Let us be outright and clear. Underworld LARP stands in unity, and in solidarity, with all those who fight oppression and battle against racial inequality. We stand with our friends, players and allies in the BLM movement and any organization that works to dismantle structural racism.
Ted and I debated posting this for a long time but probably not for the reasons you suspect. To be frank, the want was there but at the same time we didn’t want to offer hollow sounding words or give the impression we were in support, just to improve the brand. We’ve all seen it and we all hate it. What changed our minds is what Underworld LARP is to the world. It’s still so easy to think of ourselves as a bunch of kids, running around the woods hitting each other with plumbing supplies but we’re so much more now. Underworld has grown and evolved into a global leader in larp. We’re dominating in two entire countries and we’re just about to start the third. Our words and policies are used by dozens and dozens of other larps (and most we don’t even know about). As leaders in this community we have a responsibility to do what is right, even if that means alienating some of our less socially aware player base or risking accusations of hopping on the bandwagon (and I really hope that number is minuscule). There is work ahead to get there but we know we can do better.
There is an additional reason we are doing this and it’s personal for me. Despite what your eyes tell you, I am not white. I am very bi-racial. My birth father is black, born and raised in Christ Church, Barbados. We are Afro-Caribbean. And while my sister and I joke we might secretly be the milk man's kids (and I’m making that joke so you can’t and my mother will probably ground me for it) I can assure you we are not. In reality my mother just has strong dominant Norse genes and that isn't a bad thing or good thing. It just is. Being white passing biracial means I haven’t experienced the hardship of racial inequality that comes with being visibly black however it affects my immediate family and friends a LOT. My father, my cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews all have experienced acts of police brutality and/or systemic racism. I have cousins who have been injured and arrested in the BLM protests. So that gives me a little more insight and motivation to help fix problems in our society, even if they don’t seem to directly affect me. While I’m biracial, I’m also white passing enough to get every job interview I’ve applied for (and usually the job). I don’t have the disadvantage in life by "looking too black" so I can’t use my racial “clout” to think that I can speak for BIPOC. I would never even try. So, this isn’t even a discussion for me. I 100% support this battle because it directly affects my immediate family and friends and because it is the right thing to do. And I am blessed enough to have a business partner who agrees.
Underworld has always been founded on diversity. Our co-original owner was openly gay in the early 90s and that wasn’t a great time to be gay. It was in the midst of the HIV pandemic and UW players were warned by other LARPs not to play Underworld or you’d catch AIDS. I shit you not. Because of this, from the start, we've been sensitive to diversity and have done our best to make UW a welcoming community through the 25+ years. It’s hard though, and if you hadn’t noticed, LARPing is pretty white. We’d love to change that and we’re not just giving you lip service here. Right out of the gate both Ted and I admit there are times when we could have been a little more socially aware when writing policies. We’ve made some big fundamental changes over the years to try and make up for our failings but we also know there’s a lot more we can do. As policy writers and trailblazers we want to break molds and stereotypes. A portion of that includes identifying why PoC don’t larp as much as their white counterparts. It’s very possible that the reasons are cultural but it’s also feasible that it’s just unwelcoming and we need to make change. We recognize our community is flawed in this way, not just at Underworld but at almost every LARP. We’ve got our own game plan on how we can tackle some of the hurdles of becoming more appealing to PoC potential players but we also want to hear your ideas. So, all that being said, we’re going to host a Discord Town Hall Meeting on Sunday June 14th, 2020. We invite any UW Larper or potential UW larper to join us in an open honest forum to speak out about how we can better identify reasons why larp can be so unappealing to larpers of colour and what we can do policy wise to change that. We are giving extra weight to the words Players of Colour so this is your chance. We’ll give a little more info on the Town Hall subjects and rules, as well as how it’ll work, in a separate post. Until then keep fighting the fight. Underworld LARP supports you.
-William Ashby & Edward Watt
Underworld LARP Global
(Comments@larp.ca for questions or concerns)
Town Hall
Once in the server please click on the “Town Hall” voice channel to hear the discussion.
Time: Sunday June 14th, 2020 7PM EST to 9PM EST.
