Boycott Atlus

[Ramary]

I was going though RPG's posts with the Quake voice in my head

2xPOST!

DOUBLE 2xPOST!

TRIPLE 2xPOST!

You should go for an Ultra 2xPost RPG, you got this.

EDIT: awwww stefan bowed out.

EDIT2: Meanwhile on tumblr....

"does the person who originally posted this realize this game takes place in japan where the phenotype of its citizens are predominantly caucasian with dark to the occasional light-colored hair (excluding kanji because i could accept a headcanon where he bleaches his hair)?

also, boycottatlus, that character is not “black.” “Black” is a style of life and upbringing. that student is speaking a dialect of the english language, known as “black english,” which has some of its own words, rules of grammar, and pronunciation.

so no, this student is not being a racist stereotype. if he was being portrayed as a racist stereotype and was symbolizing the “black” stereotype we see in media and television, he’d be going against the dress code, be wearing his pants halfway off of his ass, would have tattoos, probably be wearing some sort of head garment that is against their high school’s dress code, and would be cursing up a storm. he probably wouldn’t even be a student. because for whatever unfathomable reason, the media tends to believe that citizens who grew up in a black community don’t have the money or opportunity for education.

the student in question merely seems to be having an identity crisis somewhere between a resident of the southern USA and being in a timelock from the 70s with his afro haircut. i’m sure he’d fit right in with some bell-bottom jeans and a disco ball."

[Pip Boy]

That's like saying its okay to call black people monkeys as long as we're not calling them gangsters.

Just because its not your particular flavor of racism doesn't make it not racist.

[rpgdemon]

Originally Posted by stefan

right, fuck this, you are either legitimately incapable of understanding what I am saying or are being deliberately obtuse. I'm out.

ps liz: good luck actually having any legitimate persuasive effect on atlus when your pedestal is on tumblr, the biggest shitstain of faux-activism and self-aggrandizing victimblaming on the internet.

I am legitimately incapable of understanding it, because I have explained what I understand multiple times, and the localization team still is killer if I am not understanding something.

Like, am I missing something and being super obtuse, other people? I can accept the argument that it may not be a racist depiction, and said as much in an earlier post, but the arguments you made are a defense of the depiction if it is racist, and they are just incorrect from where I'm sitting.

tl;dr: I don't know if the depiction is racist. I am arguing against the defense of cultural racism/humor translating poorly being made.

[Satan's Onion]

Originally Posted by stefan

...the humor of the archetype doesn't come from "non-black acting like what I think black people act like," its "person acting entirely outside of the stereotype I expect of them."

Outside that stereotype...and right into another stereotype, which isn't deconstructing racism so much as it is straight-up making use of it. It's not exploring what that stereotype is, or why it is, or how it happened or anything, it's just putting another thing where we expect this one thing to be. Simple juxtaposition, while it can be terrifically funny, does not necessarily make effective commentary or satire, and a thing being humorously juxtaposed with another thing doesn't make that first thing any less racist.

Also:

Originally Posted by stefan

ps liz: good luck actually having any legitimate persuasive effect on atlus when your pedestal is on tumblr, the biggest shitstain of faux-activism and self-aggrandizing victimblaming on the internet.

What the actual hell is this, besides being massively nasty for no good reason? Cut that right out--you're letting your temper get the better of you, and that's uncalled for.

[Marelo]

Stefan, I think, is saying that it's a juxtaposition not of people but of stereotypes about people. He's saying it's okay because the things being put side by side are "stereotypes about black people" and "stereotypes about ethnically Japanese people."

I happen to disagree with him, if that is what he's saying. It doesn't really make sense for a Japanese character in a game made by a Japanese company to adhere to stereotypes about Japanese people in the first place, so the idea that it would normally be expected of him and the writers are subverting that with stereotypes about (American?) black people strikes me as more than a stretch.

If that's not what he's saying then I'm as lost as you are, RPG.

Edit: Wait, what? Juxtaposing different stereotypes about black people? Yeah that doesn't work at all. It's still just straight up racist.

