not that i've read everything ~ but i think its good, and no1 should give a damn.
This is true - prejudice is a form of hate.
However, another problem is conflating racism with other forms of hate. This generalizes the targeted issue of racism and can actually remove it from being the subject at hand, which ghosts the racially traumatized victim.
Food for thought
I moderate my buddies public cs:go 1v1 server. I mute, kick, and ban for racism 2 to 1 for the rest of the other rules combined.
Most of it is fake. What's the first thing kids do when they get away from adults? They swear. Why? Because it's "bad" and they aren't allowed to. I know when I was a kid when my friends and I got away from adults we turned into fucking sailors. Add in the protection and anonymity of the internet, and racism and bigotry is just the next step. They aren't allowed to swear, so they swear. They aren't allowed to be hateful racist assholes, so they are hateful racist assholes. It's about doing things you aren't allowed to do, and pissing people off by doing it. It's exciting to do things you aren't supposed to, especially when you're young.
Occasionally you'll run into some real down home racism or sexism, but most of it is kids and young adults acting out. We all did it to some degree growing up. Whether it was just swearing, or egging people's houses, drinking, smoking, graffiti or whatever. It's mostly about rebellion against authority, and almost everyone goes through it (some never grow out of it). The internet just gives a new, nearly consequence free outlet for that adolescent rebellion. And because of that, it can be amplified.
That's why the younger the player base is for a game, the more horrific the voice chat tends to be. When you play games geared more toward adults, you tend to only have to deal with the few people who actually are legitimate assholes. But that's just life. Some people are dicks.
Racism in gaming is not real. It's a natural process in adolescence. You've better luck blaming the media for scaring the youth into taboo feelers for things they don't fully comprehend.
You give racism power when you react to it
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Racism is not a natural adolescent process.
It is most certainly real in gaming.
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Wrong - Racism has power because people do not react to it
^^^^^ this
Do you see young kids like 5yo care if their friend is Black, Asian, Jewish or Hindu no they do not know racism.
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Real racism, yes. 12 year old trolls who just want to scream the N Word because their parents aren't around and they can get away with a bad thing, not so much. Giving them attention perpetuates it. Little Kenny down the street doesn't actually have a deep seeded hatred of the African American community. He's simply getting off by saying things he's not supposed to, and by getting a rise out of the people he's playing with. That type of shit most certainly should be ignored, and equating it to people who truly are bigoted towards other races is confusing the issue.
Not in and of it's self, but pushing boundaries and rebelling against authority is. "I'm not supposed to say fuck? Well fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck!" Children, adolescents especially, are drawn to rebellious acts. We all went through it. And like I said above, the internet just gives kids an anonymous and consequence free arena to rebel. Some turn to faux racism. The kid calling you a dirty jew while you're playing Call of Duty probably isn't going to join a hate group in his 20s. He probably doesn't even really know what a jew is. He's just some kid acting out on the internet. He deserves a ban and a slap on the head, but he's not going to be the next grand wizard of the kkk.
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That is such a stupid thing to say. Racism is more complicated than that.
As everyone has already said, It's the fucking kids getting on the internet again. Swear to christ the next time I hear swag or scrub.
When ever I hear a 10year old or one of these guys on Garrys Mod or whatever it is I'm playing I just local mute them. Don't care, not listening to your crap anymore lol.
Yea I dropped in on a game while they were playing a FPS. They're kids, and yea, they were dropping all kinds of racist and sexist explicits.
Puts me of online gaming with people I don't actually know.
This thread is just asking for trouble
Sorry i guess my post hurt everyones butt.
I keep reading its the kids or its 12 year olds but I wasn't racist or had any desire to be at any age.
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How can any one tell your race from a video game?
First let me say you have a great perception of part of the problem, and that problem isn't games, games are just one of many outlets for dysfunctional behavior stemming from a combination of lots of social issues. Granted a percentage of it is just kids acting up...being kids, but a bigger portion of the kids are just doing and saying things because of a lack of respect, discipline, and consequences for actions (we call this responsibility).
