Are You Showing Support for Black Lives Matter in Second Life?

[Dano Seale]

42 minutes ago, Ashlyn Voir said:

The blessing of social media is being able to really see how a lot of people think and also realize how many hidden bigots there were.

 Reminds me of the old adage - "When the hole you're digging gets too deep....stop digging!" lol.

[Elvira Fallen]

I came to this discussion by accident looking for another topic and because this subject is a global as the covid read it through. My context is that I am French and parts of my large family had atrocities committed against them by the Prussians in the 1st war and then SS in the 2nd one and this because they lived in a region contested by both France and Germany. As a girl I grew up listening to the older ones talk of such things and vowed to hate these peoples across the border for life. I am now a woman and have learnt tolerance and understanding that the people of today had no part of what went before.  We must not forget but there is no value in blaming a person for what their previous generation did. We must stand up and confront all these wrongs and actually I feel ALL lives matter yet it seems we forget this and all countries continue to promote many levels of racial abuse in the name of commercial gain, subjugation, religion or so called policing actions. It is so sad that the death of Mr Floyd and all the others needed to happen before people begin to move in the world and I can only hope this time we learn how to treat all people with respect and tolerance and not look back on this as just another failure to really make a difference.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

15 hours ago, JanuarySwan said:

 Parts of New England on the North East can be very snobby also and may be snob central and pretty much only want white money.

Bup bup bup.. We dont give a DAMN what color your skin is, we just want money.. The Snobs live on the Vineyard. 

13 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Got an EA Origin update earlier and this popped up when I launched my game.

Kinder? Have they seen how most people play? My kids have graveyards from all the people they have "accidentally" killed. I was watching some youtubers play and the sheer number of sims killed was astounding.. 

3 hours ago, Velk Kerang said:

Oh wow. I hadn't updated mine yet so I haven't seen this message yet, but I do got got a question. People support what they want to support as they should and I am not surprised to see these types of discussions here given the type of platform SL is, but since when did politics, social issues, and gaming become a thing? lol I mean every gamer will tell you the two don't mix and mesh very well because they play whatever they play to escape all of that. I mean only recently started playing around with Sims 4 myself a few months back right before the whole COVID19 thing broke out and when they released the Eco Lifestyle expansion while it didn't bother me there were a lot of complaints on the forums about it being in bad taste on the timing of it which I kind of agreed with. I am almost curious to see what they are saying over there about this, but I am think probably best to just stay away. I get more then enough healthy debates with mates when on SL as it is anyway. lol 😎

I don't know maybe I am just wondering it because I still remember a time when mixing the two was basically taboo and now days it seems to becoming a normal practice. I'll probably fire up the game and read the official notice though. Thank you so much for sharing this. Good taste in games by the way. Two thumbs up. I am more of a Sims 2 kind of guy myself, but they didn't do to bad of a job on this one. It's kind of funny I seen this because my SL wife was the one who actually got me in to this game and I ended up playing it more then her. lol Anyway thanks again for the information mate. I appreciate it.😎

You dont play much MMoRPgs do you? The racism and hatred there is epic level. The number of racist slurs thrown about by these kids is crazy. Some little punk screaming the n-bomb because someone stole his loot or scoped his kill. Also, plenty of adults will have conversations about anything in them. Politics and social issues are everywhere, why do you think gamers wont talk about them? Watch a twitch gamer stream and read teh comments, they talk about current affairs WITH the streamer. 

OMG, talking about current news is tabooooooooooooo. 

[Velk Kerang]

3 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

You dont play much MMoRPgs do you? The racism and hatred there is epic level. The number of racist slurs thrown about by these kids is crazy. Some little punk screaming the n-bomb because someone stole his loot or scoped his kill. Also, plenty of adults will have conversations about anything in them. Politics and social issues are everywhere, why do you think gamers wont talk about them? Watch a twitch gamer stream and read teh comments, they talk about current affairs WITH the streamer. 

