The Diversity Talk You Need but Don't Want to Hear with Tanya Depass | GduX.me

Oh what's up Tanya welcome to the stream how you doing good the head a little tired just got back from Denver last night so and still doing it still here champ your champ thank you for thank you for putting on for the people we really appreciate your involvement here and I know that you're tired and you're still pushing through so again thank you very much for for putting this talk together for us no worries you know for once I get a chance to speak though that I'd love to speak about diversity and cuss and not hold back because no frailing watching what you should we see diversity panels there's a lot of very polite kind of hedging around or what diversity is and there's no no one talks about the elf in the room of you should it's an all-white panel talking about diversity or they have a bunch of brown people but that's the only time you

dusty brown people at that conference mm-hm so I get I get to talk about that in a way that is a little more open in a way that I might do it pax dough for those don't know pax doesn't dev only conference those two days before PAX West media's not allowed is black box you can't tweet about it can't share about on social media open because you're talking you're talking to peers and you get to talk in a way that you couldn't let's say on the main pack stage mm-hmm well we're super excited to hear what you got to say and so whenever you're ready we got your slides open yeah we're gonna quiet our mics for you are free to go all right if you wanna switch order slides there we go yay so hi everyone my name is Tanya for those that may or may not know what I do I run a nonprofit called I need verse games and what we do is we get people in the industry part of what we do is actually send 25 people every year to the Game Developers Conference with a conference

Plus summits past you know it's changed over the years just be all-access but basically you get all five days to GGC unfortunately because we're small we can't give you money but the past for a lot of people is the biggest cost and so this is just a little bit about me I'm not gonna read a slide at you because everyone hates when people read slides of them we're all adults we can all read if anyone has questions about stuff that I've done that's on this slide we get to a MA or QA feel free you know anything pops up in the chat you know someone grab that for me because I can't look at the camera and then at the same time and you know I just want to have a loose conversation but a very real one with you all and even though my nonprofit called I need diverse games even the time that I've been doing this diversity is a buzzword you know there's your tick boxes there's do we have a black person

do we have an Asian person and and they don't even bother differentiate between what part of Asia those people come from they may have an Indian person they may have someone who's Native maybe they'll have a bunch of women they're like Cole we're diverse but that's not it that's not diversity that's just we're doing the bare minimum to look like we care that look like we're aware of the issues and look here's our color Benetton ad in either a game a game dev studio a panel but that's not it that's not enough they don't do anything after that panel is over they don't do anything to bring folks into the fold which is what inclusion is as so many people get to the 101 step of diversity and don't get past that to inclusion which is why lies things fail a lot of things or like coke camps and now the coke camps are a failure but here's your laptop here's eight weeks learn the code good luck that's all you get and there's

not a lot of follow up there's not a lot of you know following people after the fact making sure did they get a job did they learn further skills what did they do after that Coke Camp do they follow up you know a month later a year later and so what I'd love for you all to take away from this and forgive me if I talk fast I am a fast talker when I'm giving speeches and panels so if anyone the chat needs me you slow down just kind of someone in the chat kind of at me and I'll try to do my best but I want to be real and blunt with you in a way that I normally don't get to be on panels or talks and you know why diversity became this useless buzzword a lie ship is shallow and I hate the word a lie some people get really defensive about that take that to the altar of your choosing and why inclusion has to go beyond those at why inclusion does and when it's done well and the last thing I'll give you is kind of ways to start doing better than checkbox diversity so these are just a

few things that people think diversity is it's June its Pride Month happy Pride months of my rainbow family but we see so many companies and game companies especially look on Twitter look at all the rainbow avatars that are suddenly they're just for June June first do you 11:59 59 to have a rainbow logo to have rainbow merch and what about the other 11 months of the year what about your LGBT employees who don't feel safe coming out do you have an LGBT affinity group do you care about people that don't feel safe if they come to HR do you have LGBT characters in your game that are well done did you reach out and get LGBT folks to help conceive of create write those characters or that scenario or is it another trip down kill all our gays nobody gets to be happy if they're queer you know what are you doing beside this

February is the shortest month out of the year and that's the one month out of the year a lot of companies soon remember the black folks exist that are money's just as green as everyone else and I know we're broadcasting on Twitch but I'm gonna say it that month is the only month where you get to see a lot of black folks on Twitch on the front page it's always kind of the same black folks there's more of us than you realize March remembering that women exist and making everything pink which a lot of us don't like pink you know just the empty corporate messages and so this is gaming a lot of pink gaming accessories come out March a lot of you know women branded a things aimed at women like super cute putting a bow on on characters shows that were their female which means nothing at the end of the day because you're gonna do this March 1st to 31st and then April 1st you're gonna forget that women exist

again and what I'm loving about GD x GD x is the events for it you can tune in on Twitch and watch it it's not gonna cost you thousands of dollars like pax pax dev GC because for those that are watching that may or may not be exactly in the industry and just watching to learn the game developers conference is really really expensive you're looking at 2 grand for a pass before you bought a flight got a hotel been there for a week and that's we want to go all 5 days and then the last thing is inviting marginalized folks by marginalization I mean someone who's a person of color queer neurodivergent disabled anyone who does not fit what society deems as the standard basically not a straight white dude and when we get invited to things we get invited to just talk about our marginalization and that's not all we can talk about I've got a user design degree that I've yet to use that I don't

get to talk about I can talk about plenty other things beside being marginalized the game industry yes the nonprofit I runs to help people but that is not part and parcel of all I do you know I stream I do a lot of other stuff but why not usually when I'm invited to things is to talk about simply how much it sucks to be brown female queer in these spaces and that's what people think diversity is so I stole this tweet from my friend Tito on Twitter because you know in the chat show of hands how many of you have gone to a diversity panel that looks like this so I mean I've been to too many panels where you go and it's a bunch of well-meaning white people and thing is I don't want to make some I go somewhere watches and like I know you just hate white people I don't [ __ ] a white people by the

well meeting white person in the office it's usually the biggest danger to me as person of color versus the out-and-out angry or openly racist person so you know I now put this there just for a little bit of levity because this is kind of a heavy topic and some people will be in their feelings but again I've got a too many panels and balls is up I'm gonna tell you a story the first time I went to pax and it was PAX East I believe I went to what was supposed to be a diversity panel and it was to white teens I didn't know they were really young teenagers until after the fact but they they had a good idea their intent was great but they clearly had no adults in their corner that we're looking out for them because they got on stage and tried to talk about issues that they did not have the language for and their whole model of trying to do better by

diverse was selling t-shirts on Facebook and they got roasted by the panel by the panelists by the attendees and then when it showed that they really weren't equipped for this is someone asked about what about trans issues and the young lady I said oh you just have to wait now for me grown black woman in the u.s. who was too often been told I gotta wait my turn that was it that was when I had to get up and go Hoxie I see your question hi someone hang onto that for me for later and I will get back to that in a second and so me I have never been in a pan we're just so many people got up and left at various points of a panel because they clearly were not equipped in this what I mean by most people are well-meaning they're not for the most part aggressive they're not trying to be

ignorant they really do mean well but these were also younger people that didn't have the language to really talk about these issues so I want to get into the catch-22 diversity initiatives and then I'll answer our Hoxie's question that will open it up because this is one of those things where I'm sorry not open up I want to talk about what you can do and then we'll open it up the non marginalized people usually mean well and by this I mean when you are in an office job and the Diversity Committee is led by the one queer white person they could find or they find the one brown person that is willing to do it or maybe isn't willing and got forced into it and it's now part of Jesus as aside anyone who's ever had an office job when

you have that review and there's always that little column this other duties as assigned it gets crammed in there then they don't give you any space to actually get your work done and it's like they mean well but the road to hell is paved with good intentions there's a lot of people like to say and they do things like you know when I was in high school in college and in a day job they would do things like let's have an International Food Fest we can learn culture through food they set allies people that say this thing will not eat the funny-looking food that their co-worker brings because it's not what they know it's not they were raised with or they smell anything that's weird and you don't really learn anything and you now assaulted co-workers and friends or there they have that moment that I like to call the zero to 100 locus problem where something happens be it an

