No problem… it might take a bit as league is in hiatus so I’m going to use the opportunity to work with my other tournament directors to craft something both more specific and hopefully a bit less intimidating. I think my current one is rather harsh sounding and leaves too much open to interpretation. I had a couple problems with people in the past so I tailored it around certain behavior I struggled in dealing with and that probably shows.
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Not sure if this was already said, but people of color need to see themselves in the machines. Has there ever been a pin that has a black character as the focus, not a side character?
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Harlem (mmmm drops and spinners) is the only one I’m coming up with.
I completely agree. There are a handful, for example Ali and Globtrotters… but nothing recently. Going a bit deeper on this, almost all manufacturers have exclusively white, male creative teams. So even if there was a theme or IP that manufacturers were wanting to make into a pinball machine, who would lead that creative team? There are major gatekeeping issues in pinball that go all the way to the top.
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Shaq Attack
Space Jam
Big Hurt
Black Fever
I appreciate everyone sharing what they can think of with black characters. Again, they are mostly all sports themed which likely caters to a white audience.
I mean, manufacturing pins is a business. So they cater themes to the audience they believe they have. But I think there has been an appetite for diversity when chances are taken. A lot of the streaming services are seeing success in telling stories of diversity and networks are slowly catching up. Credit to those services for taking the leap and realizing that white people aren’t the only consumers.
It might take a leap from one of the smaller manufacturers to test the market on diversity. It sounds gross saying that, but again, it’s a business.
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Word, agreed on your points. So what do we do as consumers if we want to see growth / change but are forced to work within the constraints of capitalism? Do we just sit back and hope that a manufacturer is willing to “take the risk” 
? In my opinion, if we rely on free market autopilot to solve the problem, change will be slow to non-existent.
I am genuinely curious how you view Ghostbusters. I find it interesting. Clearly, in the movie, Zeddemore became a small side role (interestingly greatly cut down from the original script).
But since Ernie Hudson does the callouts, the game positions him as your boss or mentor. You are the new recruit, he is the one coaching you and training you through the game. Arguably, he is the main character. But I don’t think many would naturally perceive it that way, the theming is still mostly about the 3 white leads.
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In Hot Wheels, one of the most-seen characters in the game is a black lady, the news anchor, who guides you through much of what’s happening in the game. She’s actually the first main character you see and hear when you start up the game.
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Lethal Weapon 3, although the crazy racist white guy is definitely featured more prominently on the translite.
I’m not sure now is a good time to expect pin companies to take chances. Remember they all just shut down for at least a couple of months with little to no revenue incoming. That hasn’t happened since WW2. Also, virtually every location game on the planet was shut down and not earning for a couple months. That’s never happened in almost 100 years of pinball. Lastly, the economy is teetering right now. Last time we had a recession, Stern barely stayed in business.
So the manufacturers aren’t really in a good place right now. Sales to operators is likey going to be down this year. Hopefully the economy and pinball sales rebound quickly, but I wouldn’t expect any of them to take chances on themes just yet.
I’ll get back out there and recruit as soon as I can, but our locations have been shutdown for 3 1/2 months now with no opening date announced yet.
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Here’s hoping that one of the pinball manufacturers has grabbed Marvel’s Black Panther license. Would make a great pin that should also be a commercial success. And hopefully they can get Chadwick Boseman to do all the main callouts. And if not him, then get Michael B. Jordan or Lupita Nyong’o.
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I feel that as a community, we have to be careful with this type of language / thinking (not trying to call you out, just speaking broadly - it’s all love 
). To assume that making themes that are targeted at a mostly White audience is the default / norm / safe bet could be considered a form of White supremacy. Reinforcing or assuming that White is safe and non-White is risky isn’t just problematic, but it is also just simply not true as we have witnessed throughout consumer culture repeatedly. Is making a theme with a Black lead any riskier than making an Aerosmith pinball machine 
? Furthermore, in a time when the industry is “on the rocks” so to speak, wouldn’t it be a good idea to broaden the appeal of pinball machines and try to tap into new markets?
That being said, I do agree that now isn’t the time to be heading down this path. Since production is slowed and sales are lower, now should be the time for manufactures to build paths / create training programs for diversifying their creative teams so we can actually get to a point where themes are executed correctly and thoughtfully.
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what a fabulous post. (also i LOVE War on Women! I am buying that book now)
still behind the thread. catching up.
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There’s a lot to unpack reading through all of this. I’ve gone back and forth whether to even post about this publicly. I’ve talked briefly with a couple of people in pinball about race and a lot with my friends outside of pinball that aren’t white. If I stop and look at this all in context, I appreciate the efforts by people. It’s a noble thing to do. At the same time, I feel like there’s still a lot that still needs to be learned by everyone as the wording and various amounts of soft bigotry is abound in this thread and various other conversations I’ve read through elsewhere, but not being addressed but seemingly embraced unbeknownst to people. I don’t speak for any other minority in the hobby as my thoughts and experiences are mine alone. I speak just for myself and what my non-pinball minority friends all agree on across the board when dealing with these issues.
All I can really say as someone that falls into the “BIPOC” label is that I’m not for taking someone’s job away or preventing earned opportunities for them because they’re a certain skin color nor am I comfortable with championing that cause. Additional opportunities for qualified individuals under whatever means the manufacturers want to create would be the better path in my opinion.
