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Alex is verbose, and you owe it to yourself (and the rest of us) to read the statement in its entirety. Remember, when making comments/claims to provide proper evidence, facts etc. Arguments based on incorrect assumptions, facts and straw men, will be dealt with swiftly. If in doubt, PM a mod or ask IRC. Do NOT spread misinformation, when in doubt, check your sources. In short, be smart. Alex comments on Idra: Orbs Statement: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=319038 Personal attacks against other posters in this thread will be met with a ban -- 14:20 KST | ||
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branflakes14
2082 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:33 shuurai wrote: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." --Eleanor Roosevelt Now there's a quote that sums up my thoughts on the matter completely. | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
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RajaF
Canada530 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:44 Leafren wrote: I understand, but the problem I have with Alex' way of handling things is how he wrote down a wall of text of racism and his credentials on the subject, while in fact it was just a business PR post. I am a laymen and very likely naive when it comes to business, but I still find his approach shameful. If Alex was really that concerned with discrimination based on human traits, he should have fired IdrA as well. Since he didn't, he's a big hypocite in my opinion. If somehow the criteria is how many assholes complain to the sponsors, that would make it even more cynical in my opinion. This basically sums up the situation. | ||
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aristarchus
United States652 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:13 n0btozz wrote: What I´m saying is, it´s pretty naive of EG to say "oh he had some BM on his back, how is that possible, we must fire him for having been a kid once and not for-seen that he´d be representing EG at some point". And then they claim they had to fire him because of their strict rules, when they have shown leniency towards their own players, while those players were under the EG flag. The only reason they do that is because nobody complains to sponsors about IdrA or other players, players are loved but Orb isn´t day9 or Tastosis, not everyone like him so he get´s thrown under the bus, and when pressure comes from sponsors, he´s rolled under the bus by the team and the community, and I don´t like Alex´s explanations, he should simply have been honest, said that they can´t give him a chance for his former mistakes, while not under the EG flag. However he chose to make a long post, saying how EG needs to put their weights on the scale and fight this racism, when any thinking person can see it was just a business decision trying to sway the minds of those that complained, so they send an email again saying they are good with EG. Also hypocritical that while 99% of the people here, who are throwing him under the bus, have BM-ed using words that are just as bad, like faggot, fag, fucking retarded noob or something in that direction. Hypocrisy never sits well with me. Also, if Nigger is like Nazi here, then this is blown out of proportion. Only people who are "soar" about "nazi" are germans, and even they are starting to not give a shit when called nazi´s. The only reason "nigger" is such an offensive word, or any bad word for that matter, is because we choose it to be so. We decide that when being called a nigger, that it´s offensive. By doing that, we are actually MAKING the word offensive, letting it have a negative meaning. Why do we insist on letting words like "Faggot" and "nigger" have a bad meaning? If we just start looking at those words as "ok so what? You are just venting anger, it´s cool" we automatically remove the stigma surrounding the words, and then calling someone "nigger"/"faggot" will just be a meaningless silly insult, that nobody gives a shit about, just like "shit" and "fuck", the stigmas have been removed from those words in most places, even though I´ve heard my friends across the Atlantic still maintain some stigma towards "fuck" for some reason. You well mannered friends across the Atlantic, removing the stigma from words is the way to go, but you just seem to be a little behind the rest of the world on that. You maintain racism by insisting on calling someone their skin color (or some word used to describe it) is offensive. The stigma isn´t around "white" and not nearly as much around "yellow", but "nigger/black" has that stigma. I just want to point out, in many spanish societies, "negro/negrito" is a common word associated with no stigma. Remove the stigma from the word instead of maintaining your policy of "this word is supposed to offend me" because by that, you are saying that it´s offensive to be black and/or be associated with being black. Yours truly, Icelandic niggerfag guy. Ok, maybe this is because you don't understand the cultural context, but there's a lot here you just don't get. Yes, it's probably hypocritical to be so harsh on Orb but not fire Idra for saying "faggot" at some point in the past. But it is a business, and obviously the negatives get weighed against the positives. Idra is more valuable to EG so he can get away with more. It's not perfectly fair, but it's not just about this. He could probably also yell at Sir Scoots and insult him and get away with it a little bit more than Orb could... It's just how the world works. And like I said, I have no problem with complains about the exact magnitude of punishment. It's the defense of his actions that bothers me. Yes, words have meaning because we give them meaning. The only reason that "bird" means the flying animal with feathers is that that's what everyone thinks it means. But that doesn't change the fact that they have meaning. "Nigger" is an extremely offensive word, and it it's been made that way by hundreds of years of use. It's not rational for me to start using the word "bird" to mean "automobile" and then get annoyed at people