My message to Gamergate and Gamerghazi (Serious TL;DR territory)

In the midst of recovering from both an eight day (and counting) illness and trying to push through it due to the holidays, I was linked, on January 2nd, to a fresh post on a subreddit called Gamerghazi where someone was angrily and repeatedly calling me a racist. For those of you who don't know, Gamerghazi is Reddit's answer to Kotaku In Action, the Gamergate subreddit, and they enjoy trying to make me miserable.



Many of you may know that I backed away from Gamergate coverage months ago. However, I still talk to some people involved because they are people. Many of the people involved in Gamergate are nice people, who have other areas of expertise and they're useful to use as sources on other things.



Also, they're people who happen to like my articles and videos. So I will talk to them. Like any other social issue, I do not judge a person entirely based on causes I support. If I did that, I'd have no one to talk to. I'm an odd duck, and I'm well aware that I have strange opinions on things.



One of those strange opinions is this trend in gaming that I made the mistake of referring to as “digital colonialism”. Digital colonialism, in my my, is a phenomenon where a fresh wave of players comes into a sphere of gaming and attempts to “civilize” because the existing players are perceived to be savages. I made the mistake of referring to existing gamers as indigenous. The term is technically accurate, but those on Gamerghazi determined that based on this, I was racist.



The problem was that I wasn't applying race to these terms at all. “Indigenous” applies to any group of people who are native to a region. The term indigenous has been applied to groups in North America who didn't want to be called “Indians” anymore, this is true. But that's not the only thing the word means. In Africa, indigenous people are black. In China, they're Asian. In many places in the Middle East, no one can even agree who the true indigenous people are, because there are a lot of very old cultures inhabiting that region.



Furthermore, colonization isn't an exclusively European phenomenon. The Chinese, Japanese, and Ottoman empires all had colonies. North and South Korea, for example, were a single Japanese colony until 1945.



The idea that colonization was an exclusively white phenomenon never entered my mind. In being race blind, I ended up being characterized as racist. I could get up on my high horse and claim that Gamerghazi's characterization of my statements as racist was, in itself, horrendously Eurocentric, but I'm not going to play that game. I'm willing to believe that the people there that think I'm racist do so earnestly.



What I object to is their tactics. Instead of focusing on what they believed to be a racist statement, they characterized me as a racist person. They have absolutely no way of knowing, based on twitter, what is in my heart. The problem is that any “proof” I could offer that I'm not racist is, in modern parlance, evidence of further racism. So all my prior good acts have since been characterized by multiple parties as a smokescreen of sorts. The crime is appearing racist, not actually being racist.



The problem is that racism has gone underground in many places, and many otherwise inoffensive words are used as code. We all know that “you people” is something you're not supposed to say anymore, even though the actual words are as vague as you can get. Socially acceptable racism is the ninja clan of bigotry. It's made it so that anything, in the correct context, can be racist. Underground racism is designed to be practiced openly, done so subtly that the target knows they're being slighted, but if they repeat the slight, it sounds innocent. I've seen it. I hate it.



In North America, certain races need to be more civilized, more polite, and more genteel than white people in order to be seen as equals, This is undeniable and this is wrong. I've seen it my entire life, in many different cities. For example, a person of Arabic descent can't get understandably angry. They have a “fiery temper”. I'm particularly aware of this because the same stereotypes apply to redheads. And let's face it: this is always a dismissal. Another example: The current US president is yoked by racialized characterizations of anger.



Furthermore, many sports teams are struggling with the lingering racism in their team names or logos. The Cleveland Indians logo undeniably leverages stereotypes, and many people don't see anything wrong with this. Other people are extremely offended by the ongoing usage of the imagery, and the team name for the Washington Redskins. Obviously no slight is intended. The ethical argument is whether or not the team names and logos cause harm despite no intent to harm. In other words, do these things, on their own, perpetuate negative stereotypes against Native Americans.