OMG, talking about current news is tabooooooooooooo. 

I don't know what mmos you play or what servers you play on, but no I don't really see all that. Probably because the people who play have enough sense to know they will get banned. lol As for Twitch streams again that's a no so I guess it'd be all about who you watch and what your playing. If you would have mentioned F13 or Rust then I might have agreed, but the only MMO at best I can even think of that may have the level of stupidity in which you are referring to might be WoW and I don't do WoW mate. lol 😎

[Ceka Cianci]

16 hours ago, JanuarySwan said:

Chicago is the Midwest though.  The Deep South is pretty bad from what I've heard.  Parts of New England on the North East can be very snobby also and may be snob central and pretty much only want white money.

Illinois is considered a Northern state.

I lived there and now in the bible belt about 30 miles north of the Alabama border and about 20 miles from Pulaski Tennessee,where the Klan was born.

Want to see snobby, go the Wilmette Illinois.. It's all old money and huge mansions with like 14 bathrooms and Sistine chapel type paintings on the ceilings just at the entrance.. Huge places..

Edited June 19, 2020 by Ceka Cianci

[Velk Kerang]

3 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Illinois is considered a Northern state.

I lived there and now in the bible belt about 30 miles north of the Alabama border and about 20 miles from Pulaski Tennessee,where the Klan was born.

The Klan is dead didn't you know? We sent troops in to raid them for all their bed sheets and pillow cases so we could make more masks to help aid in the fight against COVID19. Lmao!!!!😎

[Ceka Cianci]

Just now, Velk Kerang said:

The Klan is dead didn't you know? We sent troops in to raid them for all their bed sheets and pillow cases so we could make more masks to help aid in the fight against COVID19. Lmao!!!!😎

That's just where they were born.,They aren't there anymore.. But they do show up once a year and put the town through a headache, just because it was the birth place.

[Velk Kerang]

1 minute ago, Ceka Cianci said:

That's just where they were born.,They aren't there anymore.. But they do show up once a year and put the town through a headache, just because it was the birth place.

You'd think in the year 2020 we'd be past all that BS by now. I remember thinking as a kid I can't wait until the future gets here. Now it's here and it's like seriously? This is what I waited for? What happened to humanity evolving? This really sucks. lol 😎

[Ceka Cianci]

6 minutes ago, Velk Kerang said:

You'd think in the year 2020 we'd be past all that BS by now. I remember thinking as a kid I can't wait until the future gets here. Now it's here and it's like seriously? This is what I waited for? What happened to humanity evolving? This really sucks. lol 😎

The Klan isn't anything worth getting worried about.. They are so knocked down to a stump..

Heck ,the largest section of the Klan was up north when they were at their strongest time.. They had more members in, I want to say indiana , but it may have been ohio..I think indiana..

Anyways, They had more members in that state than in the whole of the south combined.. The north Had way more Klan than the south when you combined all those states compared to the south states..

but they aren't squat now..

Edited June 19, 2020 by Ceka Cianci

[Velk Kerang]

4 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

The Klan isn't anything worth getting worried about.. They are so knocked down to a stump..

Heck ,the largest section of the Klan was up north.. They had more members in, I want to say indiana , but it may have been ohio..I think indiana..

Anyways, They had more members in that state than in the whole of the south combined.. The north Had way more Klan than the south when you combined all those states compared to the south states..

but they aren't squat now..

Ya I'd have to agree with you on that. I live here in Georgia and around here in these parts they done got kicked out long time ago just like we did with the devil. lol 😎

Edited June 19, 2020 by Velk Kerang
Corrections.

[Janet Voxel]

3 minutes ago, Velk Kerang said:

Ya I'd have to agree with you on that. I live here in Georgia and around here in these parts they done got kicked out long time ago just like we did with the devil. lol 😎

Sure they did...