when they still take it to mean the flying thing with feathers, and it's not rational for you (or Orb) to think you should use "nigger" and then blame the people who are offended for "making" it offensive. Also, let's be clear, the stigma against "nigger" is entirely different than the stigma against "fuck". "Fuck" is just rude. Every language has ways to be rude to people, and in English (at least in the US) "fuck" is one of them. But just being rude to someone once wouldn't have gotten Orb fired. There is also no stigma around the word "black", and the fact that you refer to "nigger/black" as if they're interchangeable makes it clear you really have no understanding of what's going on. Calling someone black *as an insult* would still be a racist thing to do, and there would probably be justified outrage over that. Changing "black" to "nigger" just makes it all the more offensive. Yes, if we all insisted on using the word "nigger" to mean "automobile" (or any other non-racist thing) for the next hundred years, we could probably remove the stigma. But what's the point? Is using that word really so important to you that keeping it in our vocabulary is worth a hundred years of offending people and promoting racist ideas? Why not just stop using the word? If you just want to generically insult someone, I promise there is no shortage of other ways to do it. | ||
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Epoch
Canada257 Posts
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greyconnect
39 Posts
3/7, original reddit post re Orb's conduct during ladder games 3/9, Reddit post cross-posted to Teamliquid 3/9, 6 hours later, EG's Alexander Garfield posts this thread announcing the dismissal of Orb 3/9, about 30 minutes later, Orb posts his statement and apology thread. I'm interested in how fast this appeared on the radar and spun out of control. Gotta be hard on Orb for this to all come crashing down so fast. I'm also uncertain if I like how fast EG was willing to make a dismissal over this. | ||
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Nekrowizard
Denmark4 Posts
On March 10 2012 22:20 MiguelSanchez wrote: This^^ I think I will be writing to their sponsors like he asked and telling them how appalled at the double standard here and the over reaction of their CEO to an incident that didnt even happen while orb was employed by EG. Did Alex have a a choice really? He clearly had to gauge his decision about Orbs position with EG based on the public outcry. He probably would have liked to have kept Orb around if it was possible, and worked on cleaning up his language so this wouldn't happen again, just like he has done with IdrA. But with the amount of pressure put on his organization from the sponsors with all the angry emails they were getting, he clearly had no choice but to please the angry mob. Is it really that evil to protect a business that he has put years of hard work into? | ||
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verklighet
United States16 Posts
Did Alex have a a choice really? He clearly had to gauge his decision about Orbs position with EG based on the public outcry. He probably would have liked to have kept Orb around if it was possible, and worked on cleaning up his language so this wouldn't happen again, just like he has done with IdrA. But with the amount of pressure put on his organization from the sponsors with all the angry emails they were getting, he clearly had no choice but to please the angry mob. Is it really that evil to protect a business that he has put years of hard work into? Fair enough but he didn't really have to make a long winded post about how it's such against his beliefs etc when it CLEARLY isn't or Idra would've been fired a long time ago without needing any push from sponsors at all. He should give up on trying to make himself look like a sinless saint. He's a businessman. He's not fooling anyone. He talks about how the SC2 community is more mature than the CS community, well chances are they are smarter as well. | ||
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pugowar
United States142 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:56 Nekrowizard wrote: Did Alex have a a choice really? He clearly had to gauge his decision about Orbs position with EG based on the public outcry. He probably would have liked to have kept Orb around if it was possible, and worked on cleaning up his language so this wouldn't happen again, just like he has done with IdrA. But with the amount of pressure put on his organization from the sponsors with all the angry emails they were getting, he clearly had no choice but to please the angry mob. Is it really that evil to protect a business that he has put years of hard work into? It is actually - this is the internet and people blow this stuff way out of proportion. As chill said several pages back - they should have weathered the storm and then it would have blown over. As a company - you don't just give in to public pressure like that - or you are letting other people make your decisions for you. Orb was not in the right to use that language - but EG firing him in less then 24 hours while allowing Idra to continue to work there after all of the documented use of homophobic language is hypocritical. If you are fine being hypocritical then that is the end of this discussion. But no one can say they are not being hypocritical. And no one can say that EG thinks homophobia is okay while racism isn't. (BTW, I personally don't think Idra is being homophobic or Orb was being rascist. I think they were using inappropriate colloquialisms and shouldn't use them in the future. I also don't think Idra should be fired, and I think Orb should be reinstated.) | ||
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Exley
