Diversity in MPQ and Comics - Split thread

jp1

Okay, I understand the topic is important to you, and of course to us as well hopefully. However, I’m legitimately asking who did the things you are making accusations of. I did t notice anyone mocking you or shouting you down. That’s a serious question.

You should t make assumptions about someone’s life, motivations, or beliefs based merely on the fact they aren’t seeing the same thing you are. It’s more than hasty, it’s irresponsible and can be offensive. Maybe those of us who were speaking up just don’t believe that D3 or even modern day Marvel have such insidious tactics up their sleeve. 

History is there to remind us all of progress that has been made and mistakes we shouldn’t repeat. They can’t change what has happened in the past, but it looks like they have been trying to add diversity to their new IPs.

tiomono

purplemur said:

I don't think  saying " nah, they are the same, I don't see any difference" is shouting down. I meant the rejection of the notion outright. Like arguing that whitewashing is racist or that sam L is blackwashing. The rate at which people decided to jump in and weigh their opinions in a gotcha type rebuttal was startling.

 A lot of the responses have been nuanced and helpful to offer suggestions about what is going on. I welcome the responses about color palettes and the perception of lightening that the change in costumes brings. My partner actually suggested it was also the glow from her vibranium Gauntlets, but where are they in this costume? she has bare arms (look at her elbows). I get that perception does not always equal reality especially with differences in phones and relevant backgrounds, etc. 

I messed up - for sure- and was too hasty in my original comment and gave the wrong name: mainly because I remember the backlash to Riri's "HitPoints" when she was first released. I guess I was just channeling. I accused the art team of shady practices - and even if it was real that they did lighten her skin tone- it may have been accidental or unintended. If that derailed the conversation at launch then I'm sorry for hurting my own cause. 

This was not an attempt to troll anyone - I was upset enough to ask a room full of non videogame people to see if I was just making it up. I got enough of a response in the yeah that looks bad that I brought it up here. I did feel mocked and ridiculed unnecessarily -even if i was completely mistaken. and my point was not that forumites are racist but that by rushing to deny a thing in it's entirety makes it seem like the motivation is fear which usually comes with the white sense of loss of hegemony. We are talking about a thing (something that has been widely discussed, studied and quantified), and if your only contribution is to mock the idea than perhaps that voice isn't needed in the discussion?

I'm sorry if you felt my response was shouting down the notion of potential racism. (I'm still not sure why my other comment is marooned in the costume topic) I was not rushing to deny something anymore than you were rushing to claim something.

We both are speaking from a place of passion or emotion. I have no idea what color anyone on this forum is (except for you maybe being purple), and it doesn't matter to me in the slightest.

There are many terms, sayings, and viewpoints that are still common in society today that are racist. None of them should be ok. People are people, we are all human, and should have the same value regardless of what part of the globe we were born in.

No skin color is immune to being racist which is why I feel reverse racism is not a thing. It comes down to needing to treat everyone the same, calling out people that arent,  and teaching our children to embrace everyone equally.

Jumping to conclusions based on emotion only escalates things and puts people's defenses up.

JHawkInc

Honestly, as much as the real problems with representation and whitewashing actually exist, this is so clearly not one of them that my gut reflex is to not take an accusation seriously.

The mature and rational response is to point out that the skin tones are the same, but the drastic difference in brightness of her outfits causes them to look different, and that there's no foul committed here.

But jumping to accusations of whitewashing... it's SUCH an overstep. It's absolutely unnecessary to accuse people of an offense like that when we haven't even done due diligence to determine if there's even a difference in the first place. I don't really see any "gotcha" rebuttals, but this feels like a "gotcha" accusation in the first place, so I don't think reacting with an eye roll and an audible sigh is unfair. This could have been handled by looking at whether or not the skin tone changed and not bringing up racism at all, and instead fingers were pointed immediately, which makes it harder to take seriously. It feels like the goal was to express outrage rather than to determine if outrage was warranted. A knee-jerk response (which will encourage knee-jerk responses in kind).

