View Full Version : How diverse are your Sims?
thinkpeas
27th Apr 2012, 08:15 PM
In my Cultural Diversity class I have do a research paper based on race and ethnicity. I decided to see how race and ethnicity comes into play with the Sims (which is a bit risky to start playing during finals week!) To be clear, I am not here to judge anyone on their views and frown upon how they play. Just wanted to do some research! I'll be honest to say that I know my towns have never been that diverse, and I believe it only has to do with human nature. But it's something I'm going to keep in mind with how I play in the future.
If I could get as many Sim players to answer this survey it would be greatly appreciated :)
(All answers are anonymous!)
Click here to do the survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TVYK9ZM)
Feel free to share your views on this topic and how it is that you play. I'm curious. Just please avoid getting too heated!
PoisonFrog
27th Apr 2012, 09:30 PM
errr...I can't help but notice the absence of your views on the subject. Seeing as how it's your topic, why not start off by giving your opinions.
Could be interesting academic discourse if it permeates the political correctness social barrier...
eskie227
27th Apr 2012, 10:45 PM
I'm impressed. What a great way to have an excuse to play the Sims during finals week. :beer:
kewpie
27th Apr 2012, 11:23 PM
The questionnaire didn't really fit my playing style. Since I play legacy, I may start with a sim of my own race, but the family ends up whoever random people generated by my game. They are usually very diverse. I use Twallan's mod to create my townies from seed populations I create from sims on this very site. I switch them out every few months, but I try to keep a general mix that will result in an ethnically diverse population. Then my sims I make as a main family go out and marry those sims.
PhenethyaSim
28th Apr 2012, 12:26 AM
My sims are half the time not really any race medium skin tone non specific features my current main sim looks a bit middle eastern but not from intent I never think I'm gonna make white sim or an asian sim or anything else. I just make them look they way that fits there character some times that mean specific race usually not though.
Simsdestroyer
28th Apr 2012, 01:20 AM
I usually start my sims off with my race and just play. But to be honest, the only time I get into the whole racial aspect of it, is when I'm playing a story. Then I try to create an environment that goes with that particular sim. As for my game, it's very diverse, but not because I intentionally made it like that. Its through twallan's sp and genetics. Which is great, because it creates sims that I don't have the creative skills to make on my own. I also add sims from here and other independent creator sites to add even more different bone structures to the gene pool.
zigersimmer
28th Apr 2012, 07:04 AM
I use Twallen's suite to set immigration to random EA generation and let the puddings propagate as the RNG decides.
UltraRobbie
28th Apr 2012, 09:12 AM
Done! I feel kind of racist now, as I often play as a white Sim. I'm not racist at all, can I just say. I think why I do this is because we enjoy projecting ourselves into the game, and so create the character that relates mostly to us; it's hard feel like a blond half-asian that works as a military sergeant because, well, I don't really relate to it, and I guess that destroys the escapism I look for. But let me say, I am not racist; I will play as other races, and I do create other races... Sometimes...
OH GOD I'M A RACIST :cry:
But seriously, I'm not racist, and will play as other races and don't feel against playing a Sim that is non-white at all; my town has different races, of multiple cultures. Also, I don't think my thing applies to everyone else playing the Sims (using the selected character as escapism), so maybe I'm alone on that one. Please don't tell me I'm alone on that one, I want to be perceived as non-racist.
Misanthrope
28th Apr 2012, 09:55 AM
Sims don't really have races :|
Anyway, I usually have light-skinned sims, and medium tan. It's just a preference.
Zokugai
28th Apr 2012, 10:15 AM
People are naturally drawn towards people who look like them. It's not just limited to race -- for instance, I have brown hair and blue eyes, and therefore tend to picture people I know but don't know the appearance of as brunette with blue eyes. It's just a matter of what your mind has set as the "default" appearance it pictures people as.
VampireSim
28th Apr 2012, 11:45 AM
I have always problems with the word "race", I don't like it. Because we are all one race. Human race. The rest is irrelevant for me.