I don't have the answer. I only have opinions. In my mind, the names and logos should be changed because they are relics of a more ignorant time. But it's not up to me, and I'm not going to think the teams are evil because they disagree. They just disagree.



The only thing I know for certain is that cultures, and culture comfort with various terms, changes. “Gay” used to mean “happy”, after all. Because language is evolving at increasing rates due to the internet, it's extremely important that we not condemn people for differing choices in language. Thanks to the Gamergate controversy, I have learned that “feminism” means different things in different parts of the world. The feminism that I choose to identify with has little to do with the feminism tied to Marxism that has made many people in former Communist countries spit on the word. Based on what little I know of the history of that region, I understand they have every right to feel that way. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop identifying as a feminist. It means that I have a new understanding of what the word means in different places, and I've checked my knee-jerk reaction to people equating the word with oppression.



I have to deal with similar situations regarding my Jewish faith. In some corners of Left Wing thought, Israel is the Enemy, and the word “Israel” and the word “Jew” are used interchangeably. It's uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable, for reasons I'm not going to get into here. But as uncomfortable as that is, I don't assume that the people doing this are bad people. They've had bad ideas put in their heads, but let's face it: there isn't a human being alive who doesn't have a weird idea or two. Or twenty.



What makes a person good or bad is what they do with those ideas.



We have a serious issue facing gaming right now, in that people who used games in the 80s 90s and early 2000s to escape serious bullying in the real world, now feel bullied by people in their own community who don't identify as gamers. It isn't just about making gaming more welcoming. It's about obliterating an identity that's become artificially associated with some Great White Male Oppressor. Instead of broadening the identity of a gamer to include women and people who aren't white, people who aren't gamers are determining they have the right to define the term “gamers” with negative connotations.



If you step back for a moment, you recognize that all this fighting is the ultimate first world problem. To even be aware of gaming, you have to be wealthy enough to afford the expensive hobby of console or PC gaming. Welcome to the privileged classes. In many places in the world, most notably Latin America, game consoles are too expensive, so their gaming industry is focused on mobile games. If someone in that circumstance loves those games, as far as I'm concerned, they're a gamer. Which is why I object so strenuously to this idea that “gamer” equals white men.



And I've completely given up regarding sexuality or gender identity. Those issues have become quagmires as far as the gaming community is concerned, and I really don't get that. Fortunately, I'm not being accused of homophobia or transphobia... yet. So I'll save those issues for another time, when some crusader decides to accuse me of that too.



The issue at hand here is whether believing that “digital colonialism” is a real thing makes me a racist, when I don't see colonialism as a phenomenon that is connected to race, and I can provide historical evidence that supports my argument. Am I aware that colonialism is connected to white oppression of racial minorities in North America? Yes. The thing is that the people that follow me on twitter aren't all American. A person living in a former Soviet country – say Ukraine or Poland – experienced colonialism as a phenomenon where white people were oppressed by other white people. People in these countries are speaking about this phenomenon now through their games, and get accused of racism because they don't include visible minorities in their allegories.



And I'll fully admit, at one time, I was one of those people who thought that Eastern European games were the product of unenlightened racists. But in preparing for a talk, I did research into the history of that region, and my opinions changed. I learned. I gained wisdom. But when I try to share this wisdom, I get derailed by people who default to intellectually lazy positions. They start screaming at me, and the only reasons I can think that they're doing this is that they're either trying to prove that they're a good person, or they're trolling.



The other serious issue I have with how the Gamergate controversy has unfolded is that too many people have decided that they can predict the intents of another person. The reality is that you can't. You can have suspicions. You can not trust a person. But you can't, with certainty, determine a person's intents. I attempted to explain that my intent in the “digital colonialism” tweets was not what Gamerghazi took from it. A moderator from Gamerghazi kept referring to my statements of intent as “claims”. While technically correct, this is a bad way to attempt to gain consensus. To gain consensus, we must take someone at their word that they did not intend to do something terrible. When you dismiss someone's honest explanation of intent as nothing more than a “claim”, there's absolutely no way to build trust.



