From: doconnor@sedona.intel.com (Dennis O'Connor)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Through a looking glass, darkly
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:52:42
Organization: Intel i960(tm) Architecture
	<1992Dec15.174136.11929@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: potato.intel.com
In-reply-to: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu's message of Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:41:36 GMT


tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu ("Sod the proles!") writes:
] I have wondered about this question for years. Despite the undeniable truth
] that I have met members who were racist, I do believe that the overwhelming
] majority of SCAdians are welcoming and friendly to _everyone_. Why is it then
] that just about everyone in the SCA is white?

Partially because it spreads by word of mouth, and white people
tend to know mainly white people. Partially because it's mainly
white people, and just as white people might be a little hesitant
to join a nearly-all-black organization, many black people may 
feel the same.

] Eric Aarskog raised some good points in his posting on this topic, though I
] would suggest (though I have no statistics for this) that the officialdom of
] the SCA is rather discouraging to the idea of exploring the middle ages of
] non-Western cultures (the current fad for Japanese personas notwithstanding.)
] I know this board is peopled by many who are interested in non-European
] medieval history, but beyond the shining borders of the Rialto there are
] many who truly believe, in good or sometimes bad faith, that the purpose of
] the SCA is to explore the _European_ Middle Ages.

Which would include Asiatics (due to the Mongol invasions of the
13th Century) and Africans (due to the Moorish conquest of Spain and 
people who returned with the Crusaders) and even some New World people
(due to returning explorers from the New World). Even the most 
restrictive reading of the SCA charter shouldn't imply "white's only".

] I raise this because I think it might have a connection. I have met many
] people interested in the medieval history of their own heritage -- 
] African-Americans, Asians and Native Americans included. While there is
] currently a fad for Asian history and personas, this was not true when I 
] joined 8-odd years ago. On the local level, I have seen little support for
] work with traditions other than the usual Western ones.

We have a Mongol Viscount in Aetenveldt who contradicts this. But
anyway : first, I don't think Asian personas are a "fad" : I knew
people with Asian personas 10 years ago who still have them. I also
know lots of Anglo-Saxons with Celtic and French personas. I myself
am mostly of Irish ancestry, but have chosen a Mongol persona. I
have known Arab personas too.

Why do people choose a particular nationality for their persona ? Well, 
at first there's an enormous bias towards whatever people around you
are, since that makes it easier to get information. Second, there's
your own ancestry of course. But thirdly their's YOU : I chose a 
13th century Mongol persona because 13th century Mongol culture is the
closest in the SCA domain to my own idealculture. They lived close to
nature, women were close to equal with men, birth rarely influenced how
far you could go, livestock was more important than baubles, and they 
believed in personal honor, the rule of law, and religous tolerance. 
Oh, and Mongols were "in to" horses and archery, two things (of many)
I'm also into. True, they weren't very merciful and treated non-Mongols
as inferiors, but I don't need to COMPLETELY recreate a Mongol persona,
just as the SCA does not recreate the "down side" of the middle ages.
--
Dennis O'Connor			doconnor@sedona.intel.com
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca