Complaint, Samuel Mason

[NebulaFlare]

BYOND Key: NebulaFlare

Player Byond Key: Timmy700 (Samuel Mason)

Reason for complaint:

They were playing as chaplain during the round, loosely using the word 'Infidel'. Made a few in-game references to Allah as well.

This kind of portrayal on the Islamic belief - it's just rude. Skirting the rules (they weren't directly griefing) is inconsiderate, and promotes ignorant behavior. I don't feel comfortable playing a game where someone is portraying a very, very stereotyped persona of the Muslim faith. I am not Islamic - I'm in no position to judge or question the belief. But what I witnessed appeared to be an attempt of mockery. It's...simply not right, and it's blind-sighted.

On an extra note, yes - I don't like seeing real world religions portrayed in a game. If someone wants to sincerely role-play their belief, well, again, I am in no position to judge. But we should make a note to be respectful. Religious belief is one of those few concepts that will open a can of worms. It's because people have very strong feelings about it, for very obvious reasons.

All I request is we do not make a mockery of any form of belief, spread stereotypical knowledge, and shrug it off as being 'okay'. Because it's not.

And as I write this complaint, apparently the chapel is breached. No idea how or what happened.

Approximate Date/Time: Sunday, April 12, 2015. 9:12 PM PST

[Guest Menown]

We have somebody making an open mockery of Satanistic beliefs. Nobody's made a complaint over him.

Unless Timmy is going, "Death to Space Jews" or "Allahu Ackbar" as he detonates C4 charges, then I don't see the issue. Perhaps some logs of what he did would help?

[VoltageHero]

We have somebody making an open mockery of Satanistic beliefs. Nobody's made a complaint over him.

Unless Timmy is going, "Death to Space Jews" or "Allahu Ackbar" as he detonates C4 charges, then I don't see the issue. Perhaps some logs of what he did would help?

 

If I'm recalling correctly, what was said was more or less "dirty infidels" and "praise Allah", at least over the comms. More may have been said in person, but I'm not sure.

While I can't speak for everybody, I don't think there was much complaint, OOCly, about this character, at first. I didn't really see many people voicing their dislike for them, at least.

As well, Allah is Islam's God, so I don't see why a non-mockery of the word Allah would be rude.

As a note about real religions, why? It's a thing that's coded into the game (both in character setup, and when you join as a Chaplain). As a Christian, why should I not be able to make a Preacher who does stereotypical Southern Baptist services? Even some religions make jokes about themselves in real life, so you can't say it's something too rare.

[Susan]

We have somebody making an open mockery of Satanistic beliefs. Nobody's made a complaint over him.

 

That's because the last time someone made a complaint about Feros' player, the community response was 'wow why do u guys hate fun' and tried to justify his behavior.

[Guest]

Atheist vs. Religious debate incoming...

Honestly, if there is one thing I hate about society today is their habit of portraying religious people as victims. They are not, everyone is to be held to the same standard when defending their beliefs and deal with criticism, not be fondled by society. As Susan said, no one objected to Feros OOC-ly.

IC-ly, as Elena, I argued theology with Feros once, because the character's beliefs were stupid and not at all representative of Satanic faith. Same in this case, everyone here most likely thinks that ISIS does not represent the muslims. People shouldn't get butthurt when muslims are represented this way if they don't intend to give the same treatment to other beliefs.

This is, of course, my opinion. I'm just saying, don't tell me that I can't ridicule muslims unless it's immersion breaking.

[Valkrae]

In my eyes, this isn't a case of X got away with it, so Y should too.

This is a case of; "Is this guy being racist and offensive with his portrayal?"

Don't bring another player/character into complaints.

[Killerhurtz]

I've seen people make fun of every single religion. Christianism and Pastafariansim was parodied with a sweaty space jesus with noodly arms. Scientology was parodied by having a church that venerated the Skrell, Unathi and Tajaran for being bearers of soul. I've seen Buddhism be parodied TWO TIMES in opposite ways - one of them emptied the chapel to make the most bare chapel, the other turned the chapel into a full-on buffet to celebrate Buddha's corpulence. Hell - I've even seen a parody of mesoamerican religions with an antagonist who ordered a goat then switched a man's heart with a goat's.

If you want realistic religions in SS13, the Aurora is probably not the place to be because as far as I can see, the "Chaplain" post in Aurora is pretty muc "religious clown". There's nothing wrong with Timmy's behavior - he wasn't trying to harm anyone, he was just playing a stereotypical very devout Imam.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

While reality IRL has members of the islamic faith already stigmatized in the West (you cannot deny a good majority of the US wants muslims gone or dead) and that leaves an uncomfortable taste in people's mouth when such stereotypes are used to reinforce the idea of belittling Muslims, the fact the Chaplain's existence is 90% goofing off and making fun of religions means there's little ground to stand on for an OOC complaint unless we wanted to grant an exception or change policy on the chaplain's behaviour.

While concerned that players that practice islam will be made uncomfortable by such behaviour, none have made a complaint yet, and I don't usually see much use in complaining on behalf of an entire subset that you're not a part of.

