Hello everyone,
I recently posted an idea about creating a new Black Sub-community in the Pinside forum (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/calling-all-black-pinball-players-let-s-build-a-sub-community/page/2#post-8257554), and I noticed it received a lot of negative feedback. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t surprised by the reaction, but I was disappointed that I kept seeing “IBTL” or “This won’t end well…”. It just seemed like a number of members just accepted this type behavior as opposed to correcting it. I do understand that I could have worded my post better. I talked to someone in the Pinside community via DMs, and he asked to clarify why I’m looking to form a Black Sub Community, so I’ll post that here as well:
The purpose of the group was three fold:
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Probably the reasoning much like Women Leagues, the group would create a “safe space” for Black People to learn, play, discuss Pinball. I’ve played all over this country from Tucson, Arizona, to Manhattan,NY to here in DC. And being extremely honest, it’s super intimating sometimes to go play pinball in all White Spaces. NOTE!!! I’m not stating that I ever felt unsafe or unwelcome in those spaces, but when I would walk into those kinda of spaces and suddenly all eyes immediately focusing on you made me feel alien. So to repeat, there is nothing objectionable about White People in this instance, I made a large number of White Friends in the community, but there is something to be said about have a community of people who look like you. I’ve seen Black Biking Clubs, Black Running Clubs, Black Pottery Clubs with central idea of bringing people of a niche together. Also I have seen White People in those groups as well. It’s a shame that people immediately jumped to the conclusion of “they’re excluding me, that not cool” instead of “this is group that exists in the larger group”. Women play in non Women Leagues, it wouldn’t think it would be the same for the Black Sub Community.
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Form a group that can discuss and answer some existential questions about recruiting more Black People to play pinball. Those questions are historical and cultural questions that only Black People can really answer. Why isn’t Pinball thing in Black Culture and how can change that? . I played Lacrosse, another predominately White sport, in HS and I had the same type of discussions. “This is so fun! Why don’t people play more? How did you get into Pinball? How can we repeat the same thing for other to bring more people in? What are some actionable steps that we can take?”
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Lastly, the group can be a collectivized voice encouraging Stern and other pinball manufacturers to start seeing to Black People as viable consumers. They have to know that Black People play pinball as well and we want Themes that are relevant to them (music, movies, comics).
For points 2 and 3. All voices are welcomed, but first I wanted need to grow the core Black group because their visibility should be the catalyst for change.
If you’re interested in joining this group, let me know!! I truly have the best intentions in this effort. Again I seek to invoke change in a community I love not to be isolated from it.