Racial slur widely used in gallery

[Strangelovekraft]

While browsing the gallery I came across an extremely unpleasant discovery... The word filters that are in place (and at times, even filter completely mundane language) can not filter for a well known racial slur used against Romani people. It appears widely in descriptions of hippie/boho style homes and fetishistic racial caricatures... yikes. 

For those who are not familiar with the Romani people and history, a really brief summary:

Romani people have encountered centuries worth of bigotry and hate in Europe.

This has at times culminated to hate crimes and mass sterilizations, and Roma were one of the groups to be systematically eradicated during the holocaust.

Later on, common examples of racism against them would be, among others, work discrimination, separating families, preventing children from learning their native languages, stereotyping Roma as criminal, hypersexual and/or mystical and fetishizing their clothing, art and history in media made by non-Roma people.

"Gyp*y" is a racial slur that is connected to centuries of racism against Romani people. 

"Gyp*y" is not an architectural style, interior decoration trend or outfit style.

[EA_Cade]

Hi @Strangelovekraft,

Thank you for raising this to us! I've forwarded this up to the relevant teams so we can get this taken care of in a future gallery update.

[Strangelovekraft]

I'm happy to hear this is taken forward! 

Thank you, @EA_Cade and happy holidays!

[Hiroko-sama]

@Strangelovekraft Never knew Gyp*y was a racial slur. I always thought it was a demographic akin to "thug" (aka either a tough guy or gang member) or panhandler (someone standing out on the streets asking for money). In this case, just a traveling group of Romani people that perform things like music, tarot card readings (not mystical but simply telling people what they want to hear), etc at events like a county fare or something.

Learned something new today. Thanks.

[Strangelovekraft]

The term "traveller" is sometimes used in the kind of context you give, and in a larger demographic than strictly Romani people, for example certain Irish groups, but this one is not quite stigma-free in other contexts either. 

"Traveling performers" and/or "nomadic lifestyle" would probably be a fair description. Also, obviously, if someone, say, recreates or is inspired by say, an actual historical Roma caravan -style trailer and creates a Sims version, calling it that and telling where the inspiration comes from is not racist.

[simsplayer818]

I'm lucky to have benefited from diversity training in a former regional government post. I was trained never ever to use this word so that we could fairly and respectfully engage with the community. Let's hope the more people we tell, the more the message spreads not to use the G word.

I saw a comment on another feed that the Sims is being too political by working towards full inclusivity and that disappointed me. Being inclusive isn't being political, it's just being inclusive. There are enough games that stereotype. What I love about The Sims is that we can create the diverse world we'd like to see in the real world.

[Strangelovekraft]

Two months later, after the game received a gallery update, this issue is still as prevalent as it was when first reported.

[xochiquetzl_xkvn]

Considering how long this thread has been open, this may not be the correct place for this but I wanted to bring awareness to the situation.

I genuinely appreciate how open and inclusive The Sims 4 is, and the incredible creativity shown in the gallery. I obviously don't want that to change.

I'm honestly not sure how EA/Maxis handles complaints about gallery content, but it appears that you have some banned words and the option to report content, but that reporting content does little if anything. In other words, I'm reasonably certain that you don't have human moderators looking for offensive content, although I would hope that a human being looked at items that were flagged. 

That said... I would suggest that you get one of your Jewish employees to search the term "Jewish" in the gallery and sort by number of downloads. Depressingly, there's an antisemitic stereotype couple with over 1200 downloads and comments like "lmao sieg heil." This is, shall we say, not welcoming to Jewish Simmers who would like to represent themselves in the game. This item has apparently been in the gallery for many years and many people commented to say that they were reporting it, and yet it remains.

If you don't understand why the item in question is an antisemitic stereotype, here's a link. TL;DR: The rich greedy Jew is a stereotype rising out of historical antisemitic oppression in which Jews were denied entry into most professions, but were allowed to lend money because money lending was a sin in Christianity (usury has since been redefined  from "lending money with an interest rate at all" to mean "charging excessive interest") and therefore banking was a profession forbidden to Christians. This stereotype is harmful because it encourages hatred and dehumanizes Jews into malevolent stereotypes.

Let's assume that you don't want to "squash the creativity" of the creator, and that's why the item has been in the gallery for years. Can you at least consider removing the item because it's a magnet for offensive comments and hate speech?

Thank you very much for reading this far, and please consider evaluating whether or not your gallery flagging system is effective.

[xochiquetzl_xkvn]

Bump.

Yes, I know thread bumping is frowned upon, but I also think this is an important issue.

As near as I can tell, what the flagging system does is....  hides the item from YOU.

[Scobren]

Yeah there are a few racist terms I wish were banned from Gallery too. I am tri-raced myself and my empathy goes out to Jews since my minor Christian religion has a history of oppression too, so I am all for having options and honestly a better way to report and flag offensive posts too. One of my friends has been trying to get Jewish foods into the game too and making some amazing foods to show the Gurus. I think whole Gallery needs a much needed upgrade anyway, so better filtering system would be nice to find different cultures in the Gallery too. I don't like the algorithm it is currently using likes and number of downloads because there are so many amazing content creators that don't get featured as much.