.
.
THAT said, I'm glad it appears to simply be a case of optical illusions with different outfits, and that there was nothing to worry about.

This kinda reminds me of previous discussions of representation in MPQ. It used to be centered on the 5* tier, with talks of the lack of women (Phoenix and then Black Widow only at the time, since then we've added Jessica Jones, Captain Marvel, Hela, Kitty, Storm, Okoye, Wasp, and Rescue) and villains (Goblin and Thanos early on, since then we've added Doc Ock, Kingpin, Loki, Doom, and Hela).

They never outright said "Look, we're adding more women and villains!" but it is something we talked about a lot back in the day, that has improved over time.

I'd be interested to tackle that again from different diversity standpoints.

Just some brainstorming, to hit groups that aren't as represented in-game currently, how about... Spider-Girl (Araña), Spider-Man 2099, Silk, Goldballs, Sunspot, Slingshot (at least while Agents of Shield is still on the air), the younger/newer Power Man or Falcon, White Tiger, Warpath, Dani Moonstar, Forge, Dust, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, Shang Chi, the Mandarin.

Then after that we can work on non-human representation (which appears to be equally lacking, but won't be equally important until we discover actual Kree or Skrulls in the real world)

tiomono

I also was not trying to say that blackwashing is even a term. As far as I know it's not.

But suppose that term existed. How would it be viewed? Would it be tolerated? I feel it would not be acceptable. Which is why terms like whitewashing or mansplaining irritate the mess out of me.

I'm aware whitewashing is a term. I also know what it means. I just feel it's only there to be sensationalist to grab people's attention as opposed to actually wanting to draw real and reasonable attention to issues that are very important.

marshall

Overall agree with the sentiment expressed here. I think this game fares way better than most and a lot of the time they're bound by the limitations of the publisher's character inventory.

I also agree that this is a charged topic that requires more nuance that a forum like this caters to, and that most people want to see racism as: 

A) a thing of the past but less prevalent now, which can be easily disproven by simply turning on the news

a conceptual prejudice that refers to prejudice against any people, ignoring power imbalances and institutional racism, like the greater likely of black people being stopped/shot by cops or getting harsher sentences for minor crimes

C) a black and white dichotomy, where you are either 'racist' or a Good Person©. Truth is we all grew up in this society and we're affected by its inherent bias. To deny that it affects you is to pretend racism isn't real. This is a nuanced issue and the best you can do is check your bias and do better.

Overall I feel this game upholds Marvel values. Just look at our current meta: an African woman, a Jewish woman, an alcoholic woman and a one-eyed PTSD 1500 year old 😂

#EndRant

ThaRoadWarrior

To address the issue of whitewashing, it doesn't actually have to be some malicious race conspiracy to happen. It could be happening just due to subtle "preferences" for what makes an image look better. So somebody just kind of...lightens a thing up for art's sake, and the end result is that a character may be a little lighter. No harmful intent, but there you go, representation has been lost. I'm white, but my wife's family comes from India. I take it for granted that i can get band-aids that are reasonably skin-matching. If my skin were darker, they would stand out. Is that racist? no, but it's one of those subtle items that is part of the larger background picture of majority/minority relations, at least here in the states. Another one is that if you're shopping for women's shoes, you can buy some that are "nude" in color. What skintone you think those most resemble? So anyway, I'm sympathetic to OP's reaction to the costume.

Straycat

Gut reaction- I recognized the outfit from the movie, so I didn't see an issue. Looking at this thread, I think it's fine. Side by side they swap which body parts are covered, bare arms vs gloves, bare shoulders vs sleeves, skirt vs pants, so you can't even lay them over each other to compare.  
 You could argue they misstepped, to whatever degree, when they first released Shuri. She has more cartoonish features than the actress, far from how accurately Okoye is drawn. She was given larger eyes and a smaller nose, while its not making her whiter, it is changing her appearance to be more "conventional" looking i.e. less diverse. 
But I am not arguing that. 

purplemur

I gotta own up to this: I overstepped and exaggerated in MY responses. I really took like 2 or 3 snarky et tu's and flamed out. I understand that the way I approached the whole thing was too reactive. I thought I saw something and ran with it instead of bringing it up in a better way.
Sorry to emote all over the boards. 