 

[Ceka Cianci]

Just now, Velk Kerang said:

Ya I'd have to agree with you on that. I live here in Georgia and around here in these parts they done got kicked out long time ago just like we did with the devil. lol 😎

You know what's funny is, I didn't know they actually had membership cards they carry on them..

I've had a couple run ins with some members, but they were by themselves..  On was in the grocery store in town.. I wasn't too worried about it because my husband was in the next lane over.. I was in the veggie section.. He was saying a bunch of crap  and said something about being in the klan.. I said  you buttheads are still around.. He whipped out his card..

Right about that time my husband came around the corner and seen this guy looking all mean and angry towards us.. He bum rushed up on this dude and said..What's up babe! As he stuck his 280 pound self between me and that guy..

I said,this guy say's he's from the Klan and I didn't believe him..

That's all I had to say and my husband said to him.. Git your little punk ass out of this store, because I don't want to have to go to prison for stepping on a little turd like you..

That guy hightailed it out of that store like his butt was on fire..

I have a really bad ass husband that will put the fear of god into the rock....hehehehe

[Ceka Cianci]

12 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Sure they did...

 

They are all pretty much little groups now compared to what they once were..

My husbands rugby team could whip the crap out of the ones in that video  pretty quick..hehehehe

[Luna Bliss]

An update on all the Confederate statues being taken down:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/confederate-statues-removed-george-floyd-trnd/index.html

[Ceka Cianci]

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

An update on all the Confederate statues being taken down:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/confederate-statues-removed-george-floyd-trnd/index.html

One guy I know pointed out that the big reason they should come down and are coming down is because we shouldn't have statues of traitors in our towns...

Racism we would be taking statues down all over the country, but the ones for civil war generals and such..those guys were traitors to the U.S...

I thought to myself..that's a hard one to argue against..hehehe

Edited June 19, 2020 by Ceka Cianci

[Lyssa Greymoon]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

An update on all the Confederate statues being taken down:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/confederate-statues-removed-george-floyd-trnd/index.html

Good riddance. 

[Luna Bliss]

Issues with the Mississippi state flag which has a Confederate symbol on it:

"Mississippi is the only state with a flag that features the Confederate emblem. In the wake of the protests for social justice that have followed George Floyd’s death during an encounter with Minneapolis police, Democrats in the Mississippi State Senate filed a resolution that would allow the Senate to consider changing the state flag."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/19/sec-issues-ultimatum-mississippi-over-state-flag-that-features-confederate-symbol/

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

They are all pretty much little groups now compared to what they once were..

My husbands rugby team could whip the crap out of the ones in that video  pretty quick..hehehehe

They still exist though. The reason, they seem to have gotten smaller is because they usually don't walk around like that for the most part. Although, I have seen a guy walking around with neo-nazi tattoos, but it was Walmart so...whaddayagonna do? It's Walmart.

No, the problem is they've adopted a more undercover rebranding called the alt right. No more scary pointy headed hood, there's a reason they were once called "The invisible empire" Now they tend to look more like this:

But the rhetoric is pretty much the same and a lot of people have co-opted it. A lot of those sentiments get echoed right here on the forum. The pointy hood days may be over, the the ideals aren't.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Velk Kerang said:

BLM is the same as the Klan just with a tan.

I would comment but I don't want to get a forum suspension.

[Ceka Cianci]

3 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

They still exist though. The reason, they seem to have gotten smaller is because they usually don't walk around like that for the most part. Although, I have seen a guy walking around with neo-nazi tattoos, but it was Walmart so...whaddayagonna do? It's Walmart.

No, the problem is they've adopted a more undercover rebranding called the alt right. No more scary pointy headed hood, there's a reason they were once called "The invisible empire" Now they tend to look more like this:

But the rhetoric is pretty much the same and a lot of people have co-opted it. A lot of those sentiments get echoed right here on the forum. The pointy hood days may be over, the the ideals aren't.

