racism – Corey P. Mueller

GAMER LANGUAGE

The Gamer Words, gamer culture, and the real hate of an online world.

^{Jan. 6, 2021}^{by Corey P. Mueller}

If you bought and played any video games in your free time this past year, you are certainly not alone. Video games were a common purchase; through November 2020, video-game sales were up nearly 25% (or $44.5 billion, with a B) year-over-year during the coronavirus pandemic. If you used these purchases to play competitive online games, there is a high likelihood that you have also heard some crass language in those lobbies. This includes but is not limited to racist, ableist, sexist and homophobic slurs; it is all part of the derogatory and insulting vernacular (which I will call Gamer Language, for now) that is pervasive and entrenched in the gaming world.

Particularly in this time of increased isolation and virtual community, we need to reckon with the hateful Gamer Language and its effects – it stretches beyond the confines of the online spaces we now inhabit from day to day. We have gotten used to interacting with other folks through screens, and this kind of communication is no longer insulated within gaming circles. The language used online, then, should receive the same scrutiny that it would in the “real” world, particularly in cases of hateful speech.

When a streamer (read: a professional video-game player) or a casual gamer drops the n-word while playing something online, it can be tempting for some to write this off as a thoughtless outburst during a “heated gaming moment.” Colloquially, slurs are shrugged off and labeled as “Gamer Words,” (the n-word is widely regarded as the ‘worst’ of the Gamer Words) deploying a diluted euphemism to ward off charges of racist intent. The following Twitter exchange from 2018 demonstrates this tactic, and it is one of the earliest examples I could track down of “Gamer Word” being used in a public forum:

Racist slurs are not new, nor is invoking irrelevant context to excuse bad behavior. Men have dismissed accusations of misogynistic language as “locker room talk” or “boys being boys.” We have seen a similar playbook used in the sports world; the Washington Football Team was formerly named an anti-indigenous slur, and the Cleveland Indians used a racist logo for years (which you can read more about in my previous post, Misanthrope Mascot); they were rationalized in the name of “honoring” indigenous people.

When members of the gaming community pad these words with the comparable misnomers of “Gamer Language” and “Gamer Words,” they dishonestly deflect criticism around behavior that, in any other situation, would be categorized as hateful speech that comes from a deeper place of dangerous ideologies and destructive worldviews. These would not be dismissed, but rather they would be taken at face value as bigoted language.

Some of the highest-profile incidents involving the use of racial slurs in the gaming community involve Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as “PewDiePie,” as mentioned in the screencap above. If you noticed a resurgence of Minecraft and Minecraft-related content on YouTube this past year, PewDiePie was largely responsible for this uptick. Kjellberg has the second-most popular channel on YouTube with 107 million subscribers and posted many high-performing videos with that game as their focus. Like many rich and famous folks, Kjellberg has had his share of what Wikipedia labels “media controversies.” In January of 2017, when Kjellberg had a lowly 52 million subscriber-count, PewDiePie posted a video that included a clip of two performers dancing in front of a banner that read “DEATH TO ALL JEWS.” Kjellberg solicited this clip from the dancers on Fiverr and specifically requested that message be displayed, and Kjellberg paid these performers for that clip.

That video has since been made private. In his apology, Kjellberg said,

“I’m not antisemitic, or whatever it’s called, okay so don’t get the wrong idea. It was a funny meme, and I didn’t think it would work, okay. I swear I love Jews, I love ’em.”

In this tepid apology, there is no demonstrable understanding of race, antisemitism, or the history of death threats toward Jewish people and the destructive outcomes that have spawned from these words and beliefs. His motivations were unclear but spreading a message that advocates for the genocide of an entire ethnoreligious group in the name of “jokes” relinquishes the social responsibility that comes with a cultivating such a large online platform. There is already fertile ground for hate crimes in this world (the United States had a record high number of antisemitic incidents in 2019, including a deadly stabbing during a Hanukkah celebration in a New York suburb), and popular internet stars have an added responsibility with an increased audience. Their reach is far, and they have a social responsibility to act appropriately in public, especially when there is a potential impact that reflects on young audiences. After the white nationalist and Islamophobic Christchurch shooting left at least 49 Muslims dead, the shooter released a manifesto that included references to Fortnite and internet culture, including a call to “subscribe to PewDiePie.” Kjellberg is not responsible for the mass shooting that happened in Christchurch, New Zealand, but it seems clear that the shooter has, at the very least, watched Kjellberg’s videos. At worst, the shooter identified in part with some hateful things PewDiePie has said in the past.