Screw it. Stefan, what are you saying is being juxtaposed?

[Kim]

Hahaha, Stefan's really fucking mad at me despite me not saying jack shit to him.

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by stefan

dude, I have darker skin than that, and I'm motherfucking irish.

I have Lighter skin than that(and also many asian people) and I'm black.
Edit: ITT the paper bag test

[Nique]

Why not weigh in AGAIN on an already bloated thread?

Funky student sounds about as racist a portrayal as Barret from FFVII or Zac from the DOA series. Not that there is no merit to those characters, but they were clearly not ironic portrayals of African-american people or urban culture for the purpose of enlightenment through the humor of their stereotypical behavior. Rather they are racist portrayals of how people actually view African-americans specifically.

Like, I'm willing to admit that the line between those two things is probably kind of thin, but there is still a distinction.

Also really when you are using any kind of stereotypes in this way with your characters, what you mean by those caricatures boils down to one of only two things; Either A) you're having a laugh at the expense of a specific group of people, or B)you're illustrating the ridiculousness of these stereotypes themselves, or otherwise opening up some kind of meaningful dialog about why the stereotypes exist and are believed in the first place.

[Grand Master Kickface]

Okay, I've been stepping around eggshells in my previous posts, but I've spent five days being angry over this and at this point I don't even care if I get banned as long as I can express this.

Noncon, you are being an ideological tyrant. You are trying to control opinion rather than change it. You frame everything in a way that justifies your own personal beliefs. You completely deny anyone else but yourself the right to individual values and ways of thinking, and then when they get mad at you for your oppressive manipulation, you distort it as transphobia/homophobia/whatthefuckever, so as to further justify yourself. Your priority has always been "to win the argument and feel superior," rather than inform people of new ways of thinking, and this is reflected in your expression.

When you preface an argument with "Boycott Atlus," it immediately antagonizes anyone who have ever enjoyed an Atlus game. How can you expect people to willingly jump headfirst into hostility? You can't, and you don't. This entire farce was built purely for your own narcissism, which explains such laughable contrivances on your blog as "afros are racism;" "Russians are racism;" "Etrian Odyssey is pedo propaganda." Even worse, you had the gall to promote this self-righteous masturbation as being progressive. The fact that you could subvert the struggles of an entire class of legitimately oppressed humans and manipulate people into rejecting them solely for the sake of padding your egocentrism is enough to make me want to throw up in my mouth. I'm sure transsexuals all over the world will love you for making them look like angry lunatics.

You assumed from the beginning that people could never understand you of their own volition, probably a learned behavior, if I may presume, from spending your childhood being constantly rejected and misunderstood from an environment you didn't choose to be born in, by parents you didn't choose to be born to, and thus believed that the only way you could change the world was by force. And the greatest irony of all is that by clinging to this method of learned self-protection, you sow rejection between yourself and others; those who would have no reason otherwise to reject you.

When I came into NPF, I was naive about the world and politics in general, having been raised in a conservative bubble my whole life. I was grateful to NPF for helping me understand the perspectives, values, and ways of the world I'd been missing out on. It's been a major contributor to my political growth over the years. But allowing the single most unreasonable and temperamental person to define universally what "progressiveness" means, well, that's where I draw the line. It's been a good ride, guys.

[PyrosNine]

Clearly any form of racism is racism and wrong even if most people don't seem to give a shit, and all it takes is one forum post by one enlightened soul for the ignorant masses to rise up and seize their cultural stereotypes from the unworthy, kill the traitors who perpetuate the stereotype within their own culture for whatever reason, and make it forever a crime for anyone other than a black person to wear an afro and speak in R&B rhyme even if there seems to be an entire subculture that thinks it's cool. Or even if they're trying to present a positive connotation. Or if most parties seem to think it's funny.

Clearly Atlus should be held accountable for presenting games that reflect the social norms and mores seen within the contemporary genre of another country that have disturbing similarities to our own social norms and mores reflected in our media.

