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By Xavier Mohr, SLReports.net An Editorial A recent thread on a random Second Life forum that I shall not name got me thinking about human differences, discrimination, and perception of such things. We all have our differences. There's no doubt about it. Some of us are Americans, some are Europeans, some are Asians. Some of us are Christians, Muslims, or Athiests. Some of us are black, or white, or brown... gay, straight, or bisexual... men or women. We're all different, but we're also human. I think former U.S. President Bill Clinton said it best in his speech at Harvard University's 2007 Class Day. Genetically, all humans are roughly 99.9% the same. Our differences in stature, color, mental capacity, all come from one tenth of one percent. Yet, as Pres. Clinton points out, the majority of social problems on our great planet are caused when we spend more time arguing about our 0.1% differences than we do celebrating our common humanity. In Second Life financial markets in particular, we all seem to find great pleasure in pointing out each other's differences in an effort to better our own public positions, rather than focusing on our common goals. It's particularly sad when we see real-life differences such as race, gender, or sexual preference brought into this environment... a place where we can't even SEE EACH OTHER... a place where most of us will never even interact with each other in real life – the one place where these differences can legitimately matter a SMALL FRACTION of the time... all in an effort to garner sympathy or bash a colleague who may have a difference of opinion.
Discrimination, or even the invocation of false or unprovable discriminatory accusations, is very ugly and disrespectful – in real life or Second Life. As usual, I do have a story to share. Deal with it or click away, it's your choice. When I was 19 years old, I worked for Sprint Spectrum, L.P. – a large telecommunications corporation here in the United States. On a break from the newspaper biz, having recently moved away from my home to a new city, I worked at a massive, faceless customer care center in technical support with a team of others... most of them young adults like myself... but all different. Our differences mattered to nobody. We had skinny black men, fat Latino women, openly gay men, a lesbian, and young country boys supporting new brides and babies... but we all got along... except for one person. The person I will call "Steve," here was different in the way he acted, but really no different as a person than the rest of us. Sure, he was short and chubby, a bit hairy, but most importantly... to him, anyway... he was gay. While the rest of us on the team didn't really care (including the two other gay guys and one lesbian) Steve sure as hell did... and he let everyone know it. When he didn't get his preferred days off approved, he said it was because he was gay. When he was criticized for the way he behaved on a call, he said it was because he was gay. When he was written up for poor schedule adherence, he said it was because he was gay. Bottom line according to Steve: the Team Leader didn't like him because he was gay. The fact of the matter, though, is that the Team Leader DID NOT like him. None of us did. But we disliked him for reasons other than the ones he cited. We really could have cared less if Steve were gay. Simply put, we all despised him because he constantly blamed life's little setbacks on his one insignificant difference. In fact, Steve probably didn't get his preferred days off because of high workload. He probably made an error on his call which caused supervisor criticism. He was probably written up for schedule adherence because he was consistently late for work. But, in all probability, Steve had the same intentions with his unfounded citations that we may see from time to time in Second Life financial circles. Steve was preying on the uninformed and gullible among us. He was vying for their sympathy and support, weaving a web of untruths that would help break his falls in the future. So, if Steve were ever written up again, he could point to the "long track record" (by his standards, anyway) of homophobia... doesn't matter if he skipped work or told a customer to fuck off... he can say the write-up was because he was gay, and the uninformed among us will believe it simply because he has said it before. The moral of this late-night post is simple. In our Second Life financial circles, we all have our differences. We point them out on forums, face-to-face in-world, even sometimes through Skype or on the telephone. In general, though, we all value our common humanity and our common goals. We do a damn good job getting along with each other, on the whole. Be wary of those around you that ALWAYS seem to be mistreated... that ALWAYS seem to have problems with certain people... particularly when their differences or issues are no worse than your own. There may be a sympathy motive for a much larger purpose. Remember, "playing victim," is the oldest trick in the book of dirty politics. Always value our common humanity and our common goals. This is the one progressive social belief we can all agree on, in real life or in Second Life. Those that intentionally discriminate against others, or those that use their differences for personal gain, have no place in civilized society... be it real life, or Second Life. Until Next Time...
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