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No one has solved racism. Given this, we can conclude that no one knows how to solve racism. There might be evidence that some things are effective weapons against racism, but no one has solved it.
Given this, different people have a lot of different takes on which approaches are best. Most, but not all are well meaning, but well meaning people here disagree.
As a white person, it’s extremely easy to be criticized for how you handle race no matter what you do. It can often feel like you’re in a double bind where you’ll be criticized no matter what you do.
This is probably true, not because people are hypocritical, but because different people have different ideas of what’s right, and it’s very hard to find something no one will disagree with, so someone will often call you out.
I’m not sure if it’s worth going into all the various double binds I personally perceive, but let’s just say that I personally believe discussing race as a white person is tricky, and I’m sure there will be parts of this thread people take issue with.
I don’t know exactly what my conclusion is. This is hard, if you’re trying to do your best, but don’t know what that’s supposed to look like, or if you’re not trying because it seems too hard, I get that.
That’s not to say inaction is justified because action is hard or that complicity is ok. Everyone should try to work through this and figure out what they think they can do, but there isn’t a single conclusion everyone should reach.
I try not to comment on issues if I don’t feel like I have something new to say. I know that this means I don’t do things other people think I should do. I have strategic opinions about why I think my approach is right for me.
A cornerstone of my worldview is that it takes all sorts, and different actions are right for different people. I think it’s actively good that the double binds I talked about exist because it means people with different ideas are passionate about their approaches.
I’m open to suggestions about things I should do, but if you’re not prepared to have a long conversation with me that works through my reasoning and treats me as someone you trust to have similar goals, it likely won’t be very useful.
This entire thread probably applies to any other major social issue.
This thread was directly inspired by calls to denounce racism in the Magic community in the form of sharing photoshops of Teferi/Niambi. I struggle with identifying the most useful way to do that.
I could retweet poc who say that it’s bad in an effort to amplify their voices, spread their message, and not center myself. There are definitely people who think that’s the best path. To me, that feels like low hanging fruit.
Low hanging fruit isn’t bad, but I think there are people who tune out when they see the same messages restated several times. I try to minimize my retweets to best reach people who want to follow me specifically for my takes on things.
I first heard than these photoshops had happened when someone asked me how they were racist. After all, the racism in some of them is implicit rather than explicit. I imagine that’s a question more than exactly one person has asked.
This makes me think the best thing I can do is try to educate people who don’t get it. There might be people who think I as a white person shouldn’t be presenting myself as an authority to teach people here, but...
There are others who will say that poc can’t expected to do all the work of educators and white people need to be active about teaching each other. So understand that my answering this question isn’t about my experience.
I read a lot, and digest what other people say about these things, and try to figure out how to phrase it to be easiest to get for people like me, because that’s the role that I can be uniquely suited for. Sorry for the wordy disclaimers needed here.
Anyway, photoshops defiling an image of positive black fatherhood basically convey “you can’t have nice things/this is not for you” to a group that rarely gets nice things.
If your reaction is, “so it’s ok to make this joke only if it’s about white people, that’s not fair” first off, the joke’s pretty gross regardless, but second, uh, yeah, the circumstances of race aren’t fair, and different rules are needed to address that.
The point here is that it’s not a coincidence that this card in particular lead to this phenomenon and that highlights an underlying problem.
Now, I do think the question, “how big of an underlying problem?” Is valid. It’s not news that some ignorant people play Magic, that’s inevitable when millions of people play and the barrier to playing is getting your hands on some cards.
One or two people making some photoshops doesn’t say anything about the larger community. What does potentially raise larger concerns is where those are shared, by who, and to what kind of response.
Judges sharing this for any purpose other than raising awareness of an issue and condemnation is concerning.