with a person in interaction with a co-worker online what have you they have that moment of oh [ __ ] the world is racist like we're kind of seeing now with the current administration in the US where people are finally having this the world isn't fair it's terrible it's [ __ ] up this awakening that they're having is the world that we've already lived in as marginalized people I've already dealt with being harassed being called racist being called all manner of slurs both gendered and racial and etc so they have these moments of Oh a world isn't as rainbows a rainbow and sheep and lemonade as I thought we're in trouble and then they go from zero to 100 on the weakness meter and they become that annoying person that gems you or send you articles or they play a video game to keep it in the context of today and they see a stereotype and then

they're mad they're mad they're angry they don't know what else to do and they want you to fix it or they want you to see how where they are and they don't realize that they're now creating emotional labor for you or when they do a panel or when they want to start a committee at work about you know queer issues or what have you or whatever affinity group a lot of offices call it they don't have the range and this is going to make some people mad they don't have the range for the conversations they haven't done the reading they haven't done the work they don't know what the word intersectional means and this is a blanket statement I'm a well aware of this but I can't I can't individually talk about every person that I've never met this is just what I've observed and experienced working in higher ed and corporate environments and adjust on the work that I do in trying to talk to people about diversity and inclusion and realizing they have no [ __ ] clue what they're talking about that they're often reactive rather than proactive that's the second point a lot

of times people think checkbox diversity is enough and then when you go actually why is it we don't me people of color in a sea-level so exact or executive level at our company at our studio why aren't more women leads like lead writer lead narrative designer lead art when you question these things then they go but but we had this whole what we did like History Month we did Women's History Month you know there's rainbow stuff available yes I can see it we have rainbow flags available for people why aren't you happy and it's like your gesture for this one month this one week this one event is not enough you know you have to keep going you have to do more and it has to come

from a place of I want people to know that they are safe here that they are that they have a place in our organization that when you come in the door that's not where you're going to stay that there's opportunities to do better because you may see a very mixed group in a studio you may see a very mixed group like when you like for those of you that are in the industry your studio may be amazing and awesome but when you go to the sea levels when you see the studio has the directors the executive directors it's usually all white dudes you may have one white woman there they go but look we have a woman it's like no that's not enough so to kind of move on to the next point about reactive a lot of times a lot of what I the work that I wanted doing especially for diversity consulting is people are at a point in their project of putting their game appointing developments or they run conventions they do whatever

and someone has point out your convention your game your project is really really white and they're like oh [ __ ] what do we do now and that's when they start reaching out to people and go hey is there a way you can help us fix this but usually the point that they rent reached out your assets are done your writings done maybe your mocap is done and you're at a point where it's like either you fix us in DLC which then makes you look like oh you remember brown folks is this when you bring out DLC that women exist and they're not cannon fodder you don't frig them or you delay cost making a higher cost to the project so you need to think about the stuff initially exactly leaf so when I say proactive is like when you're sitting down at that initial concept stage when you're sketching out characters when you're giving them a backstory when you're writing you know if you write a black character and you give them the

background of a thug of a drug dealer of a pimp a prostitute uneducated you are falling into stereotypes and sharps if you draw a Mexican character and you draw them in a way that makes it look like a gangbanger again you're falling to stereotypes and tropes but everyone will come back and this is a again a blanket statement that's what we know that's what people know how will they not know cuz you can look like anyone else at your ethnicity and your motive dress don't go hand in hand you know and even down to the voice sector because a lot of times black characters characters of color are not voiced by someone who matches their ethnicity you know nonhumans obviously being the exception but you know having Lincoln clay voiced by someone who's actually black or mixed was the big thing but in the case like Dragon Age Inquisition where Vivian was not voiced by a black woman but a Indian woman and she's done

a British it's like for some people it's like she doesn't sound black which is a weird thing to say but those black folks in chat are getting where I'm coming from hopefully where you just hear the voice you're like this I know what you're going for she doesn't sound like the stuck-up auntie that we all have or may know sorry and getting a little sniffily maybe traveling has got me sick so I want to go on to the next thing which is again expanding on the reaching out to marginalized folks only to talk to our marginalization and reducing us to a one dimensional thing and then when we say I'm tired of doing 101 I'm tired of always being reached out to you when let's say you've got your fictional version of Africa and you want me to fix it not realizing that as an American brand US person I can't really fix that I can go and look for your obvious stereotypes but I can't do

