Suugar-Fiend wrote:But the argument that something isn't educational/historical feels a lot like the " it not my problem kind of --argument". If the Australian government felt they needed to take that approach, they would have never acknowledge the damage they had done to the aboriginal people and try to help make amends wherever possible.
But it's not Firn's problem. She didn't kill a single Native American, nor anyone else I'd feel comfortable guessing. She's not responsible for explaining their history just because she's making an item. She's not in the government and thus responsible for the actions of that government. She's not a teacher responsible for expanding her student's mind. She's not your mother, which I say because it is important for me to point that out to people like you: She's NOT you're mother and you're NOT hers. The gall you people have in thinking you can school and scold absolute strangers on how to behave properly always amazes me. You always come in with this know-everything tone and say, "What you did wasn't right" in a patient tone, so patient I know you didn't mean it but I'm going to teach you, and it's just so hilariously smug and entitled that it's not even hilarious anymore. It's scary that you think it's your responsibility, nay your RIGHT, to speak to strangers that way, to teach them how to behave when you know almost nothing about their background, or history, or beliefs. But SHE'S the one with something to learn here about sensitivity, really?
She has no responsibilities here, to you or anyone. If she makes an item and you wonder, "Gee what's it mean?", you can look it up and learn more, and then you will have learned something and it will be
because of her.
Suugar-Fiend wrote:American still takes that approach to their Native Americans. Have never formally apologized and do not acknowledge the huge negative impact they had. That's just the two I am most familiar with, but I am sure there is more.
That's
hilariously untrue.
I think what you mean to say is that they've apologized, apologies keep on comin', but they're just never good enough. Because that's what apologies from people hundreds of years later who are
in absolutely no way to blame because everyone to blame is dead: They're never good enough. The apology is meaningless. If your grandmother ran over my cat and then died cackling, "Ha ha screw you and your cat, you dirty sub-human!" and then died, and then you said "Gee sorry about my grandma," would I feel better? Absolutely not. My poor cat is still dead, and you had nothing to do with it. Apologies by people FOR someone else only irritate me because they're condescending in their meaninglessness. The point of an apology is to show how YOU, the apologizer, are wrong. Your grandma died a racist piece of crap and never learned and grew as a person, so how can a "Gee sorry" from her descendant mean anything?
Besides which, loads of Americans immigrated long after anything to do with Native Americans. Are we supposed to trace our family trees, see if we were here or not, and then apologize accordingly?
Suugar-Fiend wrote:I guess it hits a little to close to home for some people with a set like that. I guess is as insulting as someone making a set of a burka. Covering the avatar head to midriff.
How would this be insulting? What if someone sympathetic to Muslims wants to wear one to show solidarity, that's insulting? What if an actual (gasp egads!) burka-wearer actually USES KOfK, and wants to put one on their avatar? (Come to that idea, there are still Native Americans left on the planet, and some of them even have internet access, so um...)
Exactly when, according to you, can we move on from this super-careful, qualifying-everything-we-say-before-we-dare-say-it, explaining-ourselves-excessively, and just start treating people like people? No boundaries between us, no "Sorry five-hundred years ago some guy maybe related to you killed a guy maybe related to you, oh wait no, actually my grandparents emigrated here after that, but sorry still because I live here and I'm white-colored so obviously sorry"? When does that end, and actual human interaction start?
This is a real question, because I see this political-correctness and "sensitivity" getting worse and worse, and all it does is drive wedges between people. It's not bringing us together, like supposedly it's supposed to. People are afraid to say things, afraid to talk, because someone's always waiting in the wings to shout "YOU'RE DOING EVERYTHING WRONG." Because literally everything is wrong, and the only way to protect yourselves nowadays is to be the guy who spots and shouts it, rather than the guy getting shouted at.
Firn feels anxious and stressed now, and you can bet in the future she's going to feel fear and anxiety when creating an item, and that's the goal you've accomplished. No one's been brought together for greater understanding. You only made yet another person you know is kindhearted afraid to do anything at all.