This town hall is designed to give our players of colour or potential PoC an opportunity to speak to Underworld Global ownership and voice their concerns about Underworld’s business practices and its potential negative contribution to racism outside of the game. We recognize that LARP can do better in fostering a more inclusive community, which is lacking in players of colour for as long as we can remember. We seek to identify the cause of this and make potential changes to policy if the cause is a result of our current practices.
Traditionally town hall meetings don’t have many rules but this is specific to a theme so we’re going to limit topics a little bit. We have a community problem here and we’re hoping our players of colour can aid us in both identifying it’s cause and helping us determine solutions. While we will not limit who can speak, we will give more weight to the words of players of colour. We will listen. We are making no decisions or arguments during this town hall. We will, if asked, explain our justification of why a certain policy or rules sets exist, but we will not shut you down or seize the mic to argue.
Rules
- We are laser focused on racism within our community and what we can do, if anything, to make LARP more attractive to all PoC. Questions, statements or arguments outside of this topic will not be addressed.
- Our moderators will queue those who wish to speak. Their names are RED in the Discord server. Our moderator for the evening will be <NAME COMING SOON>. To make a statement or ask questions “pm” the moderator and they will call your name out when it is your turn in the queue and give you elevated access of green . You may either use voice at that time or type out your statements / questions, whatever is more comfortable for you.
- Town halls traditionally allow one person to speak at a time. We have disabled voice to those not in queue to speak. If, for some reason, that system fails us, please respect the rules and do not type or talk, while a speaker is speaking.
- We are giving a maximum of 10 minutes per speaker, please stay within those limits. This is important to us so if there is a need to speak longer, let a mod know but just understand there are others that wish to talk and we’re limited to two hours for this meeting.
- This is not a popularity contest. You do not need to give your support to another player’s statement or idea. If the statement or idea is thought out and supported with reason and facts, it will stand strong on it’s own. The number of players wanting to change something is never relevant to us, only the reasoning and logic behind the suggestion.
- Trolling will not be tolerated. Any aggressive or unwarranted mention of whitelivesmatter, police, all lives matter and / or racists statements will be dealt with by your removal from the discord server and potential further consequences on your local Guild level.
One last piece of advice, we have a lot of white players who have already submitted their complaints or given us statements on their opinions, in the past. If this is you, you do not need to repeat yourself. This meeting is not for you and while we’re allowing you to speak at it, be respectful and practice mindfulness when your fellow players of colour have concerns. We’re not interested in hearing how woke you are or how we can make the game better for them. We want to hear FROM them. Lastly, if you’re a player of colour and there is something in this post or rules that is discouraging you from joining our discussion, please let us know. There is no playbook for this so we’re just trying to design the best system to let you speak. There might be flaws.
If you can't make the town hall or are not comfortable speaking in front of people, please emails us directly at comments@larp.ca
That email only goes to Edward Watt and myself and is considered confidential. We want to here from you.
To start....
While Underworld LARP allows for racism between fictional races in our Game Universe, we will not tolerate it outside that space. We will be releasing a global policy on the do’s and do not’s of IG racism shortly but we’re more than able to establish now, a rule stating that no OOG racial slurs can be used IG, even if they seem somehow justifiable. A clear example of this would be using the term “talking monkey / anything monkey” to refer to humans. It’s innocent in its use IG but that’s only because a majority of our North American players are white (something that came out of elf vs human rivalry). Imagine a brand new black player, playing a human, witnessing the use of that IG slur, when they first walk into game. They will walk directly out.The intent is irrelevant and should be obvious why. So, changes we can make right now, no real world slurs can be used in our IG world. It also makes no IG sense as humans did not evolve from monkeys in the Underworld universe. You will have to resort to “round ears” or something equally insulting IG, without crossing that OOG line. This is just a small change that we can do immediately. We have our Guildmaster's Town Hall in a couple weeks and we’ll be releasing more after that.
We stand with you. It’s not lip service and we’ll prove it through our actions and policies.
Guildmaster's please ensure this policy is enforced in your local game. We're grateful in your support of this.