Hi

I wanted to address my ban, the infamous comment and the debate it sparked. My comment was xenophobic and deserved a ban. My intent was not to be xenophobic. I myself am not xenophobic. The three can be true at the same time. To the people defending me while I was gone I appreciate your heart and your good intentions but I deserved to be banned at that time and moderation was absolutely within their rights to do so. They also were fair and kind to me in the process. To the people who are obviously frustrated with some of the exclusionary behavior on this site; I am right there with you. My comment was born out of that frustration. In the hysteria game that ignited all of this, a player decided to keep another player around the entire game nominating people who played the game the whole way through despite this player being inactive and I perceived this as racially/ethnically coded. In my mind, this was the real discriminatory behavior happening, whether that was actually the case or not. There is a real problem with exclusionary behavior on this site from all angles. The problem on my end here is that I generalized two entire groups of people based on the behavior of one individual in one game when I know for a fact that the generalization I made does not hold up to scrutiny. I also did not phrase my comment in a way that accurately conveyed my real frustration and instead it came across as the Kovaze version of “go back to your own country.” Which is not what I want nor what I was mad about. We can be mad about the premades and the exclusionary behavior without bringing it to the level that I did, whether my intention was to do so or not which for the record it was not. I have apologized publicly to the people I harmed and I can do nothing else but move forward and hope that people give me some grace as well. But I am not going to be out here defending my comment as if I am some paragon for those who have lost a game to a Brazilian or Spanish premade. Yes I was frustrated. Yes I was wrong. And we have all been in premades at one point or another so let’s be for real. Thank you for reading if you got this far. I hope the dialogue this sparked can be harnessed for positivity and grace for everyone and a more inclusive environment rather than one where we are pitted against each other based on identity. There is enough of that in the real world.