Re:MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to...
by LocalH on Friday July 03, 2020 @06:07AM
(#23722688)
Do you literally want to give the racists power to cherry pick from all of culture to take things that have existed for thousands of years and lock them away behind censorship?
If someone is specifically using the Nazi version of the swastika, then by all means handle it. But if it's the non-Nazi version, then why do people not get to reclaim it?
Re:MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to...
by bastawhiz on Friday July 03, 2020 @12:59PM
(#23725568)
Is putting a swastika on your Microsoft car truly the way to reclaim a symbol which, in the last century, has been used almost exclusively for hate? No. It's not the venue. There is no room for explanation or context. It's a symbol on a car. If you're going to reclaim a symbol—arguably the symbol MOST APPROPRIATED for hate—indiscriminately regardless of the context, you're either a fool or a troll.
Does the popularity of a racist symbol have any correlation with whether it should be suppressed? Swastikas were a lot more present in the 1940s but that doesn't mean they were less reprehensible.
If a far-right group started using a brand-new symbol to signify their racist ideology, is it suddenly worth waiting for the symbol to pick up steam before prohibiting it? That doesn't make a lot of sense. The people using the symbol are saying "I don't think you should exist" _right now_, not when there is a sufficient number of others rallying around their belief system.
The confederate flag is hundreds of years old. Waiting for "informal social pressure" to kick in is a great way to ignore a problem.