This is a rough, unpolished statement, cc’d from our Slack. Bottom line: The Gauntlet Gaming Community supports Black Lives Matter. We’ve seen violent acts of injustice from American institutions, followed by protests, followed by those institutions demonstrating just how far they’re willing to go to crush resistance and peaceful protest. And now we’re starting to see corporate media institutions shift things to downplay what’s happening-- tweaking the algorithm to hide stories and reports, sometimes in the name of keeping things positive, sometimes because they just want to reduce controversy.
For the last couple of weeks we’ve silenced and then cut the rate of our Twitter postings, wanting to give space for voices talking about these issues. We’ve retweeted places and people to support. But the blow up with Origins made me realize its more important to be explicit about our community values and beliefs.
I know most of you are already aware of some of the Bundles and resources available to support BLM, Bail Funds, and related matters. I’ll point to the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality on itch.io
Please consider supporting that. As importantly, please leave 5 star ratings and reviews for games in that bundle. The algorithm punishes anything less than 5. Help out these creators who generously donated their work. Consider supporting them financially outside of this. These games are an important part of their livelihood. I’ll open this thread up for anyone who has links to additional places folks can donate and/or other resources we should be aware of.