We all wish for equality. That’s obviously a great thing to strive for. But the characters you’ve brought up: They’re just employees in a company that anyone, of any race or background, can apply and work for. That’s the world we live in. They don’t symbolize a issue because of their races.
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unrelated to SketchUp, but I thought it was funny since it just premiered now (starts at 2m 11s)
to some of the posts above:
(non-)“caucasian” if not meant as someone from the Caucasus mountains is a racist term. Full stop.
We are even debating that the constitution should not forbid “discrimination on the grounds of […], race” (which by using the noun assumes its existence) but “on the grounds of racist reasons”.
This is no attempt to hide or suppress the topic. What we fight for should not only be in our spirit but also be reflected in our words.
I wanted to use a different term I find acceptable, but most likely would face backlash even then.
Discussions about race will probably never be comfortable.
The fact that we’re having the discussion at all is a good start though.
On a side note, @TIG, “diversity … an old, old wooden ship” is a popular quote from the movie Anchorman, and I would like to keep it in the title to bring some levity to the topic.
(above - not from Anchorman)
No problem - but it doesn’t make sense to the majority - who have never seen Anchorman !
It just reads ‘daft’…
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coolio.
I think I follow your logic… at the start of this post at least.
So with that being said:
Why didn’t you email the SketchUp team directly?
\MY TWO PENCE//The SketchUp team delivers (or doesnt, depending on POV) and the characters are representations of those core people who deliver within a specific context.
I also believe that this is a non-issue and you seem to be neglecting crucial points from other responses in your ongoing quest of denial.
Your energy would be put to better use somewhere else. I clicked because of the title and I leave feeling flummoxed.
I sense an element of passive aggressive provocation with this post and I wont be following this one any more.
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At first when I saw “Pence”, I thought of Mike Pence! So funny.
Then I realized you were from the UK… nice! £ <~(not a pence)
Again, that’s fine that it may be a non-issue to you.
But thanks for saying you followed my logic and think it’s an issue worth bringing up to the SketchUp team directly.
I preferred to write it here just in case any others had similar feelings. That way, they could also share their thoughts…
I Didn’t realise this was a political site! Just change the colours to suit and move on! Maybe every person representation should be dark brown so no-body gets upset. How about just being neutral and make every person representative purple!
Thanks for the reply. Apparently the “Corner Bar” is for SketchUp off topic discussion.
One question- why does race, in this instance, need to be considered political? I feel it shouldn’t be.
Why would dark brown not upset everybody again?
But, great, that is a terrific idea- make the default character purple for all users. I’m all for that!
Please scroll above to see why I chose to pose the question.
So you believe in races? DNA evidence shows they don’t exist.
The word race is still used in the US, even if it is too loaded to be used for humans in Scandinavia.
I guess I’ll say skin tones then. I’ve lived (not visited) in 4 different countries on 3 continents (not Europe though) and skin tones were not treated equally… unfortunately.
Most people with very dark skin tones were looked down on and not even allowed to rent certain properties, or do certain things that all others were. Maybe ask around? However, I just did a check- it looks like Finland has a population of over 5.5 million, yet only 50,000, or less than 1 full percent are “afro” background (not my words- I would say black). Possibly could be part of the reason why you don’t experience “race” or believe it exists ?
This is more of a linguistic thing. There are people of African origin in Scandinavia, as well as Muslims and many other groups of people. We just don’t use the word race about humans. In German there are different verbs meaning eat if it’s a person or non-human animal eating. In Scandinavia race is something used for cats and dogs and by racists being openly racist. Referring to a human as being a certain race here is about as bad as using the N-word. I was taught in elementary school there are no human races, and likely Anssi was too. I’m not saying anyone in the thread is wrong, just explaining the cultural differences that seems to cause misunderstandings.
And yes, skin tone matters quite a lot for how people look at you here, but so does accent and many other things. Swedes and Finns have the same skin tone, yet there has been huge racial tension since the Swedish empire with Swedish upper class people ruling Finnish working class people. Finns in Sweden have ben considered violent alcoholics, and probably singled out on accent more than visual appearance. A middle Eastern Muslim and a “fellow European” Greek would probably have the same skin tone. Someone of African origin and someone from southern India could both be considered black, but suffer from very different racial stereotype. Again, not saying skin tone doesn’t matter, just that there are other aspects, seeming to cause misunderstandings in this thread.
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Thanks for the reply! Great to learn actually. Europe is still on my list of places to go! ( I am totally clueless about those countries)
I’d just love it for all kids to open SketchUp and feel inspired to create and learn. 
It’s done a great job so far.
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In the early 1960s it was different. I was taught about “races” but the teacher expressed his scepticism about the issue, especially about race affecting the personality traits of individuals (like intelligence). Much of teaching materials in use then were just slightly revised versions of books written in the 1910…1930s.
Racism in the Northern European countries is still very much alive, practiced by populist politicians and their supporters, even if, as you see, the number of non-indigenous people here is minuscule.
Racism is just one part of the belief system based on the notion that people are naturally inequal. Similar prejudices have flourished against people who are poorer or otherwise live lives not socially acceptable. This resulted in “racial hygiene” legislation that was in place in many countries from the late 1910s to about the 1960s, resulting to, for instance, forced sterilization of parts of the population - the Nazis were far from alone in this, Sweden being a pioneer.
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