High-profile gamers continue to use this language seemingly without consequence, and this language becomes permissible among low-profile gamers in the general populace. According to a 2019 poll from Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Technology and Society, 65 percent of online gamers have experienced “severe harassment”, and “74 percent of online multiplayer gamers have experienced some form of harassment.” Unfortunately, PewDiePie’s controversies did not end with antisemitism; Kjellberg said the n-word while playing an online multiplayer shooter called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in September 2017. Kjellberg also posted and consequently deleted an image that mocked singer Demi Lovato’s drug addiction. Often times, like PewDiePie in his apologies, online harassers will hide behind the guise of making a joke or “doing it for the meme.” “Antisemitic, or whatever it’s called” or not, hate-speech-as-meme circulates regularly on the internet, which creates a self-reinforcing cycle of casual bigotry.

Hate speech and its consequences are not new in the United States – the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project gives a more comprehensive overview of anti-black racism’s history in this country – but it is an ever-shifting behemoth that finds new ways to be “acceptable” in popular culture and our society. Giving it the mask of “The Gamer Word” does just this – it codes the language and softens how we perceive its use. Calling it “The Gamer Word” also concedes that this is just a thing that happens in online spaces during video games and does nothing to challenge the norm. That norm, of course, should be challenged in the name of anti-racist pursuits. Racism is not the only form of bigotry found online; the GamerGate saga, for example, demonstrates the dangerous misogyny that is also alive and well within the gaming community. Racism, however, comes up time and again, and is unfortunately not a thing of the past.

In October, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped on the streaming website Twitch to play the uber-popular multiplayer game called Among Us. Shortly after, someone I know sent the following meme to one of my group chats:

This joke relies on the common understanding that racist slurs are used regularly and openly in online gaming. Charlie Kirk serves as the punchline because he, like the tweeter defending PewDiePie, interprets the use of racial slurs as an in-group identifier rather than an expression of racial animosity. This is an argument that relies heavily on someone being “offended,” and it is an attempt to discount the “feelings” of someone on the receiving end of racist language.

The problem extends beyond simple offense-taking in Call of Duty lobbies or Reddit threads. According to Boston’s Childrens Hospital, “children targeted by racism have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and behavior problems” and “when asked to recall a racist event they’d witnessed as a child, young adults had stress responses comparable to first responders after major disasters.” Around 20 percent of gamers are under 18; gamers and content creators are exposing children in their formative years to ideas that have been shown to inflict harm on their communities. I do not know if my pre-pubescent teammates understood the gravity of what they were saying during a Valorant match a few months ago, but it did not stop them from yelling the n-word back and forth in team chat. I am certain that they believed themselves to be “edgy” and found some sort of humor in using that word. I am also certain that they knew they should not be saying it, because one of them would only say the first half of the n-word, and the other would finish the other half. This has led to some of my friends instantly or automatically muting voice chat in various multiplayer first-person shooter games.

Without some sort of oversight or intervention, this is how society perpetuates and allows racism on an individual level. Riot Games, Blizzard and other large gaming studios claim they advocate against racism, but they fall short on effectively banning folks who use this kind of language, even they have more than enough resources to create a systematic solution for these bad actor individuals. The scope of systemic racism reaches far beyond an individual’s actions and racist behaviors, but it is a feedback loop. Without challenging these behaviors, the young and impressionable folks (like 11% of PewDiePie’s audience who are between 13 and 17 years old) who dole out these slurs become young adults who do not believe in systemic racism, nor do they believe that racism is a problem. This cycle keeps replacing the bricks that uphold racist and hateful foundations, and the damage continues to be wrought on vulnerable communities within that system.

Framing hateful speech as quotidian among gamers does real harm; the laughter of self-proclaimed “dark humorists” does not offset the damage of bigotry.

