Sunday, June 28, 2009

Ignorance, Violence and Racism in Second Life

I ran into a few old friends at my old stomping grounds today. We chit-chatted a bit, everything was all honkey dorey.. then they started telling me about a group of griefers who'd been there earlier and how much fun they'd had sparing with them.

It wasn't long before the "griefers" re-emerged. I sat quietly and listened, trying to get a handle on what exactly was going on. Soon it became evident who was trying to get something stirred up.. and it wasn't the supposed griefers. I cued up my mic as I was gently prodded to join in. I politely announced that I wasn't taking sides in the matter.. I'd just be quiet.

But when I heard "Get away from me nigger!" I got pissed. I didn't say anything.. I was trying to stay out of it... until one of the old gang started talking about sewing up a delicate part of the female anatomy.. and another.. on voice.. stated, "I hope someone rapes your daughter."

What.

The.

Hell?

In what world.. in what sort of warped mind.. in WHAT situation does crap like that become an acceptable response to ANY statement?

I was livid.. and I let people know.

The individual who made that last statement started to backstroke immediately. I told him how sick and twisted I felt his statement was and how I hope he didn't have kids.. if he did he should never be allowed to see them.

Not an unreasonable statement to make, in my opinion.

And then... his response?

"Oh I have a daughter.."

There was more... the other went on to make statements about certain people being a poster child for late term abortion.

These were adults, not children who snuck in on Mommy and Daddy's computer. These were people I had counted amongst my friends on SL. I was angry, sad, embarrassed and disappointed all at once.

After everything calmed down, one of the old gang, the one who wanted to take a needle and thread to someone's vagina, apologized for his outburst. I was trying to think of something non-judgemental to say.. and for obvious reasons found it difficult.. but before I could respond he added, "But I enjoyed it."

Enjoyed it.

ENJOYED threatening the torture of the female body, in front of a group of people.

Throughout all of this, a newbie was hanging out and asking questions. He was curious if this was the norm.. if this was how people acted in Second Life. I wanted to tell him that Second Life, as in first life, is what you make of it. If you walk the grid with a hate filled heart, you will find hatred. If you go looking for a fight, you will find it.

If you embrace others with an open mind and an open heart... you too will be embraced.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for you for speaking up. The only thing worse than hate-filled speech is people who are offended by it NOT speaking up to say so. If you don't speak up, you're saying it's all right.

Raul Crimson said...

Sadly one can find people like this in SL, as one can find it in the "real" world.

Anyway, for some reason i still don't understand, some people decides to free their worse side in the net, not only in SL, possibly because they feel protected by the fact of being "almost" anonymous.

Personally i may say silly things sometimes, inside jokes, some "black humour" but always being clear all is a joke. Anyway, the statements you reproduce here seem to be quite over a joke, and if it is a joke is quite a bad taste one.

Yordie Sands said...

I've encountered racist bands before. they come in all shapes and sized. the band i encountered were chartoon characters and they pretended be n-words.

I sent in an abuse report, but i was surprised at how, in a crowd of dozens that I was the only one to stand up.

Later, I got cuddos form poeple who were there, but what was wrong with them.

Anonymous said...

And that is what made me leave second life.. sad that an alt world is the same as our real one sigh!!!!!!!

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