United States239 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:13 n0btozz wrote: The only reason "nigger" is such an offensive word, or any bad word for that matter, is because we choose it to be so. On March 11 2012 01:16 Otak wrote: Situation completely blown out of proportion. Why do you think that the word nigger is such a big deal? It's a word and they only have meaning if you let them. On March 11 2012 01:30 Djzapz wrote: The word itself isn't a big deal. At all. On March 11 2012 01:30 Grokken wrote: By not making a huge fuss every time someone says it. When we consider that the interpretation of language is dictated by processes entirely outside of conscious control --- especially on a societal level -- these opinions seem almost intentionally obtuse. Whether we like it or not, words have definitions, emotive meaning, connotations, and context. It appears that we are just wired to think in this way. I ask any of you to picture a situation in which you are insulted in the gravest manner possible, only to be told that the offense you feel is your own fault. Now apply that to the ~40 million blacks in America, many of whom take great offense to merely mentioning the word in question. See how far you can get into your explanation that they are only offended because they are choosing to be offended. | ||
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n0btozz
Iceland115 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:26 m4inbrain wrote: Sorry mate. Thats bullshit². And yeah, im german. It´s not, I know plenty Germans that don´t give a shit anymore. The only place where being called a "nazi" is stigmatized, is Germany, and it´s changing slowly. You can face it or not, but it´s just a fact. I have German relatives, and the older you are, the more stigmatized it is, but as I said Germans are changing slowly and it´s becoming less and less stigmatized. There are articles about this, as time goes on, the word Nazi simply starts to have less and less stigma around it, and it´s happening in Germany, just a lot slower then in the rest of EU, but compare being called a nazi today in Germany, and then calling someone a nazi in Germany in the 1960´s, or even mentioning Nazi´s in the 1950´s/1960´s and after you´ve done that you can try again claiming what I said was bullshit. | ||
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n0btozz
Iceland115 Posts
On March 11 2012 01:27 Exley wrote: How does one "remove the stigma" from a word, especially one that carries the weight of centuries of slavery and abuse? By simply not taking it as seriously, right now if someone calls you "nigger" you automatically think to yourself "oh my, that is offensive, I need to be offended" - but you don´t think "and so what if I were a black person, it´s cool". You keep the stigma going by automatically saying "I need to be offended now, this is a bad thing". People used to have that stigma towards "fuck" and "rape" - but both have gone down the stigma meter in the last couple of decades. Centuries of slavery and abuse...homosexuals, still hunted in the US and Africa and other places, Lesbians are still raped to make them straight in many places around the world, still you are more likely to get away with "Fkn muff licker" or "dumb faggot" then "dumb nigger". Also jews? I know "kike" is a bad word, but why?. Still Faggot is reaching more acceptance then Nigger, weird how the stigma around words changes. It´s exactly the thought process you have that is the problem today. People say you HAVE TO be offended by the word, which makes it bad, and keeps the insult alive. Making words like: nigger and faggot not bear such great weight, will eventually help the cause more, then to keep them as insults. Negrito/Negro are regular words in many Spanish speaking countries, why is that? For some reason (and this is just fucking retarded) black people can say "sup nigger" and sing about "niggers in the hood, banging dem bitzhez" all day long, but if a white person says "sup niggahh" it´s not greeted with "yo whitey" or "sup honkey" and both go on being cool about it, de-stigmatizing the words, the african american person is more likely to (although using this word about himself and his friends) get mad as fuck. So when people say "it´s all about the meaning, if you are super good friends, you can say nigger", the meaning doesn´t seem to matter, cause it´s branded into US pplz "nigger is a bad word, can´t use it, and if someone does, i´m supposed to be offended" and it´s stupid. You can say to your friends "sup bitcheeeezzz" but 20 years ago that would have been offensive, a good example of a word that isn´t as stigmatized anymore. But I´m gone way off topic/off my first post, I just think that Alex´s statement is pretty bad, and he´s simply not 100% honest in it, and it saddens me. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On March 11 2012 02:17 Exley wrote: When we consider that the interpretation of language is dictated by processes entirely outside of conscious control --- especially on a societal level -- these opinions seem almost intentionally obtuse. Whether we like it or not, words have definitions, emotive meaning, connotations, and context. It appears that we are just wired to think in this way. I ask any of you to picture a situation in which you are insulted in the gravest manner possible, only to be told that the offense you feel is your own fault. Now apply that to the ~40 million blacks in America, many of whom take great offense to merely mentioning the word in question. See how far you can get into your explanation that they are only offended because they are choosing to be offended. Try to offend me and watch me not give a shit. I'm a frog, a cracker, a retarded frenchy, my accent is annoying, etc. I don't even care about that - so try offending me by proxy by using this slang out of context? It's not offensive, just funny. Perhaps sad, in some cases, just because it's not very classy to use those words like that. Like I said before, people will take offense regardless, because we do a lot of things that are offensive. Me talking about how I "raped some bitch" on counter strike will make a rape victim feel really bad somewhere. Me eating meat utterly pisses off some vegans who think of me as some wretched heartless individual. Me saying the word "nigger" offends black people. When I use my old shitty car that pollutes 20x more than modern cars offends environmentalists. People get offended. Then, nothing happens. Big deal. | ||
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1Eris1