a whole lot to fix this because you've come up with this whole world this whole expanse everything you've done but you never thought to actually ask black people when you were writing it so now we have to come in and patch it up or they just or they pull out the oh well we need the best candidates like being inclusion being inclusionary I think that's a word having inclusion and thinking about this the forefront and quality of candidate quality of staff don't go hand in hand because if someone's working on a triple-a game that cost millions of dollars cetera no one is going to get the people who are not good fits who are not I'm sorry not good fit let me walk that back because good fit is also a way to exclude people who are not gonna be best for the job because you're handing them a franchise you're handing them whatever you need to know they can do the job you know everything else aside

you want an extra place to do they're not gonna hire you just for a diversity quota but they also shouldn't hire you because oh this is a black character we need to work on just the black character so what people need to do is realize that we can talk about other things we can do other things beside talk about how much it sucks to be brown or black or female or queer or neurodivergent or disabled these are all things that make a person that's called intersectionality it is not simply just who we are on the outside that makes us good for these roles that said we can bring something to the table that another experience may not have and the last bullet point kind of goes into that as well so what I'm gonna do actually cuz I I'm a firm believer and try to cut down the number of slides that I have and we've already talked for a little bit what I want to leave you with is this

one piece of advice while I talk about ways in which you those reviews are in the industry can do better and then we can give some AMA ice when I started I talked about I hate the word Ally I really hate it because people use Ally as a shield for doing one thing oh here's safety pin I bought a rainbow ribbon or I put a rainbow thing on my social media profile therefore I'm an ally actually you're not you've not done the basic work and that is a shield against criticism because oh look it's June I bought a rainbow thing I was appropriating my friend aren't I awesome you're not you're really [ __ ] not and again keep in mind I bring I come to this from a place of having seen a lot of things a lot of people who have gone but but I got a black friend and they think that's a shield and it's not so I prefer the term be an accomplice when someone is in need you know do your best

speak up for them but do not speak over them and that is one way that you can be an accomplice you can speak up but not drag your friend into it or your internet acquaintance because let's be real a lot of people tag internet acquaintances and what cookies for doing the bare minimum or they notice something and they send it to you and they go aren't you mad about this like no I frankly don't give a [ __ ] right now you need to remember that emotional labour still labor so remember that phrase if nothing else I said resonated with you mean accomplice and Ally and so while I'm talking about tips on how to do better start queuing up your questions so what you can do to be better and you know be proactive not reactive is if you're in a hiring position seek out people not just so you can say you've filled your diversity checkboxes your diversity quota if

you're if you're in a position where you can't hire and you know your studio your project is very white and you're trying to have a diverse group of characters worlds what have you believe in diversity consultants they believe in you won't like your money reach out and places like Twitter etc following following people and listening that is the best tool you can have because a lot of times people respond out of money to empathize and always whatting to empathize is not always the best thing when it comes to a person of color especially on Twitter and other places and in offices at least in my experience again mine trying to have an open discussion about race gender orientation often leads to well this one time someone touched my super curly hair and I know just what you're talking about and oh my god people are terrible

and I'm like no not today say this is not what I'm talking about at all so you can listen and be quiet and in absorb follow people and when you can support folks that are doing the work independently if you are a game maker remember the world is not all white it is not the defaults the love of God if you make a medieval game get out of England and hire more people that are not like you go out in the world go talk to people when you are at conferences and conventions get out of your click because a lot of people have cliques and bubbles may travel and learn be open go read and I'm not saying that to be sarcastic literally go read what other people are writing because so much of what I run into is people who have not read other folks writing they've not read books by black authors clay assume that there are black books which I don't

know what the [ __ ] that means and most of all realize that sometimes everything isn't about you stuff for you no spaces that people of color queer folks disabled neurodivergent create that is for them and it's okay for you not to be there but if you do one axis and I told no deal with it you're actually wrong on that let's be awkward and I'm gonna address that in a second and then the last thing is remember that you and your experience does not override hurt and gait anyone elses and this is including marginalized people because my experience as a black queer woman does not invalidate our override another black girl in this experience so this is where you can find me on the internet and if you want to go back to the either

