Oh, absolutely, and that's unsupportable by either medieval history or the history of the SCA (originating in counter-cultural Berkeley). Yes, the great majority of people in medieval Europe were what we would now call "white", but at the time they were considered very different races. (I read yesterday that, at one point in the last 200 years,, the U.S. Census form offered a racial choice among "White", "Negro", "Hebrew", and "Celt", among others.) And there was certainly contact with North Africans, Arabs, Turks, etc.
But this action strikes me as a case of "Something must be done. This is something, so..."
People have been arguing about the SCA's temporal and geographical scope since at least the days of the Rialto on Usenet, and have often used the analogy "You don't bring a football to a baseball game. Nothing wrong with football, but that's not the game we're playing here and now." With this change, it seems like we're playing football, baseball, cricket, croquet, ice hockey, lacrosse, polo, and tai chi all on the same field at the same time, terrified of excluding anyone. Or as my wife puts it, "The SCA is no longer a baseball league but just the Department of Parks and Recreation, offering only a physical plant where you can do whatever you want."
no subject
But this action strikes me as a case of "Something must be done. This is something, so..."
People have been arguing about the SCA's temporal and geographical scope since at least the days of the Rialto on Usenet, and have often used the analogy "You don't bring a football to a baseball game. Nothing wrong with football, but that's not the game we're playing here and now." With this change, it seems like we're playing football, baseball, cricket, croquet, ice hockey, lacrosse, polo, and tai chi all on the same field at the same time, terrified of excluding anyone. Or as my wife puts it, "The SCA is no longer a baseball league but just the Department of Parks and Recreation, offering only a physical plant where you can do whatever you want."