IMHO you are right it's not that it's worse although the tone or content is worse, but that it is much more widespread or mainstream than ever before effecting many more kids, we've had over 20 years of a continual degrading of societies moral values through every avenue that is available be it media (music, TV, and news), education, or just the principles our society thinks are important for healthy child development, take corporal punishment for example, it has been used for ever as a effective form of behavior modification that worked, (this is where cause, effect, and consequences come in) but today society chooses to medicate kids into submission which has lots of unintended side effects for the kids, but makes big pharma companies billions of dollars every year.
I saw a post here on the Tek a few weeks ago it was a AMA (Redit Stlye) post, the OP was from a Asian country I forget which but one of the answers he gave was about corporal punishment and how his country still used it and the kids mostly learned to be respectful and had manners because they knew what would happen if they didn't. The OP said that in their culture they thought the West (being the USA) was very odd in how they raised their kids because of the general lack of discipline backed up by punishment.
All the big thinkers will tell you how impressionable young kids are during the "child development" years and how susceptible to traumatic events the child is during this period of their life, and it's probably very true, I know when I acted like a wild kid and my dad got his belt out it didn't take me long to figure out that there were consequences for certain behavior that he deemed unacceptable, I never in adult life felt mistreated or abused but do feel it instilled in me a sense of morals, respect, and discipline that has served me well as a adult, if I had been drugged into submission as kids are today I doubt I would have turned out the same because drugs create a false sense of reality while your under the influence, remove that influence and you become a very confused person because your perceptions of reality are false so you need the drugs to maintain a altered sense of reality.
What's the answer?, who knows, but it's a safe bet that kids are victims of society, peer pressure, general lack of discipline, and a lack of consequences do little to mold young kids into mature respectable adults that can function in society and be productive members, the general lack of respect towards others while demanding respect at the same time is very troubling, there are exceptions but by and large most kids need some form of positive reinforcement to promote good behavior and consequences for bad behavior that goes a little further than sitting in the corner doing a time out.
tl,dr It's not games that is the cause, it's society.
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Well said, I don't know if I was hinting that I think it was because of games that is causing it. I believe there are many reasons why, but sometimes it is hard to move that from your mind to a form where it made sense to you but being read by someone else it may come as only looking at something one way. This is why books are proofread buy other people before released lol.
I think a big part is as you said lack of consequences. I'll give a personal example. I 23 at the time lived on my own in an rented house. I had two neighbors both Hispanic. The one side were cool, kept to themselves and also felt the way I did about the other neighbor. The neighbor in question had probably 5 kids varying in age none probably above 12 who did what ever they wanted. They would play in the middle of the street completely unsupervised and I'm talking about kids that are riding bikes that still have training wheels. They would also trespass constantly because oh nothing will happen we just get told to get out.
One day I came home and they have a swing set up that is backed up to my garage and they were swinging back and kicking the side of the garage, I told them to stop. they did for about 5 seconds. I then went to the door which was answered by someone who hardly spoke English and after that the swing was moved so they can no longer kick it.
Come one day when I was pissed off since they had already allegedly stolen two nvidia rebates for game keys and a phone usb car charger previously out of my car.
I caught them coming out from my back yard some time after the nvida rebate thing and i pulled my car up to them close enough that I make it look like i was going to hit them and told them to get the fuck out and if i catch you again you will have the cops called on you. They never again went into my yard. I know because after that I set up security cameras. Thus implementing a consequence for there actions with a result of them not doing the behavior again.
I think the us and other countries could learn a lot from they way Japan runs, They are very respectful to each other maybe not as much as they used to I don't know I don't live there nor have I visited. There is no lets call it honor in the US even respect and "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" is something that is dwindling.
Even if you mute the person that doesn't constituent a repercussion that's just a way for you to suppress them. Games that implement features were you can report that person and they get banned/ suspended from game are nice features, that add something to the game other then the old "just mute that person" which that attitude does not fix the issue it is more of a band-aid. It would be equivalent to an IT guy who has a user that contently uses the H drive to store movies on. And the it guy just goes in and deletes them or makes a script that deletes all .mp4. It is a band-aid not a fix.
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You nailed it on many points. Teenagers will always be rebellious but because of this whole "kids should never be unhappy" mentality we have. It creates a false sense of unwarranted self importance and entitlement.
I love when you tell someone to calm down and their answer is free speech. You don't have free speech in a private service or property.