Weekend Read: Real Life Black People Reflect on Being in Second Life & Experiencing Virtual Racism

This is an epic, thought provoking new article in the latest SL-focused ECLIPSE magazine on real life Black people in the virtual world, reflecting on Black Lives Matter and their experiences in SL. It's written by New World Notes contributor Cajsa Lilliehook. She interviews many Black SLers, who discuss racism in SL -- everything from avatar skin color discrimination, to coming across people roleplaying in a plantation.

Read an excerpt below:

[W]ith Black Lives Matter protests on every continent but Antarctica, it is an idea that speaks to people everywhere, even in Second Life. 

One resident, Elric, said that racism [in Second Life] was more overt since Black Lives Matter.

 “Until this movement all ignorant people have basically been quietly racist...this movement has exposed a lot about people's characters.” 

Another resident, Prophet, who was featured on New World Notes not long ago, said: “I have also experienced the uglier side of SL, such as racism and negative stereotypes which have become way too normalized and accepted on this platform.” 

He thinks Linden Lab does not make the platform “a safe place for people of color as there are individuals, groups, and communities that openly and blatantly promote racism and hate.” He added, “I do hope that Linden Labs becomes proactive in removing these people and content from the platform and promoting racial justice and equality.”

Dondallia sees racism in how Black people are served by SL creators. For the longest time there was a paucity of Black skins. Skinners would defend their lack of effort by saying Black skin was “too hard to do.” 

That has improved in recent years, but she points out that creators still ignore the Black market. 

“Many creators will not create for bodies like Hourglass, Sking, and Ebody Curvy because they’re predominantly worn by Black women who want a more ‘ethnic’ based curve to their bodies. I’ve been told ‘Black girls with big butts’ are ‘so ghetto’ in Second Life.” She sees SL fashion as very segregated between the white side and the “urban” side as many people describe black-oriented fashion. 

Emiko also believes that some are just following the trend, creating Black skins and using Black bloggers to avoid getting “canceled” rather than out of conviction. She thinks the Lab could do better at protecting people but thinks “they can only do what they can without infringing on what people feel as gatekeeping.”

Roshambo works in anti-racist organizing, so sees the systemic and cultural racism that many of us just accept as normal: 

“Not because SL is intentionally racist, but because the tenets of what we have come to accept as the norm are already loaded with bias against BIPOC… so we tend to see many rules, policies, and laws as neutral and for the good of everyone and we are not taught to see the bias of how they affect different people in dynamically different ways”

Dondallia recalls a plantation build in SL. 

“It was wild. They created it to be just like the South before the civil war, and people were part of a group and everything that participated in things… and not for educational purposes either. I never saw a statement on it until recently after users were asking for a statement.” 

Elric thinks SL can do more, pointing out that “until Black Lives Matter, I can’t say I've visibly seen Linden Lab do anything about promoting racial justice. People view this as a virtual platform and ‘real-life issues’ shouldn’t be brought here. I pretty much thought that was their stance as well.” 

Read the rest here.

Comments

[Shug Maitland]

what's old is new ---- still:
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/02/the_skin_youre_.html

ps. the "read the rest here." link is broken

[Pulsar]

There is racism and hate.
There is also a weak argument here. I'm concerned because the right wing extremists try to cherry pick weak arguments a lot now, and they try to use those as a red herring to attack and discredit the whole thing and to gain support; but the presence of a weak argument doesn't make the valid arguments less valid.

I'm not sure that

Many creators will not create for bodies like Hourglass, Sking, and Ebody Curvy because they’re predominantly worn by Black women who want a more ‘ethnic’ based curve to their bodies.

In fact, for each brand that offers a curvier version of their bodies, the curvier version is the most popular and supported one.
- Slink Hourglass is more popular than Slink Original. If a creator supports Slink you can be sure that there is an Hourglass version in the box, but the Original not always.
- Belleza offers several female bodies, but Freya, the curvy one, is essentially the only one supported now.
- Ebody too shows the same pattern: the Curvy version always got more clothes than the classic one.

