Penny Arcade Expo and “Zoo” Diversity

Geek culture is a beautiful thing, and terrible. In that way it is kind of like Galadriel. It is also very, very white. In that way it is also like Galadriel. Unlike Galadriel, it is not very female. In all seriousness, one of the things that geek culture struggles with most is being inclusive and diverse, on pretty much every axis. We have serious problems with the most 101-level diversity stuff. Don’t buy that? Donald Glover couldn’t even suggest a film with a black Spider-Man without people freaking out and calling him ‘nigger’ for trying to “take Peter Parker from [them],” even though black Spider Man is already a thing. A woman can’t even suggest that GTA V might be sexist (who would have guessed that?) without receiving awful transphobic comments and threats. We, as a community, stumble on the most basic race/gender stuff. Class/ableism seems to elude us entirely. I don’t want to ignore or diminish all the great parts of our community that are actively doing something about that and representing in fantastic ways, but when I step back and look at all of our failures in that arena, I get pretty sad.