I hate to be the joke police, but I have developed a simple (and I believe very reasonable!) rule for jokes: jokes are supposed to be funny. I do not believe this is a high bar to clear for joke-tellers, content creators or recreational gamers. What, then, is funny about dancing in front of a sign that advocates for killing Jewish people? What is funny about drug addiction, specifically when a public figure is *publicly* sharing their fight against that disease? I may be called overly sensitive for these stances, but there are situations in which sensitivity is necessary for the health and safety of people who are vulnerable and/or part of marginalized communities. A friend of mine posted the following “meme” that I find more true than funny in one of our shared Discord servers (Discord, for the uninitiated, is like a fun version of Slack. There are different chat rooms and servers you can join to pop in and hang out with friends or game. It is a social medium designed specifically around gamers, but it has other uses as well.) I find this applicable to a not-insignificant portion of content I find online:

When a joke relies on hate speech as the punchline, it is lazy joke writing and harmful to folks not insulated by privileged identities. If you need examples of this, I will point you towards the MISFITS, a group of Australia-based content creators comprised of Australian and American YouTubers. Sometimes they are funny! Other times they come just short of saying the n-word or prod at an “n-word pass” or flat out say the slur for the giggles.

There is no reason to defend these words and this language, nor should we continue to accept them in our online spaces. Gamer Words need no protection nor are they under any threat; streamers with millions of subscribers live comfortably and have the privilege of entertaining audiences with video games. They need no defending. Marginalized and ostracized people targeted by this prejudiced and abusive language, however, deserve our fervent defense in the face of Gamer Words.

MISANTHROPE MASCOT

_{^{“The ‘Other’ Cleveland Team” by Imagine24}}

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Cleveland’s real “mistake on the lake” is an atrocious continuation of a racist logo.

^{Feb. 09, 2017
by Corey P. Mueller}

Cuyahoga. It means “crooked river” in original Iroquoian tongue. That is the name given to both the most populous county in Ohio — home to the city of Cleveland — and the winding river that curves through the center of the county. It was a name meant to honor the indigenous people who lived off this river, the very river that the white people of Cleveland have since disrespected and polluted to the point of roaring flames in the mid-20^th century.

Though the river has been cleaned up, another atrocity with a native name remains in the city. A large-nosed, red-faced, wide-grinning caricature of indigenous people still finds its home on the sleeves and ball caps of the professional baseball organization, the Cleveland Indians.

Chief Wahoo is his name, and outdated racial stereotypes are his game. Reminiscent of Tonto or any nameless antagonist to John Wayne, Chief Wahoo stares blankly into the void of white baseball fans with an ear-to-ear smile. In another attempt to “honor” those that inhabited the land before the urban area and surrounding suburbs developed, Cleveland again disrespects the names and real populations of Native Americans that exist in the United States. The continued use of stereotypes in this caricature has real world consequences. But the people of Cleveland seem not to care.

In an anonymous Twitter survey I ran, my followers (composed of mostly middle-class, suburban white people) were three and a half times more likely to vote for “#KeepTheChief” than the “Get rid of Chief Wahoo!” option. Perhaps the voters were empowered by the catchy hashtag, or they were enticed by a more sinister power given to them in perpetuating racist stereotypes with a single image. Whatever the reason, few #KeepTheChief voters came forward to explain their position.

“It’s clear that she’s never met a native, never been to a reservation. To her, natives are invisible. If they weren’t, she wouldn’t even think of wearing that.”

In fact, only one did. He was the sole voice for the majority opinion, and he said he will, in all caps, “FOREVER ROCK THE CHIEF.” When questioned with a simple “why” the 21-year-old Indians fan responded with, “It’s part of me.” Pointing to tradition and something that he grew up with, it is a sentiment that is heard over and over again within Cleveland baseball circles.

“I get it, you want to feel like you’re seven years old again going to the ballpark with your dad.” David Takehara, whose mother is full-blooded Sioux Indian, does not buy that argument. Takehara’s mother hails from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe in South Dakota, but David grew up in Chicago. He described a recent experience watching his hometown Chicago Cubs play against the Cleveland baseball organization in the World Series. He recalls a crowd shot focusing on a young woman, a Cleveland fan. She wore a giant Chief Wahoo on her shirt, and he shook his head at the sight. “It’s clear that she’s never met a native, never been to a reservation. To her, natives are invisible. If they weren’t, she wouldn’t even think of wearing that.”

Takehara invokes the Contact Hypothesis here: The more people of color one meets, the less likely he or she is to be biased or derogatory to those people. This is a contested theory, but, according to Vincent Romero, we do know one thing: “Using this mascot perpetuates a historical, comical and insulting caricature, and it is perpetuating stereotypes that are long gone.” Romero, the Executive Director of the American Indian Center Chicago, says these stereotypes only live on because of mascots like Chief Wahoo. Native Americans are not bow-wielding, horse-riding savages, yet this is the only image many Americans have of this diverse group of people that exist off of reservations and outside of the 19^th century Wild West. Yet, this is an image of which many refuse to let go.