I really appreciate the helpful advice on what was causing cognitive dissonance,  and the heartfelt responses that assured me there was no malicious intent meant. 

Dear art department: I am sorry I false shamed you. If it wasn't for your work I wouldn't play this Match 3. Thank you for the excellent work you put in.

sorry ya'll

Zeofar

tiomono said:

I also was not trying to say that blackwashing is even a term. As far as I know it's not.

But suppose that term existed. How would it be viewed? Would it be tolerated? I feel it would not be acceptable. Which is why terms like whitewashing or mansplaining irritate the mess out of me.

I'm aware whitewashing is a term. I also know what it means. I just feel it's only there to be sensationalist to grab people's attention as opposed to actually wanting to draw real and reasonable attention to issues that are very important.

The important part is that 'Whitewashing' is not just a term, it is a real phenomenon that has went on for a very long time (affecting not only fiction and media portrayals of historical figures but historical record itself) and been used as a tool of racial suppression and cultural erasure. Suggesting that 'Blackwashing' is an equivalent term or that 'whitewashing' is sensationalism actively minimizes the reality to which 'whitewashing' refers. You're talking about a term being tolerated but ignoring the substance behind it; does whitewashing become less problematic to you if you just call it something else, like 'vbjhsdfz'? No longer descriptive or pronounceable, but it couldn't possibly have any offensive baggage, right?

tiomono said:

It's the same skin tone. And by the way "white" people aren't white so wouldnt the term whitewashed in this context be racist?

Again, this seems like a pure focus on optics rather than the actual issue. Personally, I think the concept of race itself is just a social construct, but I still don't think that talking about codified racial tropes like 'blackness' and 'whiteness' and how they relate to skin tone is the same thing as an endorsement of those ideas. There's no catch-22 that makes it impossible to discuss racism without also being racist.

But as far as the OP goes, that's a big yikes. I know that Purplemur said they aren't trolling... but I'm going to have to think on that. Referring to Riri and Shuri interchangeably, aggressively asserting that Shuri has been 'whitewashed' (to the same skin tone as her original art?), then getting extremely defensive over a complaint that doesn't make sense... It reads more like a bad joke than genuine concern. Was there some major loss of context when this thread got split? Deleted posts? Am I missing something?

DAZ0273

Zeofar said:

tiomono said:

I also was not trying to say that blackwashing is even a term. As far as I know it's not.

But suppose that term existed. How would it be viewed? Would it be tolerated? I feel it would not be acceptable. Which is why terms like whitewashing or mansplaining irritate the mess out of me.

I'm aware whitewashing is a term. I also know what it means. I just feel it's only there to be sensationalist to grab people's attention as opposed to actually wanting to draw real and reasonable attention to issues that are very important.

The important part is that 'Whitewashing' is not just a term, it is a real phenomenon that has went on for a very long time (affecting not only fiction and media portrayals of historical figures but historical record itself) and been used as a tool of racial suppression and cultural erasure. Suggesting that 'Blackwashing' is an equivalent term or that 'whitewashing' is sensationalism actively minimizes the reality to which 'whitewashing' refers. You're talking about a term being tolerated but ignoring the substance behind it; does whitewashing become less problematic to you if you just call it something else, like 'vbjhsdfz'? No longer descriptive or pronounceable, but it couldn't possibly have any offensive baggage, right?

tiomono said:

It's the same skin tone. And by the way "white" people aren't white so wouldnt the term whitewashed in this context be racist?

Again, this seems like a pure focus on optics rather than the actual issue. Personally, I think the concept of race itself is just a social construct, but I still don't think that talking about codified racial tropes like 'blackness' and 'whiteness' and how they relate to skin tone is the same thing as an endorsement of those ideas. There's no catch-22 that makes it impossible to discuss racism without also being racist.