This thread failed a looooong time ago, preached to it's own choir, and was ignored by most of the people who actually play Atlus games. Legitimate points were made and ignored by both sides because FUCK someone's blogging about this shit. Illegitimate points were made and not ignored because this is the internet.

Why is this thread continuing? What legitimate points have been made? Why can't the rest of these attempts at argumentative action happen on Liz's blog and not here? Fabricate your moral higher ground elsewhere!

I consider myself a trans. I know what it's like to feel the divide between genders- feeling uncomfortable playing out the roles of my own gender and yet obviously feeling other people's discomfort with me taking too many steps into the role of the other- disapproval at my failure to be like all the other boys and mocked just a week ago for being "such a woman" when I'm cradling my own nephew in a manner his own mother sometimes fails to emulate!

Let's not even go into the things I want for myself, because I'm not here to tell my life story in a stupid thread.

And Transphobia? It's part of reality. Just as much we avoid all things that fall between the lines, gender roles and sexuality are no different, and you find it everywhere. The only difference is what people find offensive.

And someone will always, eventually find something offensive. No matter the issue, no matter the subject, no matter who said what, there will be someone who takes offense. The world moves on.

Is it offensive if it it's used negatively, as an intended insult? Definitely, there is an intention to offend.

Is it offensive if it's used positively, or neutrally to the issue? That's somewhat subjective. Indeed, sometimes the seemingly innocuous stuff does hurt some people in ways most don't expect, but most of the time, after the fact, it remains innocuous. If people on both sides can joke about it, it's not nearly as big a deal, even if there's a stop having fun guys type decrying everyone else's lack of sensitivity to the issue.

Is Atlus in the wrong? I can see where Liz is coming from and yet I disagree with Liz's opinions, and I do not perceive or feel strongly about the issues raised just because Liz believes I should. Nor do others, and this isn't exactly the only discussion on the subject. Actually, this seems to be a continuation of a thread on the Atlus forums. TWO OF THEM.

There are some problems seen in the games, but not to the extent that Atlus as a whole should be held accountable, especially for the things that everyone else does. Social fucking commentary is done everywhere, and despite the points that Liz crucifies the Persona series for, Persona at least tries gives all parties a fair shake, and is willing to brush against increasingly touchy subjects with each ensuing installment. I am not going to hold it against Atlus for raising the bar...but not raising it high enough.

You can either refuse to buy the games, or not. That's your choice. I am going to continue buying from Atlus, and I believe in their brand.

If there's anything that offends me, it's when someone runs up, pulls a hardline "this example has X, and this offends me, so you should be offended too!" and then follows up with mostly weaksauce evidence focused upon to a ludicrous degree. And then everyone who wants to stand upon the thread's podium and make themselves look good and proactive immediately lines up and agrees wholeheartedly.

I have to take deep breaths, and remember that most everyone else sees these threads as a smoking pit surrounded by yellow police "Danger! Do not enter!" tape, and that of course I'm not the only one who is going to read Liz's arguments and still buy the next Shin Megami Tensei game. And of course there's probably somebody who's going to just buy used/pirate so that Atlus still gets no money from the perusal.

And since this is a long post and no one capable of making a rational online discussion is can read a long post, here's a TL;DR.

TL;DR: WHY THE HELL HAS THIS SHIT GONE ON FOR TWENTY PAGES? THERE IS IN FACT A SLIDING SCALE OF WHAT'S ACCEPTABLY RACIST AND WHETHER OR NOT EVEN THOSE STEREOTYPED ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THE STEREOTYPE ENOUGH TO BE ANGRY ABOUT IT. NAOTO WENT BACK TO DRESSING LIKE A BOY AFTER THE EVENTS OF P4 BUT IS STILL FREE TO CHOOSE TO WEAR A DRESS ANYTIME SHE WANTS TO. ALSO, I DISAGREE WITH THE FIRST POST, PLAYING P3 PORTABLE ON MY PSP RIGHT NOW.