I'm using Twallans Mods too for populating my worlds and let the random sims be what they are.
vhanster
28th Apr 2012, 12:01 PM
What does the skin color I used for my Sims have anything to do with race?
SommarBlomma
28th Apr 2012, 12:04 PM
Wel, I'll be honest, most of my sims are white, have quite light hair, and blue, green, or hazel eyes. Maybe it is because i'm blonde with hazel eyes, and I, too "projuct myself on my sims". Having most of my sims white just adds realism to me. However, to add even more realism, and diversity, I add sims of other races. However, in this case, I invent some dramatic background stories for them, like my mid-eastern female sim, the last character I made in game. Her bio states that she was treated like a slave by her own father, and was prepared to getting married to a men she was afraid of, and then, she decided to take a risk and escape, and moved into my town to start here from scratch, and now she's learning skills, meets new people, works on her career, and learns to be a free, independednt person she never was before. Or my black sim who started as a criminal, but wants to suceed in sports, and then he abandoned his criminal career and started living a honest life, will he even find his place in this city? If I make a non-white sim, I always make also a reason why s/he migrated to my city, and the stories are usually sad, or even tragic ones, but I always make my poor non-white sims live their dreams and get very successful, otherwise I'd feel a bad, bad racisitc person, who discriminates non-white sims :)
Ah, and I sometimes create smoking hot mixed girls (because some mixed girls ARE hot IRL, I somewhy like them, though I don't find mixed guys that attractive)
Garambola
28th Apr 2012, 12:12 PM
Well, my Sims tend to be green, blue, red and sometimes scaly. They have usually big eyes that are either black or another solid color or sometimes they have cat eyes. They vary in height and width and most have pointy ears...
They don't discriminate against the townies that look more like the people we see here on Earth.
I thought about why I like playing the alien races and came to the conclusion that it is fun to be able to mix and match elements of different cultures without having to worry about it being 'correct'. My daughter hates them and calls then creepy, mainly because of the eyes.
Make what you will of it. ;)
Edit: Here is a snaphot of students going to school in my Strangetown game.
http://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx347/GarambolaSim/Sims%203%20Random/students.jpg
gesine
28th Apr 2012, 12:29 PM
I mostly play pre-mades, so you can blame EA for any discrimination you see. When I do add a Sim, it's usually one with an alien skin as I have downloaded so many nice colorful skins that don't get used much. Besides, I like the Sims game as a whole to be Vibrant as far as colors go.
Splatedpumpkin
28th Apr 2012, 12:37 PM
I have to make all my families since I made my world in CAW, and it's populated very diversely. I've got about.. 2 black families, 2 asian families, 2 white families, and 3 interracial families. I also have a lot of individual sims that are Hispanic, Asian, black, white, etc. I live in a very multicultural city so I try to reflect that in my game.
Arisuka
28th Apr 2012, 12:39 PM
This is an interesting topic! I like the fact that there are no races, sexual labels, gender stigmas and so on in the sim world... unless your sim happens to flirt with a vampire in their own home, as the whole town will shun them for that. :D
I can honestly say that I create and play sims of all possible real life (and not-so-real-life) races. I just think people are fascinating, no matter what label their looks may fall in! All the labeling and dividing of people in the real world makes me often very frustrated, so having a sim world where there is none of that is therapeutic.
People are naturally drawn towards people who look like them. It's not just limited to race -- for instance, I have brown hair and blue eyes, and therefore tend to picture people I know but don't know the appearance of as brunette with blue eyes. It's just a matter of what your mind has set as the "default" appearance it pictures people as.
Yes, people do feel drawn to people who seemingly seem to share same visible things with them (hair color, hair length, shoes, it can be whatever). It seems to give a subconscious feeling that we know that person, as we as humans want to relate and to belong. But that's not really too prominent pattern in life for all people, it varies A LOT. I've noticed that I look more at the body language and gestures than looks... there is a lot of truth to the 'default' appearance mindset, but that can change drastically through lifetime (or for some, not at all).