There is not just a conflict of images here, though. There is a personal conflict that inflicts actual damage on historically damaged communities. “It’s not just about being politically correct,” Romero stated. “This gravely affects the self-esteem and pride of Native youth, and they’ll grow up becoming ashamed of their culture, of who we are.” Native kids across this country find themselves as the target of harassment, ridicule and violence when they speak up, often when they simply state, “Hey, that is racism.”

“You feel like you’re not good enough to be a regular American,” Takehara said grimly. “You’re not even visible.” Though Takehara was born and raised on the north side of Chicago, he still experienced dismissiveness of his Native roots. Teachers refused to believe he was Native American because of half the genes he inherited from his Japanese-American father.

It does not matter if your home, as a Native person, is on a reservation. Everything and everyone constantly puts you down, Takehara tells me. Using a mascot like Chief Wahoo continues a longstanding attitude of “They don’t exist, they don’t matter.”

This is just one type of historical trauma imposed upon indigenous populations of this country. Another comes at the turn of the 20^th century. It was a policy of the federal government to “Kill the Indian, save the man.” Erik Stegman, the quick-talking Executive Director at the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute, expands upon this through an examination of the American Indian boarding school system. “They forcibly took kids away from their families and tribal communities, put them in boarding schools where they were beaten for speaking their language. They were forced to assimilate, and they were horrible places.” Native youth in the past, like Takehara’s mother, have been traumatized at these types of places with physical and mental abuse.

Some of these abuses, for example, come in the form of caricatures and stereotypes of what not to be. During her stay at an American Indian boarding school, Takehara’s mother was taught and tortured to be ashamed of her culture and heritage. There is an intergenerational trauma that cycles through this: Where parents and grandparents in the past were shown racist imagery to shame them for their history, youth today are bullied, targeted and again stripped of their culture through ahistorical representations of mascots in schools and in professional sports.

“Mascots become a reference point for bullying,” Stegman explained. “They’re a tool for abuse, especially when non-Native people use them.” This creates a hostile learning environment that contributes to mental health issues, creating a large hurdle for progress in Native communities. Natives commit suicide nearly two and a half times the national average rate, which makes suicide the second leading cause of death for Natives between the ages of 15 and 35.

A mental health crisis, paired with a poverty rate double that of the national average, plagues Native populations. And the continued use of a Chief Wahoo shows that non-Native people do not really care all that much. Further, they still demand that the Native people bootstrap their way out of it. “It makes it tough to do what people ask you to do,” Takehara said with an inkling of pain in the back of his throat. “Reservations have less jobs, less opportunities. But how do you get out of that if you have a reduced self-esteem?” Though some may scoff at the idea of this, decreased self-esteem drastically and negatively impacts people’s performances in and out of the classroom. It sets them up to fail before they can even try to succeed.

To start to combat this antagonistic imposition, MLB organizations need to denounce and eliminate the use of mascots like Chief Wahoo, as painful as that may be to the white fan base in Cleveland. Overwhelmingly, the response from the Native communities has been that the organization must discontinue the mascot and disavow its use as a culturally insensitive and stereotypical abomination. Chief Wahoo’s discontinuation would send a powerful message that the Cleveland baseball organization is starting to listen, but that is only a start. “They have to have an open, honest dialogue with local and national native groups,” Romero iterated and reiterated to me, with more pressing concern on each utterance of this important sentiment. “The leadership in the front office needs to set an example for the rest.”

Ultimately, the team needs to make sure the concerns of Native peoples and activists are heard and that they respectfully engage with this issue. Currently, the organization releases shrouded statements that the team will “phase out” the use of the Chief, yet continue to use him on nearly all of their jerseys.

One of the worst defenses of the use of a mascot like Wahoo, according to Stegman, is people claiming that they are “somehow honoring native people,” without respectfully appreciating the culture and acknowledging the history of Native peoples in this country. “When you can’t even point to what supposed tribe this representation is from,” Stegman briefly laughs at the absurdity of his own thought, “how exactly can a non-native person say that they’re honoring anything?”