[Frances]

I actually believe the staff tries to enforce "tasteful" to a degree, for everything pertaining to race, religion, etc.

Is this the kind of comedic jab that takes it too far? Because I've seen a few super trolly Muslim characters (those that bomb the station while screaming "jihad", for example), and those were removed right quick. But loosely throwing around the word "Infidel", as long as the chaplain puts a decent effort into creating an act, isn't the greatest sin against political correctness there could be. This is the Internet. And we're playing SS13.

Show me something dumber than that, however, and I'll oppose it. But the way things stand right now, I don't see the problem. These things are clearly not meant in an offending manner, they're just, crude humor.

[PoZe]

Well, i am Atheist. So i would say about current situation. As a lot of people have noticed we have Satan cahplain onboard. His name is Feros. This chaplain did quite a lot of things, then Samuel Mason. Now Feros became more quiet, but before he was acting like a clown. I didn't saw something that was about religion. He was throwing things into space with massdrive, running with duck and yelling 'HAIL SATAN', using chair with fire extinguisher, insulting officers, violating several laws.

My personal opinion is: if we have this kind of chaplain(Feros) and he is not punished or something, why then we should make complaints about people who saw in Feros something interesting and the have made their choice to be like Feros. Until we would forbid this there is nothing to saw about this specific situation.

[Valkrae]

I actually believe the staff tries to enforce "tasteful" to a degree, for everything pertaining to race, religion, etc.

Is this the kind of comedic jab that takes it too far? Because I've seen a few super trolly Muslim characters (those that bomb the station while screaming "jihad", for example), and those were removed right quick. But loosely throwing around the word "Infidel", as long as the chaplain puts a decent effort into creating an act, isn't the greatest sin against political correctness there could be. This is the Internet. And we're playing SS13.

Show me something dumber than that, however, and I'll oppose it. But the way things stand right now, I don't see the problem. These things are clearly not meant in an offending manner, they're just, crude humor.

 

Oh, I wasn't saying anything in particular about this complaint, just trying to steer it away from turning into an 'X DID THIS SO Y SHOULD TOTALLY GET AWAY WITH IT'

[EvilBrage]

Here's my perspective.

We are playing a game that, through code, allows for such things as theft, kidnapping, dismemberment, murder, terrorism, cannibalism, and any number of other traditionally offensive themes (why we even have a PG-13 rule when our characters can explode into balls of blood, gore, and entrails is beyond my comprehension.) And now we're complaining about the use of a word. Of all the things we could be offended at, we choose reference to religion. If I saw a traitor chaplain shouting "allahu akbar" while detonating a bomb? I would laugh. If I saw a chaplain making jokes about catholic altar boys? I would laugh. If I saw a chaplain condemning the kitchen because none of the equipment is certified to provide kosher meals? I would laugh.

You're perfectly within your rights to be offended; the rest of us are perfectly within our rights to ignore your offense. You can ignore my offense to a particular subject if it makes you feel any better. My point is, if something is so terribly offensive to someone that they simply can't bear the thought of an anonymous individual across the internet mocking their religion, then they have a very poor grip on the elements that comprise this world of ours. They would have a heart attack if they discovered how many people truly despise their religion for no comprehensible reason. No, we shouldn't be insulating people with rules prohibiting certain behavior for fear of offending them - just like we shouldn't insulate the chaplain from harm when they are attacked because of their ravings.

Allow everything, endorse nothing.

Don't use that word "offensive." Don't cry out for change. Recognize the opinion for the ignorant drivel it is and move on.

[Baka]

Here is my outtake on this subject.

Samuel Mason plays a stereotypical Muslim character. Is it tasteless to scream "Death to Infidels!!" In his church and going around asking women to put on the Niqab that what they are wearing is "Shameful to Allah?" Absolutely. It's a annoyance to be an idiot on comms and to try and force beliefs on people.

However...

Did what he do was a violation of our policies?

This falls under purview of stereotypes that has been a perpetual grey line of "Okay, well, if the Russian Character is allowed to go 'da' and speak broken English after every sentence, we can't really go to the Japanese Guy and punish him for calling people -San, and saying things such as Dishonourbah Dispray. In his case, maybe he's going a bit too over the line with trying really hard to be offensive, but unless he's actively starting to welderbomb for 72 virgins, he's just playing a bad stereotype. I can talk to him about perhaps toning it down because it is potentially seen as playing an insane character, but other than that, that's all I really see what is wrong.

[Guest]

It is kind of hard to enforce on one instance without considering the others.

I'm really not up for banning stereotypical characters or ones that fit into RP archetypes. A lot of characters start out that way and develop, like any other one.

Idk. I just say, if it gets to the point where the roleplay is not believable nor acceptably tasteful, talk to people about it.

[Baka]

I tried finding the player, with little success.

I will talk to them the next time I see them however about possibly toning it down.

I will be closing and archiving this thread. If there is anything else that should be added to this discussion, PM me so I make reopen the thread.