throw me up on the camera or talk throw questions in the chats if I look this way it's because I'm looking at the chat on my other monitor but I wonder just something less be awkward said food-for-thought marsh Long's people didn't know there are more different until society let them know usually negative way I'm going to push back on that because society unto itself has not has said I'm different because of racism because of systemic oppression look at the way look at how look at all the ways in which I is the black person I'm not represented in just everyday media or you know it's not like I didn't know I was black till I looked in a mirror or someone pointed out that I was black all of these things that make us marginalize are because of sista not societal systemic things the repercussions of slavery the ways in which neurodivergent folks are treated as abnormal and look

at they'd finally took being transgender of what is it's not the DSM they finally stopped categorizing being transgender as a medical as a mental illness in 2019 so that I'm gonna push back on it's not the way it's not that we didn't know we weren't oppressed or marginalized is that Society has treated us in this way so long a lot of people are like oh this is this is how things are for me so I think we have 15 or 20 minutes left yeah and people actually nice job you've done a great job of fielding questions I think we were gonna ask a couple ourselves but we can also help moderate as well I know there was one earlier but and you refresh the chat so did you lose it cuz I still have it from hi-c Rudy yeah please go ahead and answer that if you'd like I'm sure so Hoxie earlier when I was talking asked can you explain that a little bit how

would an openly racist individual be less dangerous than a well-meaning individual so Hoxie with a openly racist person I know where I stand I know that they hate me that they think unless what have you but someone who purports to be an ally and gets angry or is clueless and an ignorant I'm just not knowing versus actual malice they can be more dangerous because they are the people that I've seen and experienced that will turn on you in a second there's not enough custody for me to talk about David cage because I know where I stand on the racists with a very open racist someone who claims to be an ally who is well-meaning they're people that have literally turned on me on a dime of how dare you I tried to help your people I gave I gave money the end of what n-double a-c-p or I gave a homeless man

like five dollars once and they and they feel like they're whatever bit they've done if it's not fawned over if it's not appreciate if you don't stop everything to do the emotional labor to educate them when Google exists and this is the thing for anyone white watching this there's a thing called Google there's thing called Google Scholar look up intersectionality and kimberlé crenshaw it is not the job of a marginalized person to educate you when the time you take to send me that message or anyone else you could have looked it up yourself so that's why I say an openly racist person is less dangerous than the well-meaning white advocate all right so I'm yes so I've got a question from left-handed Heather just give me a sec to make sure my mic is good so this may be just cannon fodder to be destroyed but how do you feel about members of the majority trying to touch on the stories of the minority so that I think this was the David cage reference that you were

saying so like ala David cage with Detroit sorry MLK attempt obviously the bare minimum is involving marginalized people in the creation of a game but how can accomplices work towards improving these narratives done so anyone that's talk to me for five minutes knows I love mafia three a majority that depth team was white but they had black people involved and they also had black folks who were involved either as consultants or as part of the writing team I think it has to be done very intentionally and carefully do your research and get people to vet what you're doing it can be done but it's a very slippery slope of I want to have an O Maj verse or I want to tell this story and it's hard because just because the story is is something that may have happened to a black person that doesn't mean I'm a

necessarily be the right person to tell it I may not be the right person to delve into that light you know I don't know I think about Louisiana I don't anything about sixties mafia culture so without research I still couldn't hold that story even as a black person so I think it can be done but it needs to have a lot more care a lot more research and definitely diversity consultants all right coming back here I think Brandon's got a question this time yeah I have a question this time I see so this comes from pure evil that's the name isn't keeping straight or white people out and telling them no the same thing those people do to my Ernies oppressed people just on a smaller less serious scale or or do you think it's a necessary evil to give marginalized people a safe place until they are seen as truly equal by society you know lucky it's too early for me to drink no it's not the same thing because the rest of the world that are not

marginalized have the whole [ __ ] world if I want to have a space there's just four other black people just four other black women just for the black queer women now I know we can have conversations that I can't do publicly that I can't have in other spaces because there's always someone well-meaning or not and wants to come in and well actually want to come in and go well I as a white man are gonna tell you why you're wrong that is not the same as drinking fountains being marked as just for white people it's not the same as educational segregation because if if I don't have that space in my life at least for me other people in chat can speak up I need to have some space where my people being other people of XYZ identity that I can talk to it and then even then we're still not gonna agree there's other black queer folks that I can't stand that I don't agree with and there's other black women that I don't get along with we don't agree on stuff we don't see eye-to-eye on stuff

