life. What Geno was saying (I think) was people who would cross the road to avoid someone of different ethnicity/beliefs/economic divide/sexuality/etc is pretty unacceptable. If you didn't know anything else about the person other than their physical appearance and you still tried to avoid them it's pretty bad of you. Geno wasn't referring to terms like "dangerous" and "beautiful" (though being drawn to someone on grounds of beauty alone bothers me as well) in her statement.

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Pierre once again hits the nail on the head. ^_^ Do I cross the street when Roxy and I are out for a walk so that she doesn't pull at the leash? Sure. But it would be presumptuous of me to cross the road were I to see someone different than me just because they are different. Well, maybe small children, as Roxy thinks that anything that can stand on two legs can bear her full weight and might accidentally knock 'em down when just trying to play. Silly puppy~

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Oh, really? I don't know about other places, but here in Canada, we already have that. Canada has the highest legal immigration rate in the world, only about half of our citizens were actually born here. Do you know why so many people from other countries come to live here? Because we're an accepting society, yes, there are racists, sexists, and other prejudiced people here, there's people like that in all countries. The governments and places like stores, schools, and other establishments of that sort treat everyone equally. Over here, making a racist remark at a customer is a very valid reason to be fired, or even prosecuted. The laws here treat all people equal, hell, we have same sex marriage legal across the entire country, not just in certain parts of it.

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Smoking. It's disgusting. Even when you aren't smoking, the odour that lingers is still harmful to other people's health. It's worse than some illegal drugs, like marijuana.

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Exactly. I thinking smoking should be illegal like any other illegal drug since it actually kills people more than any other drug and it is harmful to the enviroment. Every time someone smokes I try to fight the urge to punch them square in the face and spit on them.

Wow and people say I am too happy to be forceful with things... For me, it depends. If someone is smoking in a closed location - which is actually illegal in restaurants, elevators, etc and such - they are in the wrong and technically I am allowed to tell them to please stop.
But if it's in an open location like a bus stop with tons of fresh air around me, and the option to move so I am not down-wind and get their smoke blown into my direction, they can smoke all they want. If they wanna ruin their lungs, go ahead.

C-A

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Ever heard of prohibition? It was when alcohol was made illegal, and it lead to a huge era of increasing crime and chaos. If tobacco is made illegal, the exact same thing would probably happen. Besides, so many people are helplessly addicted to it, and making it illegal would just fill up our prisons with so many innocent people. Tobacco should not be made illegal, it would lead to too many problems. That being said, I don't like it any more than you do, most of my aunts and uncles smoke, and they've been smoking since they were teenagers. I think we should offer more services to help people quit, as it's a serious addiction and people need help for it. Several of my aunts have tried many times to quit, but they were unable to. People need help for their addictions, smoking being a serious one.

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Considering how many ads I've seen on TV that are all "Smokequit" kits and crap like that, I'm saying they don't help. But then, given that my mother stopped smoking pretty much cold turkey without going on and thinking, "Yes. This day, marked on the calender, will be the day I stop smoking." She just... did.
Okay, it probably HELPED that she got bronchitis and chemical burns down her oesphagous shortly after, so the idea of smoking was NOT one she particularly enjoyed, but she still stopped. And is still smoke-free.

C-A

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Actually in Scotland its illegal to even smoke at bus stops or on a university campus. Any public place really. The problem is whether these rules are enforced or not.

The other problem is how ingrained smoking is that its seen as socially acceptable. Its at a point where its practically a given in work places to allow breaks for employees to go have a fag and no one is none the wiser.

I remember a Friends episode where Rachel's co workers go out for cigarette breaks and it bonds them to the point that her boss likes them more. So she takes up smoking herself to stay in the loop. There's a similar problem with alcohol if you ask me except it's more socially acceptable sadly.

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If anything I think there should be more restrictions on where people can smoke or even better raise smoking prices so people buy less cigarettes. I just hate having to constantly smell that horrible stench especially since I'm allergic to the smoke and smell.

I'm more in favor of a public smoking ban. If someone wants to put polonium 210 in his lungs, that's his choice and his funeral. When that crap is getting into my lungs because he's smoking in public, that's when it becomes my problem.


Just a little heads-up for future reference, Pierre: in the United States, "fag" is a derogatory term for LGBTQ people. It's extremely offensive. I know you didn't use the word that way, though, so I'm willing to let this slide.

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>discriminating against smokers
>Trying to take away people's rights
>"You are an evil person if you smoke, your second hand smoke is slowly giving me cancer!"
>Says nothing about cars that pollute the air 10x more





Only ignorant people would get offended.
#triggerwarning

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Cars exist for transportation. Cigarettes exist... because...

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Oh it's practical so that means it's excusable?

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Gah apologies I knew that too. Its just such a common expression for cigarettes here. Kinda wonder how it originated as the two meanings are pretty distant.