Tzigone
28th Apr 2012, 01:29 PM
The questionnaire didn't really fit my playing style. Since I play legacy, I may start with a sim of my own race, but the family ends up whoever random people generated by my game. They are usually very diverse. I use Twallan's mod to create my townies from seed populations I create from sims on this very site. I switch them out every few months, but I try to keep a general mix that will result in an ethnically diverse population. Then my sims I make as a main family go out and marry those sims. I'm similar. I start off with three or four families. Usually at least one black and two white. Sometimes mixed families.
I try to vary them up so that there are single parents and at least one household with a grandparent. I do not create Asians or Latino families - mostly because I can't create Asian facial features and am very lazy about creating. I roll the dice until I find a face I like, then minutely alter it. Looks have nothing to do with personalities (clothes do - sometimes). Other sims move in. Then they marry whoever is the right age/has the right traits, regardless of skintone. I do sometimes try to match on skintone or hair color, if I have a lack of redheads or dark skintones in my neighborhood.
Seriously though, my sims have no distinct culture or decoration or clothing style by race. They are not different races/ethnicities - just sims with different skintones and haircolors.
whiterider
28th Apr 2012, 02:05 PM
Are you only looking for North American responses to the survey? I notice a distinct lack of Scandinavians, Indians, Middle Eastern races, oriental races, black Africans, white Africans, eastern Europeans, southern Europeans, Australian Aborigines... :)
ksstrek
28th Apr 2012, 02:07 PM
I have always wondered if the skin color of new townie sims the game generates is influenced by the skin color of the majority of CAS sims. for example, as a white player, I tend to make lightskinned sims, because I tend to base them on family members when in CAS.( As I play however, I let them pair up with whatever townie happens to strike their fancy as I play with very high free will on) I have noticed that there are not very many dark skinned game generated sims in my towns. Do the games of people who make more darker skinned sims in CAS has more game generated darker skinned townies?.
kewpie
28th Apr 2012, 02:32 PM
ksstrek - In a way, yes. Depending on how your townie generation is handled by whatever story progression you use, the townies will reflect what you have in your bins and towns. This is why I am careful with seeding and making sure it's diverse. It's not because I want a politically correct town, but because I had some bad experiences with sims all looking the same in my towns.
What happened is that I didn't realize in TS3 for a while that the sims you made got saved, so whenever I started a new town, I made a new sim. I kept making this same sim over and over and over. And I also hid all the EA sims in my bin, not knowing that that didn't just hide them from my eyes, it also excluded them from the townie generator when it was making townies from the bin. So except for a few randomly generated sims, all of my town looked like the sim I was playing. I thought it was an EA glitch, until I started lurking around on various sites to see how the townies were made.
The reason I separate my families by "race" (actually, my families are just pale/medium/dark skin color and I also have an asian bin because so many people on this site make asian looking sims and I also have a "freak" catagory if I want odd color or very odd feature sims) The reason I separate them is so that if my town starts looking too uniform, I can add a seed family of whatever I think would spice up the town. So if there are too many light skinned townies, I can just add some dark skinned seed families and my town will start having some dark skinned sims show up. I even have families where everyone may have different skin tones, but they have a specific hair color in case I think there are too many people with the same hair color.
I am probably the most anal about this, but I think of my town as a character as much as my sims families. So I do what I can to keep my town interesting and diverse. I could probably play a TS2 style Uglacy, because I have some really wild looking sims that show up now and then.
Ghost sdoj
28th Apr 2012, 03:09 PM
I'm more like Garambola. I play fairies, aliens, demons, and other non-human sims. Even in Sims 1, my sims were not human. (And that took a bit of work/imagination until MM came out.)
As far as I am concerned, my "race" is human. I just happen to be the sort of beige-ish pink which for some odd reason gets called "white." Two of my best friends are the very dark brown which gets called black. (I can -sort of- understand calling them black, but I have never figured out how I can be called white. )
vicarious70
28th Apr 2012, 06:01 PM
See that's the thing, no one is truly black or white. I have never seen some one that looks the color of black such as coal or white such as snow for example. But I do see everyone as different shades and tones.