Now, the Gamergate side is guilty of this too. I won't deny that. Which I why I've never been able to throw my support behind Gamergate. However, I absolutely believe that their intention is to call attention to ethical flaws in video game coverage. I have no reason to believe that the majority of people who are pro-Gamergate want anything else. My disagreement with their methods does not change the fact that I believe that this is their goal, and it's a noble one. This is why I don't consider myself “Anti-Gamergate” as many do. Neither side has managed to sufficiently convince me that they have all the answers. I believe that both sides have been co-opted, to an extent, by opportunistic e-celebrities who didn't even attempt to hide their ulterior political motives that had nothing to do with treating others in an ethical fashion.



Whenever something gets as big as the Gamergate controversy has, people try to use the controversy to grab power. That's human nature. But the sheer number of armchair ethics experts, lawyers, psychotherapists, and social justice advocates has made the whole thing exceedingly absurd. I have watched those I believe to be good people hurt other good people, and it's made me very sad. Expressing an opinion on an action and attacking a person as a person are not the same thing. I've noticed people with a lot of relative power calling out individuals with small YouTube channels. That tells me that the powerful in gaming are not aware of their own power, and I think they're not aware because recognizing that they're powerful would impact their identity as a person of the people. We live in a class-obsessed world and the impact of Cultural Marxism means that we inherently distrust success. If you're not among the People, then, the theory goes, it's impossible to support the people. This isn't true. It just means that when you're in a privileged position, you have to know when to shut up and give someone else a turn.



Do I personally care that Gamerghazi, apparently collectively, seems to think I'm a racist and will defend the right of people to post these defamatory accusations on their sub-Reddit? No, I personally could care less what a bunch of knee-jerk internet posters think about me. I didn't personally care when 4chan did it to me either. Or 8chan. Or Kotaku In Action. I think all these boards inspire ludicrous hyperbole, and anyone who forms their opinions based entirely on anonymous statements isn't someone I take especially seriously. The reason I decided to call Gamerghazi out in this instance is because the gaming press seems to believe that Gamerghazi is composed of the “good guys”... pardon the gendered term.



Being politically correct doesn't make you good. Being politically correct makes you privileged. If you can manage perfect political correctness, you have had access to education and higher-level socialization that the majority of people have not. That is, in my opinion, they only difference between Gamerghazi and Kotaku In Action. The flaws in judgement, paranoia, false accusations, and witch hunts occur on both sub-Reddits. Both have, I believe unintentionally, encouraged harassment of people they decide they collectively dislike. Neither sub-Reddit has, in my opinion, done enough to combat this harassment.



Saying “don't harass” does squat because there isn't sufficient understanding of what internet harassment looks like beyond a legal definition. Furthermore, too few seem to give a damn about online harassment unless it happens to women, a phenomenon that makes this feminist want to tell the mainstream press where to stick their condescension. The concept of feminine personhood means it's wrong to harass women because we are PEOPLE, and it's wrong to harass PEOPLE. When you start thinking that it's more wrong to harass women because men can take it, you're Othering us.



Harassment online will decline when these message boards start taking responsibility for their internal cultures. If Gamerghazi really cares about reducing harassment, it will start making the distinction on its boards between statements it believes to be “problematic” and people it believes to be “problematic”. They can think that the tweet I made about digital colonialism was racist. They're wrong, but they're allowed to think that. What crosses the line is when they start judging my entire character by saying I am racist as a person.



Regarding the tweet, I can kind of see their point: using the North American lens that I was deliberately avoiding. I'm not sure how saying that colonialism in any form is wrong makes me racist, but I agree with them that colonialism has some extremely bad consequences. But here's the thing: when the original backlash to my statement happened, I apologized that I had caused upset and I deleted the tweet out of respect to the people that were offended. I didn't have to do that. I chose to. If I really held racist views, that's a pretty odd reaction, don't you think?



