Did we revert this page for a reason?
I didn't reverse it, but I think the "reverse case" would probably fit better into a ghetto page - that is, places where often-oppressed minorities congregate (willingly or not) and isolate themselves from outsiders.
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Fair enough … I was just interested by the paradigm shift within a generation which could lead to the fore case being unthinkable and the reverse case far more likely. But for applied use I guess that's a bit esoteric.
I'm the one who reverted it. Given the nature of the change, perhaps I should have contacted you before doing so. In general, though, I don't think we have the volume of posts (or the astroturfing problems) that wikipedia does, so I don't think explaining every edit in detail on the discussion page is usually necessary.
However, since you asked about my actions, I will explain them.
The reversion I made removed the statements: "Ironically, there are now plenty of places in the US where only non-white people are safe after sundown. Change and progress are not always the same thing."
I felt those statements were:
a) potentially inflammatory,
b) factually dubious, and clearly un-sourced,
c) kind of missed the point of the rest of the page,
d) had no direct suggestions of how one might use it in a game,
Given those four objections, I felt justified in removing the comment.
To expand on that point-by point.
a) To allege that decades of civil rights victories are not "progress" is, to say the least, a controversial position. Perhaps that's not what you intended to be saying, but is pretty much how it read on the page.
b) I am specifically skeptical of the statement "there are now plenty of places in the US where only non-white people are safe after sundown". That seems like a heck of a statement to present unsourced. It sounds anecdotal, as opposed to based on any collected data.
Even if you can name some number of US neighborhoods that are exclusively non-white, and yet have a very high ratio of white murder victims to non-white murder victims, that doesn't mean that anyone who is not white is safe there. Dangerous neighborhoods are generally dangerous to those who live in them as well.
While we're usually pretty relaxed about sources here at Arcana Wiki, our policy is to hold these sorts of topics to a higher standard. I feel the statements in question failed to meet the requirements of the "No Political Commentary" section of the "What Arcana Wiki Is Not" page.
(To be fair, I will now hold myself to that same standard. As supporting evidence to back up my expression of opinion about dangerous neighborhoods, I would direct you to the mortality rates of gang members presented in the Freakonomics books. Minority gang members have a higher yearly mortality rate than death-row inmates. That hardly makes bad neighborhoods seem safe.)
c) I feel there is a clear distinction in scale between "typical" racism and overtly bloodthirsty institutional racism. What's more, this is specifically the page about the later, and the statements I removed seemed off-topic in that context.
As mentioned in my previous point, the existence of a criminal street gang somewhere that engages in killings, even if most of them are racially motivated, is not the same thing as an otherwise law-abiding community engaging in racially motivated killings and proudly declaring it on billboard signs knowing that police will never prosecute said killings. Again, this is the page about the later.
d) Beyond the limitations listed in the "No Political Commentary" section of the "What Arcana Wiki Is Not" page, I think that snappy comments about the situational irony of a touchy subject probably need to be backed up by not only sources, but also solid "Game and Story Use" ideas to justify their inclusion. If it's just a political observation devoid of gaming application, this probably isn't the right home for it even if there is a source for it somewhere.