Like I said earlier.. I live near Pulaski Tennessee.. Even the Klan crowd that comes from all over and shows up there.. you would think it would be huge, but it's not really..

If they were gonna show up anywhere in numbers, it would be there..

Also,as I said earlier, the Klan when it was at it's strongest was in more numbers in the north.. there may be something going on up there , but I've been down here for a good bit and only ever bumped into a few of them my whole time, other than when they  show up in Pulaski..And i try to stay clear of there if I can when they are coming into that town..

[Velk Kerang]

29 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

You know what's funny is, I didn't know they actually had membership cards they carry on them..

I've had a couple run ins with some members, but they were by themselves..  On was in the grocery store in town.. I wasn't too worried about it because my husband was in the next lane over.. I was in the veggie section.. He was saying a bunch of crap  and said something about being in the klan.. I said  you buttheads are still around.. He whipped out his card..

Right about that time my husband came around the corner and seen this guy looking all mean and angry towards us.. He bum rushed up on this dude and said..What's up babe! As he stuck his 280 pound self between me and that guy..

I said,this guy say's he's from the Klan and I didn't believe him..

That's all I had to say and my husband said to him.. Git your little punk ass out of this store, because I don't want to have to go to prison for stepping on a little turd like you..

That guy hightailed it out of that store like his butt was on fire..

I have a really bad ass husband that will put the fear of god into the rock....hehehehe

That's awesome. lol I don't even know your husband and I like him already. lol 😎

[Velk Kerang]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I would comment but I don't want to get a forum suspension.

Wise choice.😎

[Luna Bliss]

How to Distinguish Between Antifa, White Supremacists, and Black Lives Matter

Navigating the most fraught conversation of the moment requires attention to both means and ends.

 

As protesters clash in occasionally violent street confrontations that spread via online video, provoking emotional conversations that could touch almost anyone on Facebook or Twitter, millions of Americans feel pressure to pick a side, to support or denounce a faction, knowing that whatever they say about white supremacists, Antifa, or Black Lives Matter, they risk being criticized for failing to condemn violence on “their side,” or for suggesting a false equivalence between groups.

How can a conflicted observer find clarity?

One way forward is to distinguish between a group’s ends and its means. Diligently doing so can help anyone to formulate a defensible position, to better understand those who disagree, and to emphasize common ground that too often goes unrecognized.  Take some uncontroversial examples.

Against Malaria Foundation is one of my favorite charities. Their stated goal is protecting people from a devastating disease, malaria. There is no reason to doubt that claim. And the means they’ve chosen, providing people at risk of malaria with bed nets, is morally unobjectionable and practically effective. They’re praiseworthy across the board.

ISIS is at the other extreme. Their stated end is the creation of a repressive theocracy. There is no reason to doubt that claim. And the means that they’ve chosen, terrorism, rape, slavery, plunder, and pillaging, is abhorrent, regardless of whether or not it proves to be practically effective. All should condemn their means and end.

Now consider Lance Armstrong. His stated and actual end was winning the Tour de France. Nothing wrong with that! His chosen means included cheating. That was objectionable, despite being highly effective. And how about the Berlin Olympics of 1936? The ultimate, highly objectionable end was elevating the stature of Nazi Germany. An unobjectionable means to that end was hosting a successful sporting competition.  

We needn’t go through all the permutations to illustrate the overarching point: It often makes sense to condemn a means that a group uses without objecting to their stated end; or to forcefully reject a group’s ends while granting that their means are unobjectionable.

Apply that mode of analysis to factions that have recently taken to the streets. Some of these groups have initiated extralegal violence. For example, police say that James Alex Fields Jr., who appears to have Nazi sympathies, drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia; and Antifa members reportedly beat up alt-right protesters and journalists in scuffles in Berkeley, California.