just cuz we want to have a space and it's not about society seeing us as equal what do you think country clubs are what do you think all these places that are private clubs and private gentlemen's clubs were those are places for specific socio-economic class of white dudes to gather they didn't have to deal with folks they didn't have to deal with women they didn't have to deal with poor people we have me when to carve out a space for me and mine is not the same it will never be the same I can't legally keep people out of let's say gathering I do for any diverse games I can tell them hey the space is meant for other black people are the queer folks other women but I can't legally keep them out but there are legal ways in which I can be kept out of us say a country club or something else so there's no way the same Larry here again they use very much for the passion behind the ear questions and answers both sides guys if we are not letting some of this stuff breathe obviously it's because of time so this next

question comes for let's see if man won how is a straight white male how do i initiate these conversations without coming across as offensive or extremely naive also how do you explain to people working remotely from other countries that don't understand the American point of view on this that we need to clear or that we need a caterer or at least be sensitive to these views and ideas in that case I would amplify the voices like if you have to talk to folks who work in other countries have a list of articles have a list of talks and other things by people that explain a not an academic language because I worked in academia for 16 years and it's incredibly inaccessible and the language used is not for they I feel a way about academia because I worked there for so long but like non-academic resources articles maybe not movies because movies have a slant to them in terms of where they're trying to go in a lot of movies that are

supposed to be about a black experience either are oh my god we were slaves we will never get over it or it's meant for the white gays like the green book I mean you can also say just upfront sorry I noticed this in my experience I'm trying I'm trying to understand if you have the capacity can you point me to resources if you can't I understand and then just google things like intersectionality race relations in the u.s. of Google Scholar and things like in the last 10 years a lot of discussion I say look at the invisible knapsack by Peggy McClintock because that is a really good primer on privilege a lot of people don't think they have privilege but they do and also just you know point out that yes me and a lot of things I am naive so I think if you are honest and don't do that well actually what about this or I think those statements preface in your question are the ones that a lot of people will use as a way to kind of

get their way and do whatever and it's hard it's hard a lot of people they're not interested in discussion and my interest in learning so if your profs in a way that shows that you are interested and not just learning but also in a way that you're going to take this knowledge and do something good with it that's what you can do but you have to remember some people are just jaded some people are have been hurt a lot iemon stalked and harassed on the Internet I've been stalked and harassed on Twitch so I know for me a lot of times I don't give people benefit the doubt but that's the downside of what's going on here and a lot of times you could meet you can have the best intent in the world and you may catch some eye on a bad day but just be honest be upfront and be okay with getting no be okay with someone going you know what I don't feel like it or go find Google it's your friend and not getting mad about it because it's no one's job to educate you okay this next question is from the cyber Siberia sex how do you deal with being marginalized

when a group colored female trans hypothetically would say they don't agree with you has that ever happened by any chance that a colored person approach disagreeing with you yes and actually I I don't know how old you are servers but most people don't say colored person anymore when I wrote an article for Mike it was about arms and I don't know if anyone played it us on switch it's fighting game and everyone has like these springy arms but the one brown girl her hair was a weapon I wrote about this and it's segue into the weaponization and talking about black woman's hair and black hair in games the worst response I got was from other black people and it actually changed how I approached talking about things online I haven't really done a lot of games journalism but I also respect to other people have different opinions we're not a monolith you know a friend of mine and I were about the same age both grew up in Chicago on the south side and we

disagree on a lot of things but she's her own person her experiences shaped her mind shaped me and it is what is as long as you're not actively attacking another person of color and saying basically you're doing your doing being black the wrong way you're doing being female the wrong way you're not queer enough then people can disagree as long as they're not fighting about it and tagging each other and siccing their social media followers about it because there's some things like Detroit become human my dear friend she loves this game she we are literally the same age or both black women she loves this game loves it to pieces me not so much as mostly because the narrative and the attempts of telling a story and then doing the hand wave of oh there's no politics here there's no there's nothing here so I can disagree with someone but being both both of us being black doesn't amplifier change a disagreement and if someone's like well I don't see

