That is to say, a lead character that isn't white, straight, or cis.

A few Nintendo games let you create your own avatar like Splatoon, Animal Crossing, and the Miis in general but let's step back from those and talk specifically about named characters with their own story and defined character traits.

Has it happened already in some lesser known title? I've been trying to think of characters that aren't white in Nintendo games and so far the only major example I can think of is Ganondorf.

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@Stephen

How about we turn this around. What opportunities do you think black people *don't* have in American society? What is it you think they're being barred from, that any white person can access?

As for your second comment, sorry I don't respond to strawman arguments. Try addressing what I actually said, not your own incorrect assumptions of my views.

@Shadowlink

I expect you to answer my question but I will gladly answer yours.

The answer is called systemic racism. It is a system that is set up in such a way that it is harder (but not impossible) for minorities to succeed. For example, black people are statistically more likely to be born into poverty than white people. Poverty obviously makes opportunities scarcer. This is where the term privilege comes in. It isn't a case of restaurants not serving them but rather the priorities being different. A kid who is born to parents who have a comfortable life and save money for them to go to school has an easier time succeeding than someone whose parents have to work multiple jobs just to scrape by.

Now again, do you really think that black people having less opportunity is just a random coincidence and not a result of the oppression they've faced?

It isn't a strawman. If you would like to clarify your views as to why celebrations of diversity don't help then by all means do so.

Stephen said:

A kid who is born to parents who have a comfortable life and save money for them to go to school has an easier time succeeding than someone whose parents have to work multiple jobs just to scrape by.

Notice a key word missing from that statement? Well actually it's not key. That's kind of the point.

If you would like to clarify your views as to why celebrations of diversity don't help then by all means do so.

Strawman. Claiming something I haven't said.

@Shadowlink

You can clarify any time you want.

This thread is so getting locked it isn't even funny.

Anyone up for bingo?

@Stephen
No thanks, I think I was pretty clear. If you want to waste time questioning things I haven't said, that's your business. I have no interest in that game.

I agreed earlier with Pokepal's assumption that this thread only a short distance from breaking down, but I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised with the general tone of the thread today. For the most part it's been pretty respectful. And I intend to keep it that way. Ciao.

EDIT: Hah! I ponder on his earlier thoughts and he appears. Weird. *Waves to Pokepal*.

@Stephen
Fire Emblem Fates has same-sex marriage in it. Not sure how well it's done but I know it's there.

@Stephen

You know what would probably feel more inclusive? Simply saying "Americans."

I wanna talk about Rocky some more!

What's interesting about Rocky in the context of this conversation is that First Blood--the original Rambo movie that Stallone made more or less around the time of the original Rocky films--has a type of prejudice and racism at the heart of its plot. Rambo himself gets discriminated by the small-town police chief early on in the film and it's essentially what makes him snap. I think Stallone has a vaguely European look to him that allows him to believably play roles where his nationality can be a plot point.

I agree that Little Mac looks Hispanic in Punch-Out Wii and SSB. Way more than he did in the NES Punch-Out, at any rate.

Zero said:

Sorry, bullshit. It's the choices of the people AROUND her, and she can't control them. She can try to actively ignore what is happening, but that isn't the same thing as it not happening and not being real.

What you do is up to you, what I do is up to me. How you react to me is up to you, how I react to you is up to me. To say that we have no choice on our own actions and reactions is simply untrue. I never proposed anything was "real" or "unreal," I'm saying it is up to us, as individuals, to decide how we react to the world we live in, either by holding grudges (and thereby continuing that struggle for ourselves) or by forgiving and living fuller lives free from those chains. I could easily have taken the racism I've faced with my wife's family and dwelled on it, continuing it and continuing to let it hurt me. Instead I showed them the person I was, regardless of race, and BOTH sides are better for it. That is a choice.

And with that I bid adieu, because I am not feeling well and off to the doctor, and this sort of topic does little to nothing for my health and well being on a GOOD day, let alone when I can't breathe well. I wish you and her all the best with the choices you choose.