One can condemn the means of extralegal violence, and observe that the alt-right, Antifa, and the far-left have all engaged in it on different occasions, without asserting that all extralegal violence is equivalent––murdering someone with a car or shooting a representative is more objectionable than punching with the intent to mildly injure. What’s more, different groups can choose equally objectionable means without becoming equivalent, because assessing any group requires analyzing their ends, not just their means.

For neo-Nazis and Klansmen in Charlottesville, one means, a torch-lit parade meant to intimidate by evoking bygone days of racial terrorism, was deeply objectionable; more importantly, their end, spreading white-supremacist ideology in service of a future where racists can lord power over Jews and people of color, is abhorrent.  

Antifa is more complicated.

Some of its members employ the objectionable means of initiating extralegal street violence; but its stated end of resisting fascism is laudable, while its actual end is contested. Is it really just about resisting fascists or does it have a greater, less defensible agenda? Many debates about Antifa that play out on social media would prove less divisive if the parties understood themselves to be agreeing that opposing fascism is laudable while disagreeing about Antifa’s means, or whether its end is really that limited.

Then there is Black Lives Matter. After spending a lot of time reading and reporting about the movement, I understand its primary end to be stopping unjust killings by police officers; some of its members have broader agendas, like economic redistribution, but reforming police is the movement’s main goal and the one that is universally shared.

And its primary means are twofold: Its members engage in street protests in lots of cities; and its leaders push for 10 specific reforms set forth in Campaign Zero, which calls for an end to “broken windows” policing, more community oversight of police departments, stricter limits on the use of force, independent investigations of police misconduct, community representation in municipal governments, body cameras, better training, an end to “policing for profit,” demilitarization, and union contracts that don’t protect misbehaving police officers from being held accountable.

If you disagree with any of my characterizations about the means and ends of those groups, we are at odds over facts, not values, and I am open to seeing evidence that challenges my assessment of a complicated matter. Bearing that in mind can make hashing out the truth less fraught and more likely to proceed constructively and profitably.

Given my understanding of the facts, where do I stand?

Black Lives Matter

For starters, I don’t think Black Lives Matter belongs in the online conversation about whether Americans should be denouncing violence “on all sides.” The movement’s end of stopping unjust police killings is laudable; and its leaders and the vast majority of its members openly favor nonviolent means. Plus, unlike Nazis, nothing about the future it desires is inseparable from initiating violence. That doesn’t mean it is beyond criticism. It is a large, free-wheeling movement without clear leaders, and individual participants have no doubt acted badly on many occasions, as is true of groups as varied as the Sons of Liberty in 1775, anti-Vietnam War protesters, and the Tea Party. I have criticized Black Lives Matter activists in the past for disrupting a Bernie Sanders event and for the tactic of blocking freeways.

But I draw a distinction between objectionable acts of civil disobedience and engaging in violence. Some Black Lives Matter critics blame the group for the killing of five Dallas police officers. But the gunman acted alone, using tactics that the protest movement never urged or used, and group leaders denounced the killings. The group has the same relationship to the Dallas killer as nonviolent pro-life groups have to the extremist who perpetrated a mass killing at a Planned Parenthood.

Antifa

Note that I am speaking of self-described members of the group, not anyone who shows up in the streets to protest against fascists. Antifa and antifascism are no more synonymous than being a member of Black Lives Matter and believing that black lives matter.

The initiation of extralegal street violence by self-appointed judges in masks is ethically wrong, legally wrong, and in the case of Antifa, tactically idiotic. (I can think of nothing more likely to contribute to Donald Trump’s reelection than roving bands of masked, violent leftists attacking not only Nazis carrying swastikas in the streets, but journalists covering protests, or crowds at Ann Coulter or Milo Yiannopolous speeches.) It is an easy call for me to denounce Antifa members who participate in or endorse extralegal violence. That does not contradict my simultaneous judgment that Antifa’s stated end of resisting fascism is laudable. If they showed up in force to protest Nazi rallies, but refrained from initiating the use of force, using it only lawfully in self defense, I would have nothing but praise for them.

