Warhammer Warriors on the BBC

I wasn't going to post anything about this article on the BBC Website when I first read it this morning. It wasn't a great article although I have read more condescending or even openly hostile pieces many times. The tone of this one was just a little mocking, almost as if the author was embarrassed to realise she actually found she wanted to join in the game. I read it over breakfast this morning and filed it away under the heading 'mostly neutral'.

Warhammer Warriors by Samira Ahmed   

My mistake was to go back to the BBC site several hours later and read the comments that were being posted about the subject by readers of the BBC website. Many were positive and constructive and not all were by existing players or spotty faced teenagers. But there were also a significant number of posts that were distinctly aggressive and defamatory in tone. In fact I reported one comment to the BBC moderators because I felt that if the author had used the word blacks or Asians instead of wargamer's his post would have been considered racist, inflammatory and inciting hate crime. I'm glad to say the BBC agreed with me and removed the offending post... eventually.

Unfortunately there are still several others that I find equally offensive and there seems no end to the bile and hatred being poured forth from these commentators. This brings me back to a conversation I had with The Angry Lurker at Skirmish on Sunday. He recounted a conversation he'd had with another gamer who had said he'd rather admit to being a paedophile than 'come out' as a gamer! This is a very sad state of affairs indeed.

I'm not for a minute claiming that the mocking and defamatory abuse gamers come in for in some quarters is anything remotely like the affects of racism, homophobia or sectarian intolerance. We've got it easy by comparison. But that doesn't mean we can't learn from the experience of the Black or Gay community who have faced their demons by looking them straight in the eye and saying "I am proud of who I am, I won't go away, I will not be silent".

I've written before about my conscious decision to be clear and open about my hobby interests. Today for instance I have brought my mobile painting kit into work so I can get some jobs done in my lunch-break. I'm a Gamer, I am proud of my hobby, I will not go away and I definitely won't be silent!