My concern is that this reaction was apparently the wrong thing to do. It didn't create any goodwill with Gamerghazi, including at least one moderator who defended members' rights to call me racist. Furthermore, I caught flack from the Gamergate side for “backing down”. But here's the thing: while apologizing wasn't the politically advantageous thing to do, I believe that it was the right thing to do. I didn't mean to come across as racist. Race was the furthest thing from my mind. It was not my intent to upset people. I don't care if some people are “too easily” upset, because in a situation this charged, of course they are. I don't hold any ill will against the people who get offended by some things I tweet. I oppose character assassination, however, in any form, and too much character assassination has been going on during the Gamergate controversy.



I oppose Gamerghazi because of its inherent hypocrisy. I don't believe they're doing enough to prevent online harassment. Full disclosure, I declined to do an AMA connected to Kotaku In Action due to similar harassment concerns. I felt that there were too many nasty rumors flying around, and “Ask Me Anything” means just that. I believed that there were too many risks of Kafkatraps. (A Kafkatrap is where a denial of guilt is used as proof of guilt) Sure enough, a pro-Gamergate person tried to be “helpful” by informing me that my denials of guilt were being seen as proof of guilt. Yes I'm aware, helpful person. I just don't subscribe to this line of thinking. So I don't throw myself to the wolves where I can avoid it.



But throwing myself to the wolves is what many believe I'm doing by taking on Gamerghazi. They think I'm, in essence, feeding the trolls. I see their point of view, but in this case, I think there's merit in sacrificing an element of myself for the greater good. I'm aware that my consistently neutral stance gives me a unique position in this whole Trial. I also know that Joseph K. didn't get executed until he accepted his guilt without knowing his crime. That's where my stage name of Liana K comes from.



While I accept that my comments were perceived as racist, and I acted accordingly, I do not accept that my statements were inherently racist because someone determined that they COULD be racist. I know what my intents were and I know myself. I would never do anything that was deliberately racist. This is why I so vehemently object to Gamerghazi's ongoing assertion that racism is an aspect of my character. I believe that any reasonable person, judging the whole of my body of work, could not, based on evidence, come to that conclusion.



But let's face it, this isn't the first time an insane rumor has started up about me regarding the Gamergate controversy. If you believe the hype, I inflate my review scores, I'm a secret anti-feminist, I'm a stealth operative for Polygon, and I want other journalists to expose their sources. These are all accusations that have been made about me. They're all ridiculous. But if you've actually studied Simone De Beauvoir, you know that mystification reduced to a fetish is the essence of Othering. Yes, De Beauvoir had Marxist connections, but she was still a crazy smart person and I won't throw out the entire body of someone's work because I disagree with one thing. Try it sometime.



Making up crazy rumors about me, mystifying me, as become an online fetish. I don't get why so many people can't see me as a person with an opinion as opposed to some stealth usurper. There's this need by all the involved factions to Other me. Othering was an inherent element of Imperialism – aka colonialism – in that in order to justify assigning no worth to another groups opinions, you Other them. Othering people means you don't have to even try to understand them. By focusing on differences, it makes it much easier to move in and crush resistance, because you're removing empathy from the equation. These insane rumors are, in essence, attempts to dehumanize me so that hating me doesn't make anyone feel bad.



This process is happening on a large scale on the internet. It manifests in the chan culture of demystifying insults under the shelter of mystic anonymity. On a chan board, you can call someone any number of insults, knowing it's not really about them. You don't really know anyone on a chan board, because everyone is anonymous. It's the modern equivalent of a decadent, rebellious, masked ball. The problems occur when people use these norms outside of their appropriate place: calling someone a “fag” on twitter means something different than calling someone a “fag” on 4chan or 8chan, and we need to recognize this.



Anonymity creates a safety in that there's a part of a person online that is inherently unknowable. The practice of doxxing seeks to undermine that, and that's why it scares the crap out of people. What's strange to me is this form of asymmetrical warfare that's forming online where anons attempt to undermine a person who is an identified personality on the internet. I've experienced first hand the way trolls will move on to attacking a person's family or business associates when they can't get a rise out of a person through direct attacks. This should be understood to be totally unacceptable conduct, but it's not.