TheTripWasInfragreen
28th Apr 2012, 06:06 PM
Most of my sims are white or ambiguously brown/mixed race, and I have a small thing for making mixed-race couples in game. Let's face it, I'm white and a good chunk of my sims reflect that. Though there's a lot of fun in creating a Vietnamese family or Pakistani family and trying to get them looking right.
vicarious70
28th Apr 2012, 06:14 PM
My neighborhoods are very diverse. I can't see myself just playing my race, it would be very boring just to see one race or color roaming around. I'm very opened to all races and cultures.
Elledee
28th Apr 2012, 07:06 PM
I like a mix because I don't want everybody in town looking the same and I don't really think of sims being a certain race. I just like to create totally different looking sims so I don't have a town of clones.
SpookyOkyBatGirl
28th Apr 2012, 07:44 PM
I normally make Asians or whites. Just because I'm obsessed with Japanese/Korean culture. Then my families become a huge mix because I start marrying random game peoples that EA gives me.
itsamariokart
28th Apr 2012, 07:46 PM
The Sim I'm playing with right now is Asian :) The other sim I occasionally play with is black. I don't limit myself to the "race" I just make them look like whatever I want.
I'm white/caucasian btw :P
zigersimmer
28th Apr 2012, 08:17 PM
See that's the thing, no one is truly black or white. I have never seen some one that looks the color of black such as coal or white such as snow for example. But I do see everyone as different shades and tones.
I've known people whose skin tone was so dark it was very nearly coal black. I also once had a neighbor who was an albino, and although his skin was not truly snow white, it was very, very close. He sunburned super easily. Humans come in a wide variety of skin tones beyond minor shade differences.
whiterider
28th Apr 2012, 08:54 PM
I don't think Sims have races, sure they have different colored skin, but that doesn't really define them as being a part of a race. There is more to a race than just their skin color.Yeah, that's largely why I didn't finish the survey. I have sims of all skin colours, sure; but not many of them really have a race - I don't think about the bone structures, body types, facial features and so on which are common in particular races, when I'm making or marrying sims. Without all that it's pretty impossible to define a sim's race, so I can't get much more detailed than "black", "white", "Scottish white", "tan", "olive", "mixed" (as in mixed white and black/Indian, as that's what mixed race means in my part of the world) and so on.
lisfyre
28th Apr 2012, 09:37 PM
Unless I have something specific in mind like Oriental, Western Asian, Eastern Asian, Indian, Scandinavian, African, European, North American... and a lot of other ethnicities I might have missed mentioning, my created sims are usually boring old light to medium tan. I never play with canned EA sims because I don't like them. Just to test my understanding - are you looking for "races" as in black, white, yellow, red or ethnic backgrounds because they're two different things to me. I tend to be more specific in my sims ethnicity than their race. So if I need to create an African American sim, that's what I create... they don't need to be black... they can be chocolate or cafe au lait ... does that make sense?
thinkpeas
28th Apr 2012, 10:30 PM
Thank you everyone for your responses! I didn't expect to get this much response!
I do have to agree with what all of you are saying about it being skin tones in the Sims and not necessarily race. As I've learned, race is not something that is biological, it is something that we create. We create our identities and the views that we have on others. That is why I think the Sims is so great, because the actual game doesn't discriminate against skin tones. It's us as players who construct those differences, and I'm not saying that's in a bad or a good way. It's whatever you make of it!
I read an article early in the semester about how people are attracted to those of the same race. And I thought that was a pretty true statement, obviously with plenty of exceptions. That's why I was curious to see how much we project ourselves onto the game based on that natural attraction. Honestly I guess that's why most of my games start out with a white male. I like that I'm finding out that most people's games are pretty diverse, especially with the help of the random generators and the stories that are created. Kudos!
I also apologize if the survey offends anyone. I don't mean to...I'm just trying to collect information. To make it clear, I'm someone who very much realizes the beauty of each individual person, and that we are all human. No matter our background, we all have the same basic need to be loved. That's the philosophy that I live my life off! Thanks again for all your answers :)
Ive
28th Apr 2012, 11:56 PM
I use all kinds of different skin colours. I always make them after what ethnicity I want them to be, i.e African with African features.