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Yes, DoMaya. That's it exactly. Thousands of people die in car accidents each year. The only reason such dangerous machines have yet to be banned is that an equally practical, but safer, alternative has yet to be developed and put into mass production.

The same cannot be said for cigarettes.

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Maybe this will help how it was originated

How many millions of jobs would be lost if the sale of tobacco was suddenly made illegal?

Do you think the argument of "Well people are healthier!" would feed these every day people who's livelihood depended on tobacco?

I'm not saying I support people killing themselves with tobacco, I support people having a choice, and not being discriminated unjustly BECAUSE of their choices.
Actually I am for a person's right to have a choice in killing themselves

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You say that people will lose jobs if Tobacco is made illegal but it can also be said that since it is legal people are wasting away their money on boxes after boxes of cigarettes.

Which is their choice!

I'd rather not get into a discussion about how much an "addiction" influences a persons ability to "choose"

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Not really their choice since it's basically addiction that's making the choice for them.

But they're the ones who made the choice to begin with to try out something that they knew had addictive potential.

C-A

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DoMaya, I never said I supported a ban on cigarettes. I only support a ban on smoking in public.

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Because simply that is an argument you cannot win. It's someone's choice to dump chemicals illegally, but that too has consequences for oneself and others.

Also, the whole car thing- that is an issue that needs to be addressed. In fact, scientists are just sitting around like "hey guys, clean energy and stuff is ready whenever, so... yeah, just get back to us on that, mkay?" But this is a fallacy that's been long over-used. Problems elsewhere- usually more desperate- are presented as a reason why suffering (usually minimized by the comparison) is "unimportant". That's a false dichotomy. It's not "we solve this problem first before we get to your problem that is deemed less significant", it's that "these are both problems that need to be handled". True, while the plight of the poor and the oppressed is something to fight for, the thing is that we all have issues that are important to us as individuals. Some problems need to take precdence simply due to immediacy. If we're talking about environmental hazards that are a clear and present danger, look at the practice of fracking and its effect on the surrounding environment: especially the water. However, that doesn't mean that car emissions and cigarette smoke aren't also problems, and just because one problem is larger doesn't mean we don't have the power to take care of them all. There are over 7 billion people on Earth at the moment. I'm sure we can afford to multitask.


I lived with a breathing problem for a chunk of my life, and it meant that it not only inconvenienced me in where I could go and be at any given time (because even residual smoke was a trigger), but I was young enough so that my health problem inconvenienced my friends and family alike because others were smoking. Now, granted- not everyone in the world has Parodixismal Vocal Fold Disorder forever (as is my case), nor does everyone have asthma. However, it is a dangerous and addictive practice to smoke cigarettes. True, prohibition didn't work, but there are a variety of reasons for that- something doesn't not work simply by not being effective- that is a result, and not a cause. Crack-cocaine is severely harmful to the human body, but we should allow it because of personal liberty? That's the type of ass-backwards Ayn Rand BS that hinders us as a society, not helps. And it's not as though cigarette smoking happens in a vacuum. People who do so tend to offer it to their friends and loved ones, usually as a bonding ritual. Due to the addictive nature of the product, you are essentially distributing decreased lung capacity, lung cancer, et cetera via a grass-roots campaign if not outright.

And, as General Luigi said, no one on the site here has advocated for a ban of cigarettes and cigars entirely. Honestly, while it's stupid and unhealthy, I would much prefer someone slowly kill themselves with harmful products in their own home or somewhere out of the way, as opposed to a place where the smoke is bothersome to others like restaurants, air planes, elevators, et cetera.


Now, you do bring up a good point: smokers are generally regarded as having a lack of moral character for doing so, whereas the somewhat more acceptable addiction to alcohol makes you "fun". While I agree with policies prohibiting smoking in public areas (such as a restaurant, especially since moving tables sometimes can be a bit of a bother when your barrier between smoking and non-smoking is filled with inner window-holes or something equally ineffective), the treatment of smokers themselves can border on abusive. Smokers can be jerks when smoking, especially when they do so in a very insensitive manner (starting to do so in a closed space like an elevator, blowing smoke in someone's face, etc.). But people can be jerks while doing anything. Smokers are instead victims that make other victims. The only truly wrong practice here is the industry which pushes it, with slaps on the wrist from the government that belie its corporate influence on policy-making. Not to mention the fact that tobacco farming has loopholes which allow what would otherwise be illegal child labor.

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Here in Canada, we already have a smoking ban for all public places, this includes all public buildings as well as gas stations, bus stops, airports, University Campuses, and more. It's also illegal to smoke in a vehicle with a child under the age of 16. We've had this ban since about 2004.

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My entire position was regarding-





NO ONE ASKED YOU CANADA![/American]
Neat

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