The Elephant In The Room?

 Apropo of needing some more 12 inch tortillas for my devilishly good (if I may make so bold) vegetarian burritos, we popped over to Ozmen's a rather large emporium of international foods, a few yards from the Sheffield United ground (well, we all have our crosses to bear).

Whilst there, we also grabbed some rather good Polish bread, top end pasta and the softest, darkest flan cases (it's a Christmas thing) you could ever wish for.

It's a brilliant store, not only for the fantastic ranfge of foods, but also the vibrant racial galimaufry you encounter, all shopping for familiar and 'foriegn' foods. Smiles and good manners abound in a way which could make the most radical of the Left, shed tears of joy.

Afterwards, as we passed the new(ish) Sheffield Markets, I suggested to the Memsahib, that we should pop into the food court there, where, as those in the know, well... 'know', you can get excellent Vietnamese and Nepalese food. An added bonus as we braved the 200 yards from the car to the doors in what was frankly disgusting weather, we bumped into veteran Sheffield gamer and founding member of the Chequebook Wargaming movement in the 80s, Mick Rothenburg who was also heading to this hidden temple of culinary delights.

I opted for the mixed Thali, the cold weather pushing me towards Nepalese over those stunning 'Summer rolls' at the Vietnamese place, and again I was struck by the diversity of those indulging in some democratic culinary adventures.

And this got me thinking about the elephant in the room...

In almost 4 and a half decades of gaming and having attended around 500 shows all over the UK, I have only seen one Indian family and a single black gamer at shows. I know of one Chinese wargamer and one Sikh and one black fantasy gamer personally.

Why?

Are we actively discouraging non-W.A.S.P gamers or is there something more to it? Is wargaming of absolutely no interest to non-white people in the U.K? I think not...

Let's face it, many of the historical periods we game involve colourful and interesting armies from all over the globe, not forgetting the Troops who fought so bravely for the British Empire, so what gives?

Personally, I have craved for many years, the opportunity to learn more about Indian armies, but the linguistic barrier has prevented that, beyond the few books which we have available in English and with a definite bias towards how wobderful the British Empire was.

If we are genuinely interested in diversity beyond the fashionable few topics and the fear of deplatforming for not seeming to embrace this or that, should we not be reaching out into other communities to spread the benefits this hobby offers and indeed to reap the harvest of knowledge which remains (in my opinion) a largely untapped resource?

I worked briefly for Games Workshop where a black mother and son came into the store. Seeing me painting, the lad asked how to paint flesh. I showed him not only how to paint caucasian flesh but how to paint a convincing Afro-Carribean skintone, and how, by observing light and the shading on his own hand and face (juts as I myself did way back when I figured that a manilla shade was a better starting point than that damned awful 'flesh' colour that came in tins) could be used as colour mixing guides. He was thrilled and his Mum was smiling in a way that I found to be professionally satisfying.

My manager did not think so, because 'Space Marines are white' (shortly after the Salamanders came along) and tore a strip off me. (A month or so later he was fired for several gross misconducts - funny that)

So fuck? 

Space Marines are not real... If a young lad wanted to see himself as a Space Marine, that was his creative right. 

And there I think is an example of why we don't have a more varied cultural palette.

Model railways are similarly affected, and I guess that there must be some similarities in the causes.

Isn't it time we stepped up to the plate and did something about it?

TTFN