And I then love to mix them together with a another ethnicity like a light skinned Russian person and see the outcome :) Makes for some very beautiful sims, and people in real life!
lewisb40
29th Apr 2012, 12:23 PM
I am an African-American and I did start off playing more darker skin tones in my game, but after a while I started making sims of all skin tones. I have them from pale with very light hair color to darkest skin that I can get away with and still see the features and may have white hair. I make them with features from all over the world when I look at pictures and want to try those facial features in my game. Also I make fantasy sims too, with green, blue, red skins from light to dark. Every sim I create I do play them a while before going to another household. I do love seeing how the town change after a few generations, even though I don't play the same sim for generations. :)
SimsLover50
29th Apr 2012, 03:04 PM
My sims are supposed to be aliens. Sady, I cannot find an ingame skin that matches their right tone. One is supposed to be fuschia, the other silvery. I can't wait until the next expansion so I can make sims that suit my vision!
lemonheadian
29th Apr 2012, 07:13 PM
I don't think it's necessarily an accurate view of diversity. I have dark brown sims with purple hair and much paler peach sims with blue hair. Those really don't fit any of the criteria. All my sims are fantasy, even those that look like their coloring could be based on real life races. Although I will say, I have a distinct lack of Asian facial features in my game, because I find them incredibly difficult to replicate in game.
But I find Sims who look too much like you are creepy and weird to play. I get too worried about who they'd marry and if the other Sim is pretty and I want to control every part of their lives. I like playing sims that are obviously not me. I get more detached to their story, until I play them enough to let their traits show, and then I get very attached.
Miko09
29th Apr 2012, 07:42 PM
I usually make sims of different racial backgrounds or mixed because life would gets boring playing a with a sim that mimics the way I look. I do have to say that I have a lot more mixed race couples in my game than others probably do. I guess that is just the environment I live in that I have projected in the game. As far as playing individual sims, I play with sims from every spectrum of the rainbow.
tiffyandthewall
29th Apr 2012, 09:51 PM
Interesting way to go about the assignment! I just took the survey. I'm white (very, very pale white to be specific) and I do play white sims, but I do play a good amount of other races/'ethnicities' as well. I put 'ethnicities' in quotations because the only thing to go on in sims is their appearance and your perception/intentions, so aside from WA-related sims, all ethnicity is pretty much imagined.
That being said, my last legacy was hispanic (I was thinking Mexican as I played them). My current legacy started off Welsh (using Welsh names, anyway), but is now about half black. I'm playing the Nothing is Free challenge, so everyone is pretty much related, and variety is pretty difficult to achieve as your only options for procreation for the first few generations are pizza guys/girls and mailpeople. The family tree has mostly white and black sims, with a few asian descent sims more recently (I was just able to send my sim to Shang Simla) and even more recently three sims of Egyptian descent (I sent another sim to Al Simhara and he married a local and they have two children with two more on the way). My towns are usually rather diverse. My starting sim just depends on a look I'm aiming for, and sometimes it's a very dark girl, sometimes it's a very pale guy, sometimes it's somewhere in the middle. I'm the same way with the sexual orientation of my sims.
Sirah81
29th Apr 2012, 10:20 PM
Cool survey. I play a lot of different-coloured sims (my go-to-sims are medium skin, and I'm white) but when I actually have a specific ethnicity/country in mind, I spend hours in CAS to make sure I get their features right beyond hair or skin colour. Right now I play a (very stereotypical) Indian family: I made Aishawarya, a very Indian looking sim, moved her to a small house, put her into the Medical Career, married Rehman Sagar (who looks kind of Indian-ish, I figure he's half.) and now....well they areboth workaholics, they rarely see each other. Aishawarya has started wanting a child, but Rehman has Commitment Issues, so no want from him yet.
zigersimmer
30th Apr 2012, 12:45 AM
Thank you everyone for your responses! I didn't expect to get this much response!