Now, I want to distinguish this from the actions of a person while in the sphere of business. People have every right to not use a business because they disagree with their politics. I just think it's dangerous to convict a person in the court of public opinion regarding tricky situations that you didn't observe first-hand. I give credit to the CBC for not firing Jian Ghomeshi based only on rumors. They fired him after he himself said he consensually broke a woman's ribs. He was fired based on actions that were not in dispute, not an unsubstantiated rumor mill.



Now this doesn't mean I don't believe the women that came forward with horrible stories of assault. This also doesn't mean I don't believe that the CBC shouldn't have been more vigilant. I just feel like credit should go where credit is due, and “innocent until proven guilty” is an important pillar of our justice system.



And this is where we go back to that ninja bigotry that I mentioned earlier. It's very hard to prove, without reasonable doubt, that someone has ill intent, and I believe in trusting your gut. I'm not saying that we should all come together in some hippie singalong where we love everyone. That's not realistic. What I'm saying is that we should, collectively, become more cautious with our accusations, and recognize that problems aren't solved by banning people from message boards – banning is the only solution that the Gamerghazi mod offered me. I declined to name names based on the fact that Streisand Effects tend to make harassment worse. To recap: the only “solution” Gamerghazi offered was something proven to make harassment worse.



Banning doesn't work, just like DRMs aren't a panacea against piracy. Banning doesn't teach anyone anything. Banning is what led to Gamergate in the first place. Banning is for trolls, not people having a bad day.



When I was a regular member of message boards, moderators issued cautions before they took the step of banning someone. That doesn't seem to happen anymore. I don't like this practice of deleting posts and banning accounts without explanations because it builds walls instead of bridges. If someone is clearly trolling, a ban makes sense. But is trolling such a clear thing with a person whose first language isn't English? I can't say that for certain.



I used to like troll culture. Trolling used to be posting fart jokes on a super serious discussion thread. It didn't involve posting someone's address on the internet, even by “accident”. And I knew that when I got banned for being an asshole, I deserved it. There seem to be a lot of people these days who are the subjects of Reddit bans who feel like they've been treated unfairly. Furthermore, there seem to be a lot of people who think I should feel bad about consensual photos of me that rank high on my google search because... Heaven forbid people seem to like them. No, I will not feel badly about that. Chainmail bikinis are no commentary on my character, and I would think Gamerghazi would be the first place supporting me on that point. It's not.



It's very sad that the “right” response to things online that you don't like is to block them. This means that you never get exposed to things that challenge your beliefs. Beliefs need to be challenged. If a belief is just, it gets stronger through challenge. If you never have your beliefs respectfully challenged, you get caught in an echo chamber and you act really badly as a result.



And that's why I keep stressing the importance of accountability online. This sentiment has been echoed by diverse online figures... I'm not going to name names because I don't want to release a shitstorm on anyone. We like to dismiss bad acts as the actions of “crazy” people, but that really isn't true. In fact, the word “crazy” has become divorced from true mental illness, which rarely hurts random strangers. “Crazy” is actually a symptom of a complete lack of accountability. “Crazy” is making excuses for your behavior, instead of owning it.



I'm aware that certain things I post are going to get blowback. In fact, I often take breaks from twitter to let the outrage burn out before I re-engage. I own my words and my actions. But because of that, I also refuse to accept negative depictions of my words that are exaggerations that go beyond the facts. So I reject these accusations of racism, because I sincerely care about the real negative impacts of racism. I am extremely supportive of First Nations issues. I think the treatment of Canadian First Nations, to this day, is shitty. I think that the shit that went down in Ferguson was first rate garbage. I'm not going to let a misunderstanding of a word take away from that. I own when I'm wrong. I also own when I'm right.



