@thatpinguino said:
@gundamguru: You started this dialog by saying this to me:
The guy who hit the gal with the car was driving a Dodge, same model as mine. Do I need to sell my car now? Guilt by association? Is that where we're at?
That's a straw man argument that I wasn't making and it was hyperbolic. That's where this conversation started. Four sentences putting words in my mouth. I responded by tying my comment to the actual context of this gauntlet getting changed, aka the point of the whole thread.
Your next comment was:
Simmer down, I'm not promoting or justifying anything. Swearing at me isn't going to change my mind.
Just making a generic case. There's a difference between hate and hate speech and things used by or associated with people who are hateful or say hate speech. At what point can we not just say the acronym "KEK" isn't hate speech everywhere, all the time? At what point can I not just say Dodge Challenger's are not the official cars of neo nazis? In a vacuum, by itself? The acronym was divorced from the Nazi flag here. It's something muttered as a "lol" substitute in Twitch chat every day. It's the principle of the thing I have a problem with, not the particulars of this instance.
You again dodged talking about the specifics of this situation. This piece of armor isn't divorced from the flag because, as people have posted earlier in the thread, the armor shares a font, color scheme, and logo with the flag. It is not just a random "kek", it's pattern is so close to the flag that it's really hard for me to believe they're completely unrelated. You keep talking about this slippery slope as though there is a super tenuous connection to the flag or as though I'm advocating for some next step. The connection isn't tenuous and I'm not advocating for a next step. I'm saying Bungie is justified in changing this piece of armor, issuing a small apology, and then going on with their business.
The term "kek" isn't the issue here. The flag in question isn't a culturally neutral thing. It's a flag that is designed off of the Nazi flag that happens to include "kek". The thing at issue is an image that was always loaded with white supremacist meaning, so I don't think your slippery slope argument holds water in this case.
And the reason I said "Also in my experience the people who show up to only raise objections about the principle of censoring hate speech, rather than the hate speech itself, tend to not be all that worried about being the target of hate speech." is because the examples you've given of a slippery slope are things like your car. Things that are personally tied to you. I can't make sense of going to that as your point of argumentation unless you're more worried about being accused of being racist than you are of being the target of people invoking this particular racist imagery. If your takeaway from me talking about white supremacists marching under a shitty green flag is "what about my car? Is that bad too?" (and that's how you started this discussion). I don't really know how else to make sense about where your head is at.
I know I said I was done, and I've not been reading the thread, but I did want to respond to you. I agree with you that removing this gauntlet is probably the safe thing to do for Bungie at this instance, as a business decision. But since you're so determined to delve into the specifics here...
I disagree that this item is a for-sure, 100%, no doubt, convictable evidence of a reference to that Kekistan flag. First of all, the color, while a shade of green, is different. There are a different number of lines representing the "E," four instead of three (which could call into question whether those are an E at all, and not just lines, since it is too many). The outsides of the K's are framed by additional vertical lines not found in the Kekistan logo. The font is actually different, though it is a high-impact sans font, the same type.
What I'm getting at here is this. I think there is some possibility that this was accident, and the vicious overreaction on the internet, that is, treating this as 100% verified convictable proof of racism is wrong. Anyone who thinks that has never been wrongly accused of racism by a petty, mean spirited person, fired from a job, ostracised from a community, over an honest misunderstanding. This online mob is so ready to lynch this guy; it's disgusting. He has not beaten anyone. He hasn't killed anyone. He's not standing in the street holding a tiki torch chanting racist slogans at people. I know what hate speech looks like, and it's not subtle.
This design and the alleged reference were sufficiently obscure as to pass through whatever peer review and oversight Bungie had. Do we even know if this was made after Charlottesville? This could have been in the pipe for who knows how long. Only this artist knows his intentions. If they were bad, then screw him, and he deserves consequences. I'm certain Bungie is conducting an investigation.
But giving someone a reasonable benefit of the doubt is not evil. It is not aiding and abetting hate. It's compassion, dammit, and we need more of it these days.
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