I do have to agree with what all of you are saying about it being skin tones in the Sims and not necessarily race. As I've learned, race is not something that is biological, it is something that we create. We create our identities and the views that we have on others. That is why I think the Sims is so great, because the actual game doesn't discriminate against skin tones. It's us as players who construct those differences, and I'm not saying that's in a bad or a good way. It's whatever you make of it!
I read an article early in the semester about how people are attracted to those of the same race. And I thought that was a pretty true statement, obviously with plenty of exceptions. That's why I was curious to see how much we project ourselves onto the game based on that natural attraction. Honestly I guess that's why most of my games start out with a white male. I like that I'm finding out that most people's games are pretty diverse, especially with the help of the random generators and the stories that are created. Kudos!
I also apologize if the survey offends anyone. I don't mean to...I'm just trying to collect information. To make it clear, I'm someone who very much realizes the beauty of each individual person, and that we are all human. No matter our background, we all have the same basic need to be loved. That's the philosophy that I live my life off! Thanks again for all your answers :)
Actually race really is biological. It's very important in medicine because people with different racial backgrounds may be more or less prone to developing certain health conditions. Culture is also very important to consider in practicing medicine, but that's a different topic.
rian90
30th Apr 2012, 02:28 AM
I play in a custom southwestern small town so most of my town's inhabitants are Latino, Native American, or mixed. The Caucasians are definitely outnumbered. :) I even filled the bin with Latino looking sims so that they would be created by Story Progression when new members moved into town.
Tasselcat
30th Apr 2012, 03:55 AM
While I completed the survey, I realized that it really did apply to some of my games, because I tend to play with themes. If I make a Pacific Islander-type sim, I usually play them with a tribal theme for a legacy or challenge.
Of course, the grand majority of my sims are unnaturally rainbow-colored, so a good chunk of my gaming was also non-applicable. :D
thinkpeas
30th Apr 2012, 05:30 AM
Actually race really is biological. It's very important in medicine because people with different racial backgrounds may be more or less prone to developing certain health conditions. Culture is also very important to consider in practicing medicine, but that's a different topic.
I understand where you're coming from but we ascribe race to biology. It's been scientifically proven that people of the same race are just as genetically different as two people of different races. Skin color doesn't effect what goes on inside of our bodies. It's the environment (such as socioeconomic status, geographic regions, etc.) that contributes to different health conditions. We just tend to assume that can be determined by a certain racial category but I believe it goes much deeper than that. (Sorry....I'm very much in the sociology paper writing mindset right now ;) )
FridaKahlo
30th Apr 2012, 05:42 AM
My five favorite Sims I have made so far in Sims 3 are a Middle-Eastern/Italian/Spanish guy, a Hungarian bisexual vampire woman, and three Asians (I was totally unable to make Asian Sims in Sims 2 so when I got Sims 3 I got a little crazy). In Sims 2 one of my absolute favorite Sims was an Indian witch. I also really enjoy non-human characters, which is why I'm loving these rumors about a magic EP because this means my neighborhood is going to EXPLODE with supernaturals! I try to make the other Sims in my neighborhoods racially/ethnically diverse, but mostly I do leave it up to Story Progression. I do play lots of sexually diverse characters, though, mostly bisexuals (self-projection).
MrsNervousSubject
30th Apr 2012, 07:05 AM
Took the survey and advertised it on my simblr - hope you do well on your task!
thinkpeas
30th Apr 2012, 07:18 AM
Took the survey and advertised it on my simblr - hope you do well on your task!
Thank you! I appreciate it :)
GnatGoSplat
30th Apr 2012, 07:30 PM
I'm an Asian male, born to Chinese parents, but raised in a white American society in an area where people who look like me are a very tiny minority (1.5%). However, the majority of sims I make are Caucasian, followed by Indian. I also tend to make 3 times as many females than males. Contrary to most people, I find myself most attracted to people who DON'T look like me, so that's probably why I always feel like making White and Indian women because I find them very attractive! However, my towns do tend to be much more ethnically diverse than where I live in real life. I enjoy making sims that are Asians, Blacks, Whites, Indians, Native Americans, pretty much every major race, and mixes of races.