I am unsure about how credible their stated ends really are. On one hand, its claim to be focused on opposing fascism squares with the group’s origins and the testimony of group members in interviews with its chroniclers. On the other hand, its current members have targeted and injured people who are not fascists, including people capturing newsworthy video of public gatherings. This raises understandable suspicion that its agenda is actually broader than opposing fascists, but it could be that its means are so inherently flawed as to guarantee excesses.

Nazis, the KKK, and Other White Supremacists

Denouncing Antifa violence does not require regarding the group as equivalent to the Nazis or the KKK. They are distinguishable, most importantly in these two respects:

• The ends of both Nazis and the KKK are unsurpassed in their moral depravity: Those groups stand for genocide and racial terrorism, and while they presently claim that their means are nonviolent, both their historical means and the future they are working toward are inseparable from massive amounts of violence; the utter destruction of the societies within which they operate; and mass killing.
• While extralegal violence on the right and left alike are alarming, corrosive to society, and worth denouncing, regardless of the relative threat that they pose, the actual number of people killed by extremists on the right and left suggest an asymmetry in destructiveness. If the measure is body count in my lifetime, for example, the two movements that pose the greatest threats to the American homeland would seem to be Islamist terrorists (the first attack on the World Trade Center, the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing, the San Bernardino killings, etc.) and far-right terrorists (the attack on the Oklahoma City federal building, the bombing during the Atlanta Olympics, the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, the Charleston church shooting, etc.) That doesn’t mean the far-left is incapable of posing a bigger threat—it did so during the late 1960s and 1970s, and Antifa violence should be discouraged now in part so that it does not grow into the sort of problem that caused so much destruction in bygone decades and helped reelect Richard Nixon. But the recent body count suggests the threat to life posed by Antifa violence is not close to the threat posed by right-wing terrorism; and historically, the KKK is the most prolifically violent terrorist group in United States history, while the Nazis are among the most murderous regimes in Western history. Folks on the right who don’t understand those who don’t see Antifa as equivalently dangerous might reflect on the body count as the reason for that viewpoint.

Distinctions Help Fight Polarization and Extremism

If the guiding framework in public discourse is a binary—“Are you for or against Antifa?”—lots of people will feel themselves to be deeply at odds despite the fact that a nuanced airing of their views would reveal broad areas of agreement and shared values. It is much easier to discern that common ground if a conversation about Antifa distinguishes between its means and its ends; or its stated means and its actual means; or the project of anti-fascism and the group Antifa; or any number of other nuances.

A dearth of distinctions has a lot of complicated consequences, but in aggregate, it helps to empower the worst elements in a society, because those elements are unable to attract broad support except by muddying distinctions between themselves and others whose means or ends are defensible to a broader swath of the public. So come to whatever conclusions accord with your reason and conscience. But when expressing them, consider drawing as many distinctions as possible.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/drawing-distinctions-antifa-the-alt-right-and-black-lives-matter/538320/

Edited June 19, 2020 by Luna Bliss

[Ceka Cianci]

Just now, Velk Kerang said:

That's awesome. lol I don't even know your husband and I like him already. lol 😎

A lot of these big mouthed asshats down here that I ever run into are like shorties.. I'm 4"10 and  most of the ones I run into are only a little taller than me..

there are some big boys down here, but the shorties seem to be the ones with the crap attitudes..

My husband is 6"5 and anywhere from 280 to 300 pounds depending on winter and summer.. full blown Samoan warrior when he gets going..hehehe

He's gonna put the avg man into fear factor mode real quick..

[Luna Bliss]

Info about evaluating various groups:

How to Distinguish Between Antifa, White Supremacists, and Black Lives Matter

Navigating the most fraught conversation of the moment requires attention to both means and ends.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/drawing-distinctions-antifa-the-alt-right-and-black-lives-matter/538320/

Edited June 19, 2020 by Luna Bliss