@TriforceBun I thought Rambo was less about race / ethnicity and more about being a veteran, regardless.

@J.K. Riki None of that addressed what I was talking about, but ok.

@Zero
It definitely is, but as an aside isn't Rambo Native or Half Native? Not sure if the movies explicitly say so but I believe it's part of his backstory.

@TriforceBun
@Zero
@carlosrox

According to Wikipedia, Rambo is half Navajo / half Italian American..which would almost bring us full circle to "Mario is a minority." But in First Blood: Part II (same link), it mentions that in the movie he's referred to as being of American Indian / German descent. Hmm.

@Mr_Mustache

Not acknowledging discrimination isn't a way to fix it.

@TriforceBun

He looks pretty white to me, especially considering that his prior incarnations were white.

@Stephen

Constantly referring to a group by a completely different way is a perfect way to "keep 'em separated."

Can you imagine if instead of "white people," we were "German-Americans" and "Italian-Americans" and "Swedish-Americans" and so on? How come white people get all grouped together as so? And as stated before, yeah, the Irish weren't really respected all that much not too long ago.

--Do they say African-Canadians in Canada? Serious question.

Shadowlink said:

That's really the crux of the matter here- Do the things we're discussing contribute to the 'normalisation' of these groups, or do they serve only to highlight differences that shouldn't matter and undermine efforts to achieve that?

Think about it this way: eventually, people are gonna be really tired of hearing news stories about gay pride parades, right? In fact, I'd say this is probably the point you (and a lot of well-meaning people on the internet who turn to the dark side after being annoyed for so long) are at. But not everyone is quite at that point yet, so until we can shift to the point where gay pride parades are so normal and boring and been-there-done-that for everyone, people are still going to be showing interest in them. But eventually they will get boring because we're so used to them, and that's when people will stop doing them.

Like I told DapperDave, I don't think we're gonna have to hit the brakes on this "positive discrimination" stuff anytime soon. If 200 years from now we live in a world where gay people are our overlords and there's a pride parade every day, sure, I'll look back on this thread and feel pretty dumb, but I really don't think that's gonna happen.

@Secret_Tunnel

I didn't say I was at that point with pride parades. You need to stop listening to Stephen, he gets a lot of stuff wrong.

I just made basically the same argument you just did "(But eventually they will get boring because we're so used to them, and that's when people will stop doing them.)", and got verballed by someone who didn't start this topic in good faith.

@Shadowlink

He was responding to your post. Again, there's no way to take that besides saying that events that celebrate diversity might further foster a divide.

If you want to clarify your POV you can at any time. No one has put any words in your mouth. You made a statement saying that such events maybe aren't a good idea and people told you why they were. That's all that has happened so far. If you don't like that then the ball is in your court to rectify it.

Further, I don't really care what you think about my motives. It's kind of ironic when in this thread you're the one accusing me of misrepresenting you for things you never said. You have been told countless times by various mods to stop hounding me for posting my views and trying to start trouble.

Discuss the topic at hand in good faith or kindly see yourself elsewhere.

@Mr_Mustache

White people aren't all grouped up like that. You can absolutely say Italian-American and whatever other group you want. I really don't know why you think you can't. It's not like you're defining people and saying they are JUST this group. People can belong to multiple groups.

African-American is a term that came about because their ancestors were African but brought over to America. If they shared that ancestry then they'd be called African American still I'd assume.

I'm so quietly angry that an entire post I wrote up got lost on my piece of shit phone; it closed because I wrote out this damn thing intermittently at work and must have forgot to send it before I closed it...

Well my phone is cool but it's having really bad battery, heating, and performance issues. I dropped it a few times too so the touch screen is a bastard when I try to type. Nonstop typo correction. It's like writing out every sentence twice.

@carlosrox

I hear ya, it's gotten to the point that I will pull up the notes app on my phone and type what I want to say there and copy and paste it over if it's longer than a paragraph.