the-pi-guy said:
I think you're making a lot of assumptions. A big problem is that there's not two groups. There's not a group for "DEI", and another group against it. There's an entire spectrum of what people are pushing for/against and also there's a spectrum of what they're aware of. On the awareness part, most of what we talk about people is viewed through race and not ethnicity. We talk about broader groups of white people and black people, even if those things are poorly defined. "It's born from the obsession to compartmentalize people in easily identifiable checkboxes." You're right, but I'm guessing you're blaming the pro-"DEI" people for it. I hope that I'm wrong about my guess, because that's absurd. We live in a cultural context that has a lot of history of putting people in boxes. "You're not white if you're Irish" That is the framework that a lot of western culture has built itself around. Pretending that the culture and context doesn't exist, doesn't make you enlightened. "Let's put a Nigerian, Senegalese and Aboriginal all in the color coded bucket 'black', because of something arbitrary as similar shade of skin color. Totally ignoring their vastly different cultures. Then pretend if Samual L. Jackson stars in a Marvel movie, the Aboriginal feels representation." And I don't think most people are pushing for this massive strawman. No media is going to "check all the boxes", no one is pushing for that. But we need to push for variety, to get more representation. People do push for aboriginals and all these other groups to get some kind of representation. And it is dishonest to boil it down to "we just need black people". |
I am not making assumptions. I do not know why you think that. You have not given me an example, what you think is an assumption.
I am not claiming there are only two groups.
"On the awareness part, most of what we talk about people is viewed through race and not ethnicity. We talk about broader groups of white people and black people, even if those things are poorly defined"
I do not know where you are from. Are you American? This point of view might or might not be valid in the USA. I am not American, so I cannot tell. If you are I do not blame you for the simplified racial representation of Black/White/Asian/etc and think this is how it goes everywhere. It has been over 15 years I visited the US and I remember on my landing card I needed not just share my Nationality but also there where boxes where I would checkbox my race. Those where those simplified Black/White/Asian/Etc checkboxes. I thought that was weird and have literally not seen that for any other country I visited. So if your government tells you this is how it is, I don't blame you to think that these are the major checkboxes to when it comes to representation.
Looking through the prism of the US though, does not make it universal. The world is a big place. I visited more than 50 countries on 4 continents. And no the differentiation/representation is not the simplified US race version with White/Black being the dominant discussion. It is about Nationality, ethnicity, cultural anchor points and depending where you are in the world those in different order.
So let me give you an example, where the simplified view is well meaning, but not effective.
A Korean, Japanese and han-Chinese can recognize which is which a mile off. Most westerners cannot, they can only see an east-Asian appearance. So if you make a character with a generic east-Asian appearance, the creator might believe they put representative diversity in the game for East-Asian gamers. But the truth is that no Korean, Japanese or han-chinese will find any representation in the game. They will find representation in the game, if you actually put a Korean, Japanese or han-Chinese looking character in the game.
That's why I say to just use the simplified Racial divide of Black/White/Asian/Etc is actually not supporting true diversity. It misses the target.
I don't know what you mean by Strawman. I do not know this word. What is wrong of me indicating that the cultural anchor point (my Aboriginal example) is more important to representation than skin color?