But as far as the OP goes, that's a big yikes. I know that Purplemur said they aren't trolling... but I'm going to have to think on that. Referring to Riri and Shuri interchangeably, aggressively asserting that Shuri has been 'whitewashed' (to the same skin tone as her original art?), then getting extremely defensive over a complaint that doesn't make sense... It reads more like a bad joke than genuine concern. Was there some major loss of context when this thread got split? Deleted posts? Am I missing something?

Purplemur has clarified above that it hit a nerve and he reacted from a hasty perspective.

Whilst having the larger discussion is definitely worth while, I think we should accept that sometimes people type in haste and that this forum has by and large posters who are intelligent with good intentions and we should just let it rest at that in terms of picking apart who said what.

tiomono

Zeofar said:

tiomono said:

I also was not trying to say that blackwashing is even a term. As far as I know it's not.

But suppose that term existed. How would it be viewed? Would it be tolerated? I feel it would not be acceptable. Which is why terms like whitewashing or mansplaining irritate the mess out of me.

I'm aware whitewashing is a term. I also know what it means. I just feel it's only there to be sensationalist to grab people's attention as opposed to actually wanting to draw real and reasonable attention to issues that are very important.

The important part is that 'Whitewashing' is not just a term, it is a real phenomenon that has went on for a very long time (affecting not only fiction and media portrayals of historical figures but historical record itself) and been used as a tool of racial suppression and cultural erasure. Suggesting that 'Blackwashing' is an equivalent term or that 'whitewashing' is sensationalism actively minimizes the reality to which 'whitewashing' refers. You're talking about a term being tolerated but ignoring the substance behind it; does whitewashing become less problematic to you if you just call it something else, like 'vbjhsdfz'? No longer descriptive or pronounceable, but it couldn't possibly have any offensive baggage, right?

tiomono said:

It's the same skin tone. And by the way "white" people aren't white so wouldnt the term whitewashed in this context be racist?

Again, this seems like a pure focus on optics rather than the actual issue. Personally, I think the concept of race itself is just a social construct, but I still don't think that talking about codified racial tropes like 'blackness' and 'whiteness' and how they relate to skin tone is the same thing as an endorsement of those ideas. There's no catch-22 that makes it impossible to discuss racism without also being racist.

But as far as the OP goes, that's a big yikes. I know that Purplemur said they aren't trolling... but I'm going to have to think on that. Referring to Riri and Shuri interchangeably, aggressively asserting that Shuri has been 'whitewashed' (to the same skin tone as her original art?), then getting extremely defensive over a complaint that doesn't make sense... It reads more like a bad joke than genuine concern. Was there some major loss of context when this thread got split? Deleted posts? Am I missing something?

I'm not denying that "whitewashing" has happened or continues to happen. It obviously has and is. I dislike the term used to describe it because it carrys that feeling of highlighting one demographic and shaming it. Even if historically a group in general has been oppressively racist,  judgemental, or suppressive. The way to highlight the problem and work toward change should not be to return the treatment in any way.

I get that whitewashing is subtle and invasive and not really comparable to using Sam Jackson as Fury in the movies. I was trying to draw a comparison to make people think if they would be ok if a term used to describe a problem could potentially still be contributing to the problem? 

Sorry I'm going to branch off into another semi stretch now. Similar to how some prominent people in media or show business will Express frustration or outrage at President Trumps choice of words or childish behavior towards groups of people, but do not bat an eye at people describing him as an orangutan or cheeto. But feel he deserves to be treated childish because he acts childish. That type of behavior does not help to make anything better but just keeps tensions and emotions high and inflamed. 

But it may be that I'm overreacting, drawing poor comparisons, or just failing to express myself properly.