United States5797 Posts
On March 11 2012 02:12 pugowar wrote: It is actually - this is the internet and people blow this stuff way out of proportion. As chill said several pages back - they should have weathered the storm and then it would have blown over. As a company - you don't just give in to public pressure like that - or you are letting other people make your decisions for you. Orb was not in the right to use that language - but EG firing him in less then 24 hours while allowing Idra to continue to work there after all of the documented use of homophobic language is hypocritical. If you are fine being hypocritical then that is the end of this discussion. But no one can say they are not being hypocritical. And no one can say that EG thinks homophobia is okay while racism isn't. (BTW, I personally don't think Idra is being homophobic or Orb was being rascist. I think they were using inappropriate colloquialisms and shouldn't use them in the future. I also don't think Idra should be fired, and I think Orb should be reinstated.) Um, you really can't "weather" losing sponsers. That will destroy a company if it gets bad enough. Obviously we don't know how much pressure the sponsers were putting on EG, but from the looks of it, it was probably significant. Just look at Rush Limbaugh. Biggest media personality in the US, has millions of followers, can basically say anything he wants to, etc. But the moment his sponsers start pulling out, he immedietly releases an apology and backs down....because if he didn't he would of have been toast. So regarding the matter, EG's choice might have been hypocritical, but they didn't really have much of a choice in the matter, or they could have lost a ton of support/money. Personally that's my biggest problem with the whole thing, that people would attack an organization through their sponsers. The phrase "killing esports" has never been so apptly applied. | ||
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warblob004
United States198 Posts
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paschl
Germany666 Posts
story checks out. | ||
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UrielSC
Canada143 Posts
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FlyingDJ
Germany153 Posts
For comical value I would however appreciate if someone had saved the "moving in" video and would now reverse it with a sad soundtrack and a fade to black at the end. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
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Servius_Fulvius
United States947 Posts
On March 11 2012 02:12 pugowar wrote: It is actually - this is the internet and people blow this stuff way out of proportion. As chill said several pages back - they should have weathered the storm and then it would have blown over. As a company - you don't just give in to public pressure like that - or you are letting other people make your decisions for you. Orb was not in the right to use that language - but EG firing him in less then 24 hours while allowing Idra to continue to work there after all of the documented use of homophobic language is hypocritical. If you are fine being hypocritical then that is the end of this discussion. But no one can say they are not being hypocritical. And no one can say that EG thinks homophobia is okay while racism isn't. (BTW, I personally don't think Idra is being homophobic or Orb was being rascist. I think they were using inappropriate colloquialisms and shouldn't use them in the future. I also don't think Idra should be fired, and I think Orb should be reinstated.) Either way you look at it, EG set a standard here. The community forced EG's management into a decision-making position. The mob screamed for blood and it forced EG to conisder it's core values. Not surprisingly, it decided it would not tolerate the use of this word. Punishment needs to be severe and dismissal sounds about right. It sucks for Orb that he was the trial case, but that's the way things go. Years ago I worked as a Resident Assistant and one of my co-RA's keyed someone into his room. Turns out he lied about his room number and stole an ipod from the room. When he was caught the next day they asked my fellow RA why she let him in the room without checking the roster. He had worked as a front desk worker and we (all ten of us) trusted people we knew. This wasn't official residence life policy, but we had never been trained to check everyone in the roster in the official training sessions. Regardless, my friend was still fired because the department wanted a zero tolerance policy. It sucked, but that's the way things go. I'm sure Idra came up in the discussion. The only two reasons I can think of for keeping him are this: 1). Idra has been talked to about his behavior before. If EG set the standard that they will tolerate him while he improves (say, 6 months ago) then it's not good practice to fire him outright. I can guarentee that, from now on, if he so much as lays down any malicious insult his position will be put under the microscope. The same goes for any EG player. If I were the CEO after this decision I would have gotten the whole team together to review unacceptable language. 2). Idra has a lot more invested in him. Orb was moved accross the country, which may or may not have been on EG's dime, but he wasn't casting very long and didn't receive much pay. Idra, on the other hand, has been supported for a long time, makes a lot of international flights for competition, lived in the team house for a long stint, etc. This investment probably prompted the leniency on his manners. Nevertheless, I can guarenteee that it will no longer be tolerated. When it's all said and done, Orb is still a good caster and will not have problems finding work. There are companies out there that don't care about past actions as much (just look at Destiny). The community is forgiving over time. I mean, if TT1 can go from a confirmed maphacker (and getting removed from the TSL) to a sponsored SC2 player two years later tehn I have no doubt Orb will earn his redemption and earn another big break. | ||
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