color and they're also black I'm like you'll have your moment something will happen to you or not and maybe you'll see where I'm coming from and maybe you won't maybe you'll get real lucky and never have racism happen to you but we know that's a fallacy living in the u.s. all right so I've got a question here this one is from Pitts Abbas Julia I believe they were pitted by saying forgive us if we put you your names but you know par with the course Rhea what are your thoughts on black comedians I'm black and I can appreciate comedians like Dave Chappelle but my white girlfriend doesn't get his humor at all isn't it also just true that not everything needs to cater to everyone I actually have gotten away from watching comedy because I found that a lot of black comedians their whole shtick was he white people are funny they do these things right or they may talk to a black experience that while we're both black I can't relate to so if they're talking

about specifically things that black Americans or black folks make it kind of universally she's never gonna get it she may never see why it's funny and I stepped off the Dave Chappelle training when he started making his transphobic jokes after he came back got five minutes of that specials like deuces I'm out so I've just stepped away from a lot of comedy and the same with like queer comedians because for me as a bisexual person every joke turns into those greedy buys and I'm like deuces I'm out I can't stand this so it just may not be for her if she can't get it she can't get it it's again this goes back to you there's some stuff like I will sit and listen to Bernie Matt you know rest in peace but a wife read may not get it but I'm gonna get it cuz I'm of a certain age in a certain era and she don't get it that sorry but that's just her but there's there's very few comedians I'm watching this day and age so we this questions

actually from me personally we've talked a little bit about on this dream about you know just like people being very involved in communities and we had mentioned cosplay so I'm gonna use that as like a segue into a question that even I just like some reflection on from you if you don't mind so when I think about let's say representation of characters in sort of media and also appreciation right like when we say cosplay we'll have a lot of black people who may dress as non black characters but then a lot of people will claim there's a double standard that which prevents white people from potentially doing the same like white people dressing as black characters usually it immediately gets referenced as blackface and publicly a lot and then also let's look at that in movie and film we will have celebration when like hey aegis album might be the next James Bond this feels really cool or Marlon and Shawn play white chicks this is going to be awesome this will be funny and then you'll have obviously another let's say not an african-american audience wanting

to do something similar to the african-american audience and obviously be able to get met with vitriol and dragging as I love to say I love that where it getting dragged I guess and this is not loaded in any way I'm just asking like how do you feel about these types of scenarios and I guess what could you say to kind of help people who are thinking about this as well so with cosplay a lot of times when it's when people say blackface it's because someone's actually made themselves darker not just because someone's dressing as a character what I found is the other way where black folks are cosplaying as quote-unquote white characters or anime characters what-have-you you know what you can't do that they're not black and it's like so if I'm always supposed to cosplay black characters that leaves me what 15 people maybe and there's still there's dark-skinned black characters that if I cosplayed in dark in my skin I'd be doing blackface this was a second part of it it's it's hard because a lot of people want

to it's hard it's hard because cause I'm not a cosplayer I've only done very bare minimum cosplay but there's a lot of attempt to say oh it's about authenticity but I've been I go to a lot of conventions you can dress as a character without darkening your skin and be authentic now if your characters if your costume is so bad nobody knows who you are and you don't darken your skin that's a whole other issue I feel I sometimes feel about color culture but I've also participating Kalla culture when I see some things because I just feel like in 2019 we need to stop doing well people didn't know they thought that they think it's that's a racist or if you say black faces races you know what I was just doing cosplay it's still a racist thing so it makes me wonder are people not learning about this history or people not aware the black face is not simply something back in the 40s and

30s and and Neil Jolson and minstrels that it still happens I mean I've studied in Japan in 2001 I went back in 2007 people still did blackface then like not that long ago but I do like it when it's productive when people when someone actually has a light bulb moment of oh this is bad but too many times we see people just drag their feet and they don't want to admit it and they don't want to hear this feel like you are picking on them that how dare they become racist cuz a lot of people think racism is a hood in the KKK and a burning cross they don't think of it as a systemic way they don't think of it as the casual comment to someone like oh I didn't know you wash your hair when you have dreadlocks or you know or they when I'm streaming and people put chicken and watermelon emotes in chat they don't think about that is where something like oh what's the internet well was a joke so I love it when folks could drag for