End of the day my feeling is that racism is extremely harmful. People should not be treated according to where they were born, or what conditions they were raised under. They should be treated according to their actions and beliefs. Those are what truly affect the people around them and can make the world a miserable place to be for others.

purplemur

Trying to be introspective and thoughtful on this and learn from my braying and kicking up fuss: 
I did some reading, I re-read your remonstrations and took them to heart,  I talked to some people, I watched a video and learnt that I pretty much went about it all wrong
A longer mea culpa:TLDR/ cried wolf

I really am sorry that I ran up in that thread pointing the finger of accusation, and being every sort of dramatic: I did type OP out in haste and preexisting emotion carried over from a work discussion about a certain celebrity who is getting "lighter" and that one got out of hand with people literally being shouted over each other. I didn't really get involved there(playing MPQ and listening) but I guess I wanted to say something about it after all because I totally projected all that here. I was reading comments on sports and reading trade and draft rumors. I brought too much gutter in on my shoes and forgot that this forum is not a street fight. I was antagonistic. Saying I read the comments at work is an injustice to the word read. When I actually re-read everything I see that I was crying fire when there was no flames and really no smoke; just my own shade. I was transferring carry over arguments and more than a littlle bit of that term for when you take a thing you don't like about yourself and put it on others. I really made it out like if you disagree it's because your racist; which is such knee-jerk baloney. That's no way to start a dialogue, or even just ask " Am I tripping? or did they just do....?" Which if I had ya'll would have just been like nope, but here's why you think you did.... Instead I really put a turd in the punch. I feel embarrassed with my words, my first reaction is to just go back and do some cowardly edit *snip* but maybe it can be a lesson: next time I have worked a long shift and am angry at my computer at 1 in the morning I should save a draft and come back and proof when I wake. I shouldn't just open a tab and hammer out a response either. It's a forum not a chat. I need to learn my place: arguing about Lebron's legacy takes place in a different building then the MPQ forum ; it's like that Monty python -this is insults, arguments down the hall
not trying to be defensive; I was wrong, I acted like an tinykitty and I'm sorry

However:

If the conversation takes an awkward turn, don't run!

So, you mistakenly assumed your Indian friend makes a mean curry, or that your black friend loves trap music—both equally stupid, but also recoverable, slip-ups. When the road gets rough, just breathe, apologize, and continue the dialogue. If Ted Danson can recover from that whole blackface, N-word thing, there’s hope for you.

*exerpt from "How to Talk About Race Without Making a Complete {Tinykitty} of Yourself."

It never got heated where slurs were dropped or anyone made a racist joke; and some really good points have been raised:

JHawkInc said:

This kinda reminds me of previous discussions of representation in MPQ. It used to be centered on the 5* tier, with talks of the lack of women (Phoenix and then Black Widow only at the time, since then we've added Jessica Jones, Captain Marvel, Hela, Kitty, Storm, Okoye, Wasp, and Rescue) and villains (Goblin and Thanos early on, since then we've added Doc Ock, Kingpin, Loki, Doom, and Hela).

They never outright said "Look, we're adding more women and villains!" but it is something we talked about a lot back in the day, that has improved over time.

I'd be interested to tackle that again from different diversity standpoints.

Just some brainstorming, to hit groups that aren't as represented in-game currently, how about... Spider-Girl (Araña), Spider-Man 2099, Silk, Goldballs, Sunspot, Slingshot (at least while Agents of Shield is still on the air), the younger/newer Power Man or Falcon, White Tiger, Warpath, Dani Moonstar, Forge, Dust, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, Shang Chi, the Mandarin.

Then after that we can work on non-human representation (which appears to be equally lacking, but won't be equally important until we discover actual Kree or Skrulls in the real world)

Straycat said:

Gut reaction- I recognized the outfit from the movie, so I didn't see an issue. Looking at this thread, I think it's fine. Side by side they swap which body parts are covered, bare arms vs gloves, bare shoulders vs sleeves, skirt vs pants, so you can't even lay them over each other to compare.  
 You could argue they misstepped, to whatever degree, when they first released Shuri. She has more cartoonish features than the actress, far from how accurately Okoye is drawn. She was given larger eyes and a smaller nose, while its not making her whiter, it is changing her appearance to be more "conventional" looking i.e. less diverse. 
But I am not arguing that. 

jp1 said:

I would agree that representation for minorities is low, but based on the pool they have to pull from I’m not sure what they might do about it.