Perhaps because I'm a minority myself, that I'm very cognizant of race. When I create a new sim, I always think about what race the sim is, what his or her ethnic background is. I usually stick to real life races, because I often see interesting facial features unique to a person of a certain race, and I want to try to capture that in my sim. I appreciate and embrace real life differences in peoples' looks, their background, and culture, and I want that in my game. That's why I usually even take it a bit further, for example, my sims can be Russian, Italian, French, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, African, Middle Eastern, etc. One of the reasons I installed Twallan's Storyprogression and Register was to end immigration, as I don't like random computer-generated sims that aren't a realistic race - like very dark sims with Caucasian features and straight blonde hair. No human exists like that, naturally. Granted, I do occasionally dabble with fantasy races like aliens or elves, but I feel like it's different because they're not human.
I grew up very well assimilated, all my friends are white, I married a white girl, and I don't identify with my parents' culture or speak a lick of Mandarin Chinese at all. However, I recognize there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences in how people treat me, and my experiences growing up as a minority were definitely different. It makes me feel different, and I realize that I am different. I think most other minorities feel the same way. This is why I don't agree with a colorblind ideology in real life or in my game. It feels as though when people try to diminish or ignore that such differences exist, it makes these differences seem like a negative thing when it very much isn't. I know a lot of people think racial colorblindness is the same as being "not racist", but In fact, a colorblind ideology is often considered a form of racism in itself. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism
rian90
30th Apr 2012, 07:46 PM
I understand where you're coming from but we ascribe race to biology. It's been scientifically proven that people of the same race are just as genetically different as two people of different races. Skin color doesn't effect what goes on inside of our bodies. It's the environment (such as socioeconomic status, geographic regions, etc.) that contributes to different health conditions. We just tend to assume that can be determined by a certain racial category but I believe it goes much deeper than that. (Sorry....I'm very much in the sociology paper writing mindset right now ;) )
Most diseases attributed to race, such as sickle cell, are genetic. This means they are passed down through families. The chance of someone having the disease increases if more than one family member has the disease so therefore, the disease is more prominent of people of certain ethnic backgrounds. But people who are considered Caucasion can carry the gene for sickle cell if they have African ancestors. So it is not race that makes some groups of people more susceptible to disease, it is genetics.
I have a daughter who looks biracial (African/Caucasion) but she also has Native American and Spanish ethnicity. Genetically, she could carry the gene for any diseases that is prominent in one of her ethnic backgrounds. I am white and as far back as I know, my family is white, from very white cultures (Swiss/German). So it is unlikely that I would carry the gene for a disease common among Africans or Native Americans.
Chocklitkiss
1st May 2012, 10:54 AM
Well....so many answers to this question....here goes....
I am Caribbean American *Black for all y'all that hates political correctness*. My avatar pic is my simself, and she is in every city/hood I create.
My HUSBAND is a German national. So white he doesn't even tan! :rofl: He somehow always makes it into my city, too....but he never gets with my simself....hmmmmm
We have 5 children...and NONE OF THEM have the same eye or hair color! It's freaky!! so anyways, in my city/hood *especially the custom hood I play* tends to be extremely diverse. Races I am unskilled in creating, I download. *Did I mention my daughter married a Korean American?? Baby due any minute??*
I play the world my kids live in......one that celebrates our differences as much as our similarities.
Zokugai
1st May 2012, 05:20 PM
Keep in mind there are other reasons there might be low diversity in the games. For instance, up until recently I had a skintone that absolutely would not make realistic-looking black people. At all. It looked like you dipped them in brown plastic. So I didn't make them, because when I did they looked like crap. If the super palest shades had looked like plastic instead, I probably would have wound up with neighborhoods of medium-to-dark sims.
And of course, there's the longrunning problem of it being completely freaking impossible to find decent ethnic hairs.
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