that stuff because in some ways they're not gonna learn if they keep doing it no one calls them on it they're never gonna learn and telling you thank you so much obviously for your insight and your openness for a discourse I I have to say I appreciate everything that you're saying and the bravery that you take in being a public figure on something incredibly polarizing so I hope you do know that you have us as I don't want to say a lie you have us as an active participant in struggles where you need our support especially carrying this flag we're not a shield we're accomplices both of us obviously minorities we've experienced our share of negative experiences we've experienced our share of racism and there's always teachable moments when you survive and get through both for me but also things that I wish I could say to the people putting me through X Y Z situation and that's why this platform exists we're talking to by the time this is done but maybe multiple thousands of people who will hear this will sit through this content so I cannot thank

you enough for being here for talking and delivering these messages but then also taking the discourse from the Twitter audience and Twitter audience thank you for being so very respectful all the questions were good questions we haven't seen any sort of like problems that we've had to moderate in the Twitter chat and that just gives me so much hope because to know what you've come from in your twitch experiences right like I know what you were gonna bring to the table when you said Larry these are some of the things that have happened to me on the Internet I just wanna i commend everybody for being involved in this being very professional I mean for those that aren't aware I was stalked for three months in my community not just me personally but three months across multiple channels where my community streamed and as much as I hate talking about it there was a kisaku article which I did the interview for so I'm a bit more jaded on some of this because this person simply thought because we wouldn't let them have the run of the channel and argue back about the use and the abuse that people get using their

LGBT tag on Twitch that there was perfectly fine to not just take the El get their man and go have a nice day they stopped us and the community for three months so I'm a little bit more jaded than some people on this that's why earlier I was like where's your moderators where's your but yeah no don't it's okay please you're helping us because we need to make sure that it's a protected space for everybody but the discourse is important right the things that are being said are important and where we go from here is important so I understand the Jade in this especially knowing what you've gone through I haven't had any sort of internet issues like that myself personally so I don't want to say I know how you feel but what I do want to say is please let me know if there's anything that we can do that we can use this platform for that we've created to make sure that you don't have to keep feeling that way any any little thing seriously it's not it's not even an issue yeah and now I a cosign on that anything that like move removes barriers

so that we can just look at ways to just create together yeah because obviously you know making games is a creative expression and we need as many voices as possible to actually do that and work well together and actually produce something as entertaining or educational and put it out there with as many thoughts and experiences put into it so it only helps anybody that is into games and playing games to kind of be able to to experience these different points of views and perspectives and we got to fix that on the developers side and being you know allowing all these different types of people to have their opinions and and actually have a say in the creative process so we do have a very captive audience right now is there anything that we can you know like we have the airwaves is there anything we can do to give what one last piece of empowerment or direct action that they can take today to even make one small piece of change definitely again let's

let's show your social your social links and connection links I would say the thing is findable on Twitter they're talking about issues you don't know about follow them and listen don't be the weirdo that DM someone who goes hey I saw it saying about a black character and she mad because that's the fastest way for me to block you that and anyone's ever support independent creators if you have the financial means find a few folks on patreon fund their Kickstarter you know find people that are doing what you like and game development and other things where you are able to contribute and again if you have financial means if you don't have financial means most people's work if someone says hey here's my coffee on my independent writer I'm an independent game maker or I've got you know like I a Humble Bundle partner and this helps someone else or helps me continue to do my work they've got a patreon again even if you can't financially boost them sharing it because you never know who's

gonna see it you never know who will come across your work when we see all those tweets that are like hey this tweet could help me get my next client or my buried share those and just have single match and realize you don't know everything and for the love of God don't be the what about white men don't be the well actually person on Twitter and you know my email is up there tweet at me if you find yourself blocked you may be following trashy people it's not personal but false and I need adverse games and mostly just give us money so you can keep doing what we do at the end of the day of resources are what matter and money's the biggest resource we need so that's it all right Tanya thank you so much for again taking the time to be here simple as that I don't have I don't have to even reroll what I've said cuz I've said it twice already we appreciate you your time your intelligence your experiences and your willingness to share those those that knowledge and wisdom with the the audience following us yeah thank you so much Tanya and we

hope to hear from you soon we want to stay in touch because there's some things that we can do in the near future to keep promoting it I mean y'all don't find me you got all my contact info yeah we got it now you can't get it back yeah no no no no none of that spam is only good in between seaweed you know you know about our patron saint musubi yes okay all right thank you [Music] [Music]