Yepyep said:

Re point 2, above, racism in video games and comics: like I said in my earlier comment (https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/881431#Comment_881431), I agree with your overall theme. Which I read to be that there are historical injustices -- like racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. -- built into comics and games that we should oppose and call out when we see it. If this is what you meant, then I agree with you and I bet MANY others here also do.

But it is perfectly legitimate to agree with your theme and disagree that this is clear evidence of racism. It might just be too subtle for a consensus opinion to arise...

So please, don't let my fail ruin this topic.  My sincere hope is that maybe we still can have some kind of discussion about the art departments depictions of POC, and the games inclusion of more underrepresented chars. Not from a place of it's a problem but from a sense of it would help the game if...... 

I'm sorry how I went about it, I'm going to step to the back of the room and let the adults continue

ps lighting is everything

Bowgentle

purplemur said:

Trying to be introspective and thoughtful on this and learn from my braying and kicking up fuss: 
I did some reading, I re-read your remonstrations and took them to heart,  I talked to some people, I watched a video and learnt that I pretty much went about it all wrong
A longer mea culpa:TLDR/ cried wolf

I really am sorry that I ran up in that thread pointing the finger of accusation, and being every sort of dramatic: I did type OP out in haste and preexisting emotion carried over from a work discussion about a certain celebrity who is getting "lighter" and that one got out of hand with people literally being shouted over each other. I didn't really get involved there(playing MPQ and listening) but I guess I wanted to say something about it after all because I totally projected all that here. I was reading comments on sports and reading trade and draft rumors. I brought too much gutter in on my shoes and forgot that this forum is not a street fight. I was antagonistic. Saying I read the comments at work is an injustice to the word read. When I actually re-read everything I see that I was crying fire when there was no flames and really no smoke; just my own shade. I was transferring carry over arguments and more than a littlle bit of that term for when you take a thing you don't like about yourself and put it on others. I really made it out like if you disagree it's because your racist; which is such knee-jerk baloney. That's no way to start a dialogue, or even just ask " Am I tripping? or did they just do....?" Which if I had ya'll would have just been like nope, but here's why you think you did.... Instead I really put a turd in the punch. I feel embarrassed with my words, my first reaction is to just go back and do some cowardly edit *snip* but maybe it can be a lesson: next time I have worked a long shift and am angry at my computer at 1 in the morning I should save a draft and come back and proof when I wake. I shouldn't just open a tab and hammer out a response either. It's a forum not a chat. I need to learn my place: arguing about Lebron's legacy takes place in a different building then the MPQ forum ; it's like that Monty python -this is insults, arguments down the hall
not trying to be defensive; I was wrong, I acted like an tinykitty and I'm sorry

However:

If the conversation takes an awkward turn, don't run!

So, you mistakenly assumed your Indian friend makes a mean curry, or that your black friend loves trap music—both equally stupid, but also recoverable, slip-ups. When the road gets rough, just breathe, apologize, and continue the dialogue. If Ted Danson can recover from that whole blackface, N-word thing, there’s hope for you.

*exerpt from "How to Talk About Race Without Making a Complete {Tinykitty} of Yourself."

It never got heated where slurs were dropped or anyone made a racist joke; and some really good points have been raised:

JHawkInc said:

This kinda reminds me of previous discussions of representation in MPQ. It used to be centered on the 5* tier, with talks of the lack of women (Phoenix and then Black Widow only at the time, since then we've added Jessica Jones, Captain Marvel, Hela, Kitty, Storm, Okoye, Wasp, and Rescue) and villains (Goblin and Thanos early on, since then we've added Doc Ock, Kingpin, Loki, Doom, and Hela).

They never outright said "Look, we're adding more women and villains!" but it is something we talked about a lot back in the day, that has improved over time.

I'd be interested to tackle that again from different diversity standpoints.

Just some brainstorming, to hit groups that aren't as represented in-game currently, how about... Spider-Girl (Araña), Spider-Man 2099, Silk, Goldballs, Sunspot, Slingshot (at least while Agents of Shield is still on the air), the younger/newer Power Man or Falcon, White Tiger, Warpath, Dani Moonstar, Forge, Dust, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, Shang Chi, the Mandarin.

Then after that we can work on non-human representation (which appears to be equally lacking, but won't be equally important until we discover actual Kree or Skrulls in the real world)

Straycat said:

Gut reaction- I recognized the outfit from the movie, so I didn't see an issue. Looking at this thread, I think it's fine. Side by side they swap which body parts are covered, bare arms vs gloves, bare shoulders vs sleeves, skirt vs pants, so you can't even lay them over each other to compare.  
 You could argue they misstepped, to whatever degree, when they first released Shuri. She has more cartoonish features than the actress, far from how accurately Okoye is drawn. She was given larger eyes and a smaller nose, while its not making her whiter, it is changing her appearance to be more "conventional" looking i.e. less diverse. 
But I am not arguing that. 

jp1 said:

I would agree that representation for minorities is low, but based on the pool they have to pull from I’m not sure what they might do about it.

Yepyep said:

Re point 2, above, racism in video games and comics: like I said in my earlier comment (https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/881431#Comment_881431), I agree with your overall theme. Which I read to be that there are historical injustices -- like racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. -- built into comics and games that we should oppose and call out when we see it. If this is what you meant, then I agree with you and I bet MANY others here also do.

But it is perfectly legitimate to agree with your theme and disagree that this is clear evidence of racism. It might just be too subtle for a consensus opinion to arise...

So please, don't let my fail ruin this topic.  My sincere hope is that maybe we still can have some kind of discussion about the art departments depictions of POC, and the games inclusion of more underrepresented chars. Not from a place of it's a problem but from a sense of it would help the game if...... 

I'm sorry how I went about it, I'm going to step to the back of the room and let the adults continue

ps lighting is everything

Please stop apologizing.
This is an important discussion to have, even if your OP was a bit... misguided.

Yepyep

Bowgentle said:

Please stop apologizing.
This is an important discussion to have, even if your OP was a bit... misguided.

Exactly right. @purplemur, personally I think you’ve handled this really well. It’s a fraught subject, and there’s no dealing with it that doesn’t step on toes, hurt feelings, push buttons. It always happens because it MUST. If those things don’t happen then it didn’t cut deeply enough. 

I also appreciate that you took a chance to discuss something hard. So you broke an egg doing it — so what!?! Well done. And that risk — it was great. It has revealed a thoughtful streak out here on the forum! So many people here have a stake in this, care, suffer, strive. For better. There are many Venn diagrams of “diversity” — and the more every human realizes that, truly apprehends it, the better. 

Great job, everyone. It seems to me everyone commenting on this thread — so far 😂  — is on the side of justice. That’s really something to treasure and remember. Especially in these 2019 times of very great division and distrust. 

Reverend YepYep is done. For now. 🙏🏼

Jormagund

Great, now we've established the game at least makes some attempt at including BAME and LQGTB characters as well as addressing the hero/villain balance and breaking the glass ceiling I think we can all agree that the real issue is the lack of Brits, wot wot??

*Psylocke does not count*

CT1888

Jormagund said:

Great, now we've established the game at least makes some attempt at including BAME and LQGTB characters as well as addressing the hero/villain balance and breaking the glass ceiling I think we can all agree that the real issue is the lack of Brits, wot wot??

*Psylocke does not count*

We need Death's Head, yes? 

marshall

Jessica Drew is British:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Woman_(Jessica_Drew)

bluewolf

CAPTAIN BRITAIN!!!  Please.

Jormagund

marshall said:

Jessica Drew is British:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Woman_(Jessica_Drew)

Thanks, I did not know that she was an ex-pat.  The more you know

DAZ0273

marshall said:

Jessica Drew is British:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Woman_(Jessica_Drew)

Well to be completely accurate she actually has dual nationality. She was born in Britain but her Father was American and she is a naturalised citizen of the United States of America. As she left Britain at age 2 and spent most of her time elsewhere (Transia, Wundagore, Hydra agent shenanigans and then America) she is probably more American than British.