Black Lives Matter
This has been a few difficult months, and even more difficult weeks that have just passed. Many of us in the community face the task of confronting and understanding our white privilege in comparison to to daily leathality and discrimination of Black Americans, people of color, Indigenous People, and other marginalized communities. We have remained mostly quiet, listening to the voices that NEED to be heard. I, Lindiwe, have felt that platitudes and acts on social media would have felt more about us than about the movements happening. I felt that the symbolism without action carried little weight. But I understand now that my silence, and our silence as a community, is not a part of any solution. BLACK LIVES MATTER. The WIAS community condemns the systematic racism, bigotry, and white supremacy that pervades every aspect of our society… including our roleplay community. As much as we are appalled by the racism that is found outside of the game, actions by leaders, officials and our fellow man… we are equally appalled by the actions of our fellow community members. We are disgusted by the conversation surrounding the skin color of game models, and the implications that our POC friends should not be allowed to represent themselves in our pretendy-fun-time-game. We are disappointed with community leaders that would have this go on. WIAS was created on the basis of being inclusive. These words are a restatement of that inclusion. They are a marker that we as a community will continue to revisit, and we will use them to guide our actions going forward. In saying this we will not support any guild, event or persons exhibiting prejudiced or bigoted actions. We stand with the BLM movement in this community. Educate. Participate. https://blacklivesmatter.com/resources