Making the tournaments affordable should be a priority to get everyone involved, otherwise to hint that minorities need an event to be free while getting special treatment compared to paying customers puts an entirely unnecessary target on our backs. I’d much rather be treated equally and held to the same standard as everyone else.
Also, it can be intimidating and a challenge for anyone to take a leadership role. If someone wants to be a leader, I promise, they’ll speak up. I’ve held multiple tournaments with zero fanfare of my ethnicity in Oklahoma. We deal with being in situations with the majority of people who don’t match our ethnic background. Pinball is not unique in this regard. Besides going to a Pow Wow or a reservation, I’m in those situations consistently on a daily basis. If a diverse group of leaders is desired, then being respectful to everyone and valuing everyone’s opinions will go a long ways.
That being said, for me a least, I’m not concerned by “white supremacy” in pinball at all. Will there be racists? Of course. Will people speak up? I hope so. I’m blessed with the Oklahoma scene as I’ve been treated with nothing but respect. I’ve also been treated with respect at every Stern Pro Circuit stop and convention around the country. Now, soft bigotry. That’s a line that I see being crossed on a consistent basis within the pinball community online and I think that needs to be addressed early on.
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would you mind talking more about what you mean by soft bigotry? maybe i’m just being dense, sorry.
I feel that if we’re going to have a productive dialog we should clearly delineate white supremecists from people you’re talking about.
Nazis, KKK = white supremecists
People not putting a lot of thought into cultural norms about marketing = something totally different
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No need to apologize. It’s worth discussing. Like I mentioned earlier, easy to make people aware before. I tend to let things go and not worry too much, but there are a lot of people who could misconstrue what the message is regardless of intent. That’s why I mentioned earlier it’s important to realize the context, which is why I know moving forward with everything, people have genuine intentions towards everyone getting a fair shake. That’s important and something we can all agree on.
Subtle things like hinting a way to get minorities involved is affordability, or declaring for a minority it can be intimidating being in leadership positions. The vast majority of us don’t want the standards lowered for us. I understand the intent is to get more people involved. To that I’d say, make the whole event less expensive or a certain day completely free if the goal is inclusion for everyone. I know in most cases it may not be realistic and can be situational dependent, but I know from talking with all my friends, that’s really the last thing we want is to be given a completely different price point than white people.
I can’t reiterate enough though, I fully know that these thoughts come from everyone with empathy and from a place of good. There’s a lot of solid ideas within this thread also. Just moving forward, the best thing people can do for us minorities in terms of involvement is just know, most of us feel equal, want to be equal, and are thankful that others feel the same way. Ask us to be involved and a leader will emerge and be involved.
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Hey sorry if I was unclear here! I am referencing cultural White supremacy, not like Nazi stuff. Apologies if that was confusing. Cultural White supremacy (or cultural racism) is how the dominant culture defines reality to advantage white people and oppress People of Color. Most of the time it is completely inadvertent and a culturally inherited behavior. For those of us in the US, we are all grew up in a white supremacist culture and system. It is inherited and ingrained in our psyches. There’s no shame in falling into those thought patterns, but if you see it happening, I feel it is a good idea to point it out so that we have the opportunity to recalibrate.
@Potatoloco I just saw your response. I assume that a couple of those points were in reference to my post earlier. Thank you for taking the time and putting forth the emotional labor to respond! I would really appreciate being able to engage / learn a bit more on those topics, but I want to take some time to digest first if that is cool.
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I think what Potatoloco is trying to say is that using the terms that you just did, again, is actually part of the problem and not progress towards a solution. There is nothing about the physical play of pinball that should segregate us as a community. This is the same argument that I posed in the women’s league threads when I also mentioned that I felt cultural diversity was more of a problem than gender and actually became publicly shamed for that stance. I’m of the opinion that we, as a community, need to stop focusing on race, sex, religion, etc and just start trying to ensure that everyone whom comes to play pinball is equal. That IS the greatest thing about pinball is that people of all backgrounds, age and sex are on equal ground when it comes to the physical play of the game. The negativity comes from people passing their beliefs on others (often times forcefully) and then some ignorant people that want to make lude and rude comments. As a community, we CAN police that behavior and remove it, with the goal of equality for all. Then, and only then, can we truly play in harmony as one solid group standing together.
The problem is that when these conversations tend to come up those even with the greatest of intentions (like yourself) generally come to the plate with polarizing comments that don’t really lead to an inherent and honest conversation from people of differences of opinion. For instance, when you make a comment like this “To assume that making themes that are targeted at a mostly White audience is the default / norm / safe bet could be considered a form of White supremacy.” my ears and mind turns off. I actually feel this is a form or racism (I know most wont share that belief) but it’s immediately going back to race for a decision being made vs looking at all forms of merit which could drive to that decision. To me, on that specific subject, this is just smart business. If 90% of your consumers are of a specific belief, sex, race, etc you tend to market to that demographic as it is what will sell the best. That’s not to say a manufacture couldn’t try to bridge the gap themselves (like what snailman suggested) but to state in a general context it’s “white supremacy” that caused it is a false narrative and automatically looking at the negative and not what could be an honest reason for that decision.
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This is a circular argument. If you (indefinite “you”) are marketing to white people, the result is that your buyers will mostly be white. Then you turn around and say “our buyers are mostly white so we have to cater to white people.” It constantly self-reinforces.
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