Notes on Stop GamerGate Hashtag (Semi-Transcripts)

Here are the notes I used for my "Stop GamerGate" video:

Hello again GamerGate and NotYourShield and a special shout out to our friends in #StopGamerGate!

 I had a wonderful night. Husband took me out to dinner, played some WoW (Got the Iron Horde Achievement!), cuddled some cats, read some twitt...oh. About that.

StopGamerGate. Hm. StopGamerGate. I'm wondering Just what do the people in Stop Gamer Gate want? To stop the hash tag? OK. It's stopped. What have you accomplished? Is everyone happy now? Are all the journalists on all the game sites ethical now? Or better yet, to use the example of what I'm reading you want - Has all the harassment of all the women and minorities stopped now? Yeah... About that.

As a woman and a minority I really object to your trying to stop my voice. Silence me. Remove my relevancy. You know, harass me.

I promise this next part does have something to do with GamerGate. Did you know that there are Blood quantum laws in the US in regards to the American Indians? What that means is that you have a certain "percentage" of indian blood. And this is a little strange for me because I am allowed to call myself a Shoshone, but I'm not allowed to call myself a Cree. (My paternal Grandmother was Shoshone, My maternal Great Grandmother was a Cree). And I have light skin, so when I was little everyone just called me "That White Girl" 

So. I have had to fight almost all my life to be recognized as an Indian because I can "pass" as white. Would it have been easier for me to just step back and say, I'm white. Sure, but that would have meant not respecting my grandmothers whom I loved.

And this is the background I'm bringing with me to GamerGate and NotYourShield. This is why it matters to me when gamers are called White and told we are dead. These are the same issues I faced as a child. I was called white as an insult, gamers are called white as an insult. 

Indians have been told their culture is dead over and over.

Gamers are being told that our culture is over.

Journalists demonized the Indians, just as the gamers have been demonized.

This is what I'm fighting against. This is my background. This is why I am part of Not Your Shield.

So, you get rid of the hash tag. It's gone. The resentment that your harrassment campaign against gamers had engendered is still going to be here. We are still going to be insulted and angry at your belittling our culture. And we will find more and more ways to fight against.

 GamerGate is dead. Long live the gamers.