Is this racist?

[Caligulust]

Well, it is a server. If the person doesn't speak English it only makes communication with other players and the admins impossible.
If the server has rules other than the language one and the player breaks them without understanding, they would be kicked anyway.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

It seems more Xenophobic then racist.

 

[Space Spoons]

It's not racist to want to play with players who speak a language you can understand. In fact, in most multiplayer games, it's kind of a necessity.

 

[samaugsch]

Discrimination

I'm sure we've all seen online servers that say "Speak English or you will be kicked" or "English only" This to me seems racist because it takes away freedom of speech (or SOME right I'm sure, not that online people care about your rights) so do you think this is racist? Even a little?

Discrimination based on native language is not racism. Also, it kind of defeats the purpose of speaking in the first place if no one can understand what the fuck you're saying.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I'm sure we've all seen online servers that say "Speak English or you will be kicked" or "English only" This to me seems racist because it takes away freedom of speech (or SOME right I'm sure, not that online people care about your rights) so do you think this is racist? Even a little?

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the terms you are using. Racism is discrimination based on someones genetic background. Their 'ethnicity' as we call it now. Language is actually not part of someones genes, but rather of their culture. So no, this scenario isn't racist.

But I still understand what you mean. Is it 'inherently bad' that they do this? That is a little bit more complicated than it sounds like right off the bat.

1) Realize that free speech is not a concept that extends to pretty much any non governmentally regulated construct. Valve or Blizzard or whoever doesn't have to let you say what you want in their games' chatrooms. They are fully within their rights to restrict how their products work.

2) In less casual areas, speaking all the same language is a VERY unifying thing. In fact, specifically speaking a language others do not know can appear purposefully antagonistic. Europeans know this better than others, since there are many more languages there (per square foot(meter), you could say).

3) In most cases though, you are probably right. you will often have people make this claim not for altruistic reasons, but simply because they don't like others saying stuff they don't understand, and it scares them.

 

[DiMono]

It's not racist, but even if it were, I'd like to point something out: the forum isn't a nation, and free speech isn't a right. If the forum rules dictate that posts must be in English, then posts must be in English, and that's that. If they dictate that all posts must include pictures of cute animals, then we'd all better find some cute animals to put up pictures of. The argument being made in regards to "speak English or else" isn't that English is necessarily superior to other languages, just that it's the language that shall be used here.

 

[tojawi]

Does this promote the idea that one race in particular is superior to any and/or all others? Not really, no.

You could argue that it is discriminatory, but it is discriminatory for good reason. If some french kid logs on and finds all of these english speakers spouting gobbledegook to him, he is going to be very confused.
As long as there are other servers set aside for other languages, I do not see how kicking non-english speakers would be negatively discriminatory.

Are You aware that you just called french people Gablins? Tabernac! C'est Injuste de dit quel'que chose comme ca! C'est tu que le français étais le langue officiale d`Angleterre Jusqu`à les mille-six-cents?

 

[GeneralChaos]

It's not racist because, as has been pointed out, language and race are two different (although often connected) things.
It is technically discrimination, however it is justified discrimination because the language spoken is important in a game where verbal or written communication is vital to success (I.E. most team based FPSes or similar).
This isn't much different from kicking somebody from the server for having too high of ping. In both cases, the issue makes play more difficult and acts as a liability to team members, reducing the overall enjoyment of the other players.

 

[HK_01]

No, it's not. It's not nice to not speak English when you're in a game where people from many nations come together because that's the language everyone understands, so you should use it too. Same when it says "French only", don't go into a game with that label if you can't speak French.

 

[Zechnophobe]

No. It's this awesome thing called common sense.

Hard to grasp I know. But when you create a forum thats primary reason for being is communication, it tends to pay if theres some sort of guidline for the accepted methods of communication.

Ah, but is it common sense that you speak ENGLISH? Why not German? If they don't speak English, should you be angry? Are they allowed to be angry if you don't speak German?

Also, Common Sense is not a real thing. Break yourself of this phrase.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Hmmm... maybe not racist, seeing as it has little to nothing to do with race, but just picking on people who don't know a common language.
Not so different from French-speaking only servers, or Spanish, Russian, or any other.
People just like to have people who they can speak to, or at least think that they might understand their insults.

Prrreeeeety sure Racism isn't just about race, it's about the color of your skin (race) religion and the country you come from and I could have sworn it was language too

Religious discrimination is completely different to racism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_discrimination

You're thinking of linguicism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_discrimination

 

[DanDeFool]

Well, there are practical considerations.

For example, if someone is rampantly TK'ing a certain player, and they don't speak the same language the moderators speak, they'd probably have a hard time bringing the issue up. Same if the offending player is doing something the mods don't like; how are they supposed to warn them if they can't understand the language?

So no, not discrimination. There are genuine pragmatic concerns behind such rules.

 

[lokun489]

You can learn a new language, you can't become a new race

 

[Digital_Hero]

I'm sure we've all seen online servers that say "Speak English or you will be kicked" or "English only" This to me seems racist because it takes away freedom of speech (or SOME right I'm sure, not that online people care about your rights) so do you think this is racist? Even a little?

Speech =/= Race

if people are playing a team game, such as Dota where teamwork is necessary, you dont want to be stuck with the one guy that speaks something else. or worse yet, you dont want to be the one guy speakin english, not knowing wtf is going on and what they're saying.

Also, about taking away free speech, your not exactly correct. Racism is discrimination based on race, obviously. Those kinds of games arent saying "we hate your race, cuz you speak another langauge" they're saying, please dont join if you cant understand us,and vice versa.... in a very blunt way.

 

[nothinghere]

No, not at all.

Language is a tool and to want all players to be able to communicate with each other is okay. I don't think it has anything to do with racism.

Racism comes from a place of hate. Wanting to talk to people you play with doesn't have a negative motive.

racism can be negative or positive comments. Saying Asians are smart, or black people are great at basketball are racist comments

 

[logiman]

If I were to write in Romanian only (my national language) on this forum, what would ppl say? Ofc they would tell me to write in English so the masses can understat. And i totally understand them..if i want to speak Romanian, i would go on a Romanian forum.

Not racist at all imo.