I've avoided talking about what will end Gamergate, because I don't believe Gamergate is a finite thing. I believe that Gamergate is a paradigm shift, and I respect the movement for that, despite our disagreements. Leaderless movements have their pros and cons, but I've grown to respect many Gamergate participants as people, even though we don't agree on everything. I'm hoping for the same from Gamerghazi, but for that to happen, Gamerghazi posters need to start seeing me as a person instead of a target. I'm not a dartboard you can throw sharp things at, Gamerghazi. No one is. Every person being attacked is a person. It's important to not lose sight of that.



In order to believe I'm a racist, Gamerghazi, you have to ignore my strong track record actively supporting rights for minority groups. You have to think that your disapproval of my word choices is more important than my actions. You have to decide that you have an omnipotent view into my life, that extends beyond my activity online. You have to assume that I don't separate my online interactions from my real life ones because I know that anyone I associate with is going to get viciously attacked, just because they talk to me. Who's attacking me, among others? The very people who claim they support causes they actually damage because they rage before they get informed.



Gamerghazi cannot take away the good works I've already done. However, people like the zealots Gamerghazi houses (and Gamergate too, to an extent) minimize my ability to do future good works. I can't use my good name to promote other causes, because my name has been so smeared. Within a matter of months, I went from freaking the mundanes over my support of gay relationships in video games to a Wicked Witch opposed to anything good. Thanks to various people on various sides of the Gamergate fight, my ability to serve as a conduit for other voices has been damaged. I believe this damage will gradually be repaired, but that doesn't mean I'm not seriously pissed off about the whole thing. If you think that people like me are the problem you have an extremely skewed view of the problem.



It's ludicrous to try to destroy everything good a person has ever done because of a few mistakes or misunderstandings. No person on this planet is perfect. The more attention a person gets, the more their mistakes are amplified. But judging a person's entire character based on a single mistake is dehumanizing.



Gamerghazi opposes Gamergate because they claim that Gamergate is a coordinated harassment campaign against women, based on the evidence that it targeted a handful of individual women. This leaves out the facts that Gamergate has also viciously attacked numerous men that have opposed them. The vast majority of journalists on the Game Journos Pro mailing list were men. It's more accurate to say that Gamergate attacked people despite them being women, not because of it. Because if we're going to apply the same standard, Gamerghazi, you've attacked women too. Are you a hate group? No, of course not.



If you really want to be effective in combating harassment, the tone on your sub-Reddit matters. You need to keep the people there honest, and not assume that the fury won't spread. The latest accusations of racism against me came in response to a person suggesting that maybe Gamerghazi should work to be nicer to neutral parties like myself. The response was “No. She's a racist. So she deserves it.” This is paraphrased, of course, but it's just a shorter version of the original justification.



I thought no one deserves harassment? Oh well. There goes that. This is, what, the third smear campaign against me? You deleted the other two, and possibly this one too, since the mod claimed they didn't see the post in question. So you just delete your collective mistakes. You don't own them. And you don't tell anyone to stop.



Sure, there's a grey area between criticism and harassment. So here's a simple guideline: saying my tweet could be interpreted as racist: fair. Saying I am a racist, repeatedly, for months at a time, despite evidence to the contrary? Harassment. If I was in a nice safe job like some in games journalism, I wouldn't find this relevant. But I barely scrape by. I don't know if I'm going to be able to doing games writing because it just doesn't earn enough. This year is going to be a make or break one where that is concerned.



You have harbored harassment, Gamerghazi. You have, in fact, defended it, when your moderator dismissed my statement of intent as little more than “claims”. So now it's up to you to practice what you preach and fix the problem under the roof of your own glass house. Until you do that, you have no right to throw stones at Gamergate, whatever Gamergate's perceived faults are.



Because under your own amorphous definition of reality, all those faults are now just “claims”.



So I'm going to try one more time to ask EVERYONE to leave me out of their discussions of Gamergate, Anti-Gamergate, etc. I want to get back to talking about actual games, once my health sufficiently improves that I can swallow something harder than mashed potatoes... don't make that dirty. ;)



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