The Absent Management of Racism

Arguments about racism in fiction and fantasy, and RPGs, say far, far more about the complainant than they say about racism.  Part of the irreconciability with the present society is that while everyone rightfully deserves compensation, they deserve an abolition of racist instincts all the more.  Receiving neither, a substantial portion of the population feels that to get compensation, they must nitpick every moment of racism they are able to find, as though by endlessly pointing a finger and defining something as [accurately] racist, this will somehow be used by the listener to end racism.

This is not how attitudes are changed.

Try it.  Convince your partner that they need to do the dishes more often by highlighting every moment that a dish is set down.  In fact, mention doing the dishes the moment they reach for a glass in the cupboard.  Don't even wait until they've actually touched the glass.  See where that gets you.

The approach people take to racism doesn't make sense.  The approach itself is an act of desperation; and reaching for the depiction of orcs and goblins as objects of racism, doubly so.  Until we sit down as a thinking, biological species and commit ourselves to sense, rather than sensibility, I don't think this world has any chance of stopping racism.

First, maybe we should discuss what would actually work.  As opposed to pretending that sunlight is a disinfectant.

Because it isn't.

Sequestered

Heh.  It's been more than three weeks since my posting here.  Absurd for this blog.  And some might be thinking I finally hit my wall as a blogger ~ that is, those who haven't been concerned that I caught covid.  Not so far, I'm afraid.

I've been working vigorously this whole time.  I took a break from shifting the wiki, and from working on new content for same.  I've written a series of posts for the closed blog at the Higher Path, still available for a $3 donation on Patreon; but I don't suppose anyone has spare money lying around at this time.  I've been working on two projects on the side, that I want desperately to talk about but which I won't just now, as I want them firmly in place first.  I've been furiously making maps of Mongolia and now western China (working on a region called Kashgar at present).

Just lately, except for one enormous breakthrough in worldbuilding, I've been short on middling content to discuss.  Covid is a big topic, everywhere.  We're all talking about what we've heard, what's going on, what are we going to do if we catch it and what are we going to do if we die.  I'm 56 and my partner Tamara is 61.  We're naturally stressed.  We've been locked up for a month, finances are fine, the support from the government for our medications is solid and she and I get along very well.  It might frighten some people how well two people who love each other really can live in a small space continously without growing spiteful or distant.  We watch each other work out, we lie in bed for hours cuddling, we have sex occasionally and we talk about movies, books and philosophy.  Time passes and we're relatively happy.

I worry about losing her and she worries about losing me, naturally.  It's the same thing people are feeling all over the world.

It seems like such a silly time to be nitpicking over some tiny corner of role-playing.  I mean, I live in a constant setting-building haze, so much so that afternoons and evenings flash by, so that I wake up one day and find that it's Thursday already.  Without distractions, the flow is deep, overwhelming and utterly satisfying.  I could happily live like this for the rest of the time I have here.

So just now, without reader questions to answer, without particulars to explain, I'm building pyramids behind curtains.  Take care.  I'm available for comment.