The fact is that Ebody has a tiny market-share, it gained a bit of interest at one point (still small) and perhaps because they had 1 L$ versions, but now I hardly see new clothes made from any Ebody, except something made out of old third party templates.
Sking is even less popular, but they serve some small niches (e.g. they also have body-builders versions among their special shapes)

Who shops a lot can easily notice that, but there are also surveys always.
Seraphin reported the results of their survey this June and this is the graph about the most worn female bodies (note that Sking is several bodies but «In some instances e.g. Altamura and Sking we grouped all their bodies as one brand due to the numbers of individual bodies sometimes falling under the 20 responses.»):
https://www.seraphimsl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/female-most-worn.jpg
Here are the whole results:
https://www.seraphimsl.com/2020/06/13/mesh-body-survey-female-body-results/

Maitreya dominates the market so much, that some creator only makes Maitreya exclusives. Maitreya gained that popularity for many reasons, among which being cheaper than TMP in 2014, having an esier to use HUD at that time etc. Then they became a sort of de-facto standard.
Then, recently, Legacy has gained some popularity, despite the previous TMP disappointment and despite being heavy, overly scripted and having your data outside SL, again on a third party external server, interfaced to a cumbersome HUD based on media-on-a-prim.
But perhaps a reason is that Legacy is more anatomically realistic than Maitreya and they may have been better at marketing it this time.

However, when the creators pack a box for multiple bodies, guess what? The two alternatives to be most likely included in the box are precisely the curvy Hourglass and Freya.

Thus I don't think the cause here is racism, although there may be creators that are more or less racist and that don't care for black people.

[Pulsar]

Note: when I say the "two alternatives", above, I mean the alternative to Maitreya (and now Legacy).

[Alicia]

Maitreya has the lionshare mainly because creators are pigeon-holed into signing an idiotic exclusive deal with them. Bare in mind, folks, that the Maitreya body was the most basic, and wrongly weighed for years, body thanks to Onyx herself. As for those links with the graphs, notice how extremely disproportionate they are. How is it that Maitreya is either two or five times ahead of the second best body in SL... oh yeah, Maitreya fangirls keep farming the vote machines. Not to mention... how many verts does the Maitreya body have again?

[Blaise Glendevon]

@Alicia - I have heard rumors of the 'exclusive' deal for years, but all the top designers rig for multiple bodies. This sounds seriously baseless.

Also, nobody cares about verts or polygons or whatever.

[Wagner James Au]

@Shug -- thanks, fixed!

[irihapeti]

tbf to Linden they have in recent months allowed quite a few RL-SL intersectional forum threads to run without closing them down. Conversations that Linden never used to allow on the forums

[Jumpman Lane]

Skins, bodies, the AVATAR says a lot about who you choose to be in Second Life. In a virtual world, where you can be anything and anyone you want to be; what is most troubling as a HUMAN being of ANY race, is that which is deemed as cultural appropriation. Worse to me is when those appropriating another's culture do so ONLY to perpetuate the very worst stereotypes, promoting a sort of racism that is far more dangerous as it is more pervasive and "seemingly" more harmless because it "innocently" reflects what we all SUPPOSEDLY believe about other people, whom we don't even know.

Takes this (I reckon) nice German lady blogger: Caroline Takeda. She has this little NSFW blog ( https://www.second-life-adventures.com/black-whores-second-life/?utm_source=ReviveOldPost&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost )where she promotes her virtual prostitution activities. I stumbled upon this troubling post of hers, where SHE, NOT being black OR American, brazenly uses the worst and most racist stereotypes, calling it a NICHE. To her, putting on a black avatar and being black (as she can only imagine blacks are) is just marketing. Yet, what she markets is racist to say the least. If one holds true that all men are created equal, and wish to support that premise in thought, action and deed; then, one most challenge and condemn such "innocent" cultural appropriation for the evil that it is.

Years ago, Stroker Serpentine went on national tv (National Geographic Taboo) and blithely regaled the television audience with tales of his fornicating in Second Life with his "virtual" daughters. To his surprise, to his CHAGRIN, he was vilified by much of Second Life. Racism exists. It is a scourge that should be fought by the best within people in all worlds, virtual and real. Its easy to point out and combat obvious racists. griefers, virtual plantation owners are easy to spot. Much as Stroker was an unconscious pedophile, the UNCONSCIOUS racists, though harder to pick out, should at least be condemned, if nothing else.