Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will spawn a multi-page thread that inflames passions.
Less attrition and locking than usual.
--Patrick
I don't think PA's Gabe is a Transphobic Bigot.
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
--Patrick
Hey now, world domination isn't easy even when people aren't giving away my plans.
I don't have much commentary to add to the conversation. I think this is good:
http://penny-arcade.com/2013/06/22/going-one-step-further
http://penny-arcade.com/2013/06/22/going-one-step-further
And damn proud!
I would like to see some of his more vehement critics at least acknowledge he's trying to do the right thing. I think this shows it. He's just a guy ignorant to a lot of social issues trying to do the right thing.
They yell at people on Twitter and online forums. You know, important stuff.
Necronic
Staff member
A lot of social justice warriors would never do this. There is no sense of superiority to be gained in acknowledging someone elses improvement. Only in showing their failures.
Not only that but if they keep bugging him and calling him out on stupid stuff he says, he may end up regularly donating to their causes, and promoting them on his twitter and blog.
It's is a major win for them, all they did was push a few buttons for a few hours and both advertising and money came out.
And they got to insult him in the process.
Dave
Staff member
I've been called transphobic and racist before. Doesn't mean that I'm either. Of course, I'm not saying some of the things which have been said on the topics. I get what Gabe is saying and if your world view is very black & white I assume that's the attitude you're going to have. I have met too many people with too many self identities to think that we are all just our naughty bits. Do I understand it? Nope. But neither do I understand people who like mushrooms or liver. Those things are fucking nasty. But if you are a mushroom-loving liver-eater, I'll treat you no differently than before.
...with disdain?
I get tired being the one person against a large group thing, plus my computer situation at home isn't great for posting, and plus I usually post here at work more than at home plus I just give up
As obnoxious as you can be at times, I would rather have you voice your opinion than disappear. I wouldn't be here if Halforums was an echo chamber.
GasBandit
Staff member
Ho ho ho mister, I have been there.
Don't take that as I give up forever, just this fight. I have three laptops in various annoying states of disrepair and I can't decide what to do with them, and I hate typing more than a sentence on my phone, and by this morning I didn't really want to reply to 20 posts 
I will pipe in and say that I'm happy Gabe donated to charity.
And also as an activist I don't have to "prove" to you and bust out my planned parenthood charitable donation receipts or show you my hours volunteered like you're my parole officer to justify my opinions.
I will pipe in and say that I'm happy Gabe donated to charity.
And also as an activist I don't have to "prove" to you and bust out my planned parenthood charitable donation receipts or show you my hours volunteered like you're my parole officer to justify my opinions.
Liver is nasty. You wanna eat that, go right ahead.
Mushrooms are fantastic. Sign me up.
One can make statements that are hurtful without meaning to be hurtful. This whole Paula Deen thing would be a more mainstream example. She's a stuck-up, ignorant bitch. Doesn't mean she's automatically racist, just that she probably should have taken more care with her words.
Gabe is no different, excepting that instead of food, he delivers artwork applied to someone else's script. The fact that he's become an internet icon through being a member of a team that originally just wanted to snark on games and gaming can occasionally get lost - he's human for chrissakes. He doesn't appear to have intended to be hurtful - merely made a comment that conflicted with some folk's worldview.
Cisgender is a phrase that I'm having to come to terms with as actually being a thing.
One can be too liberal, just as one can be too conservative.
And cracker is the usual term for us WASP-inclined individuals. Trust me - honky ain't in general circulation no more. At least not down here, it ain't.
Mushrooms are fantastic. Sign me up.
One can make statements that are hurtful without meaning to be hurtful. This whole Paula Deen thing would be a more mainstream example. She's a stuck-up, ignorant bitch. Doesn't mean she's automatically racist, just that she probably should have taken more care with her words.
Gabe is no different, excepting that instead of food, he delivers artwork applied to someone else's script. The fact that he's become an internet icon through being a member of a team that originally just wanted to snark on games and gaming can occasionally get lost - he's human for chrissakes. He doesn't appear to have intended to be hurtful - merely made a comment that conflicted with some folk's worldview.
Cisgender is a phrase that I'm having to come to terms with as actually being a thing.
One can be too liberal, just as one can be too conservative.
And cracker is the usual term for us WASP-inclined individuals. Trust me - honky ain't in general circulation no more. At least not down here, it ain't.
figmentPez
Staff member
Growing up I thought "cracker" meant a person was as white and bland as saltines. Then I learned it was short for whip-cracker, implying that the white person is slave owner. I can take being called bland, but if someone is going to knowingly call me a slave owner, and try to imply that I'm a worse person because I'm descended from a race of people that owned slaves (and I have no idea if my ancestors did or not), then that's a pretty hurtful thing to be called.
I don't know if this was your intent, but it kind of sounds like you're saying that what she did wasn't wrong, it was that she got caught.
Cracka please.
What I'm saying is that she's ignorant. She's a public figure, and like it or not, public figures have to be circumspect in their language.
The word she used is indicative of a foul, ignorant, and cruel lifestyle, denigrating to a human being, and has no place in polite society.
But I have no more right to tell her what she can and can't THINK than she does.
She has alienated thousands with a poor choice of words, and revealed herself to be a narrow-minded individual whose credibility was never that high to begin with.
But whether atrocious or not, one can think whatever one desires. Just be careful what you say in public.
Can you define wrong in this case, as in "I believe she intentionally offended people with hurtful words" versus "I believe she was wrong to have said the things she did, but I don't believe she intended to hurt people with her words."
I haven't read up on it, but as Gabe found out people will pillory you for even the second instance, and it would be interesting to know if she intended to offend and that was the wrongdoing, or if the wrongdoing was unintentional.
Necronic
Staff member
But then they realized that it would be to hard to find the mascot in the crowd.
So, you're saying that in this day and age, using a racial slur is fine and dandy as long as the person isn't intending to hurt anyone?
In Gabe's case, he said what he said out of ignorance of an issue. In Paula Dean's case, quite frankly, if you aren't ware that the N-bomb is offensive to just about everyone, you're ether deluding yourself or are simply beyond stupid.
With her, I'm inclined to believe both, honestly. She is seriously that self-absorbed