D&D 5E Thoughts on this article about Black Culture & the D&D team dropping the ball?

Alexemplar said:

I wish we lived in a world where wanting a region full of various cultures and rich mythology to have some of that variety and mythology represented in a fantasy game that makes a habit of tapping various cultures and mythologies for ideas wouldn't have to be a political or PC topic, but here we are.

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I agree, but the original article brought that in though, not DocMoriartty's reply. I would much prefer to have seen an original article that was focused solely on making Chult and fantasy black cultures/backgrounds more interesting and presenting examples and advice along those lines. Part of the article did that, but it didn't stop there.

As I mentioned earlier, D&D deals with pretty much every culture and history of our world through the lens of myth and stereotype to create fantasy cultures that are different, but have echoes of real cultures and histories. Most gamers prefer D&D as a fantasy, which means that it actually has nothing to do with the real world - anything is possible there and real world baggage is left behind.

I think some folks really enjoy doing more research on real world history to work parts of that into their settings and campaigns, or to better understand the inspiration behind some of these fantasy realms, which is great. However, once it appears in Greyhawk or Faerun or Eberron, it's fantasy and fantasy does not really have boundaries or limits. You can make it into whatever you want and no one will tell you you can't.

Advice to WOTC is IMHO better presented as something like "TOA is a great adventure. Could we also get a future adventure or setting expansion that includes an expanded fantasy black civilization/culture based on these ideas?" rather than "WOTC had only people with white skin working on this and they didn't include X idea which I want in my setting, therefore they don't want any POCs to play their game." This type of thing creates the impression that people are looking for offense these days because this type of thing didn't previously offend people. If you found the D&D characterization of a particular fantasy culture not quite your thing, you changed it. Some DMs went for even more fantasy, some went for more historical inspiration. It's every player's and DM's choice.

WOTC has clearly done a lot to try to make D&D feel accessible to people from a variety of cultures and personal background. WOTC made TOA which seems like a fun adventure and does not IMHO include anything disrespectful or racist - the criticism is that it could have done more and gone farther to expand on a fantasy civilization which is being held to a real world standard. That's fine as a criticism, but it's not a reason to slam WOTC as deliberately excluding anyone from playing their game. It seems to me that the article and some of the posts here take a valid starting point and just go over the top with it, considering this is a discussion about a make-believe game in a fantasy setting.

Phasestar said:

As I mentioned earlier, D&D deals with pretty much every culture and history of our world through the lens of myth and stereotype to create fantasy cultures that are different, but have echoes of real cultures and histories. Most gamers prefer D&D as a fantasy, which means that it actually has nothing to do with the real world - anything is possible there and real world baggage is left behind.

I think some folks really enjoy doing more research on real world history to work parts of that into their settings and campaigns, or to better understand the inspiration behind some of these fantasy realms, which is great. However, once it appears in Greyhawk or Faerun or Eberron, it's fantasy and fantasy does not really have boundaries or limits. You can make it into whatever you want and no one will tell you you can't.

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"It's all stereotypes" doesn't even begin to cover the vast difference in depictions. In those settings, there's no singular nation that represents Europe as a whole. There are nations that represent different parts of Europe, but they don't all get condensed down to one singular people/culture.

Advice to WOTC is IMHO better presented as something like "TOA is a great adventure. Could we also get a future adventure or setting expansion that includes an expanded fantasy black civilization/culture based on these ideas?" rather than "WOTC had only people with white skin working on this and they didn't include X idea which I want in my setting, therefore they don't want any POCs to play their game." This type of thing creates the impression that people are looking for offense these days because this type of thing didn't previously offend people. If you found the D&D characterization of a particular fantasy culture not quite your thing, you changed it. Some DMs went for even more fantasy, some went for more historical inspiration. It's every player's and DM's choice.

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The article makes no assumptions about the races of the designers or suggests they don't want non-white people playing the game. It does acknowledge that the game is primarily geared towards white audiences and makes note that some aspects of how Chult was designed leave out a lot of opportunities and do reinforce some stereotypes born originally out of racist ideas. It's said outright that the entire thing wasn't seen as offensive, just lazy. It's considered lazy because you know the people who work on D&D are not beyond taking inspiration from history books.

That the article doesn't devote as much time to telling WotC specifically what to do in order to correct those issues- aside from suggesting it remove the clicking part, having more terrain variety than tropical jungle, and actually exploring how the people of Chult reacted to the fall of Mezran- but no article can do everything. Especially not when it's central premise: Chult is full of stereotypes and ignores a lot of options- is obviously something that never even occurred to most people.

Nobody working on or playing D&D is being accused of being racist. They're being accused of falling back on lazy stereotypes that create issues when they really didn't have to. Stuff that could easily be avoided by spending a little it of time doing actual research- the same they put into the rest of the setting.

I would imagine we'd all be just as readily ripping into Forgotten Realms if the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide had depreciated western Faerun as nothing but foggy forests/pasturelands where you made regular saving throws not catch bubonic plague/scarlet fever, had everybody speak in a very polite manner using exaggerated German accents, eat croissants and drink wine, and all warriors wear full plate and saved princesses in castles from dragons when they aren't dancing the tango.

Not really offensive, but very trite and cliche and not above being called out. And you wouldn't be expected to provide examples of actual European culture to do so.

WOTC has clearly done a lot to try to make D&D feel accessible to people from a variety of cultures and personal background. WOTC made TOA which seems like a fun adventure and does not IMHO include anything disrespectful or racist - the criticism is that it could have done more and gone farther to expand on a fantasy civilization which is being held to a real world standard. That's fine as a criticism, but it's not a reason to slam WOTC as deliberately excluding anyone from playing their game. It seems to me that the article and some of the posts here take a valid starting point and just go over the top with it, considering this is a discussion about a make-believe game in a fantasy setting.

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WOTC has certainly made strides. That's why the article's title suggested they dropped the ball. The idiom doesn't carry sinister or malicious overtones. It suggests that whatever happened was an accident/blunder, and not at all intentional.

Alexemplar said:

"It's all stereotypes" doesn't even begin to cover the vast difference in depictions. In those settings, there's no singular nation that represents Europe as a whole. There are nations that represent different parts of Europe, but they don't all get condensed down to one singular people/culture.

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True in general, though a lot of that I think simply comes from the fact that D&D grew out of wargaming about medieval Europe. There are still plenty of D&D fantasy nations and settings that amalgamate European myths, including very inaccurate ones, into one location. With that said, there are also many fantasy nations that aren't recognizable as any particular "real world" culture or nation and I think that's what fantasy really is - I think that in many cases people try to draw too tight a comparison to the real world for things that are purely fictional.

The article also seems surprised that a new D&D book drew on old D&D books for inspiration rather than going to the real world. Once part of a fantasy setting is established, that's the background rather than any real world history.

The article makes no assumptions about the races of the designers or suggests they don't want non-white people playing the game.

Nobody working on or playing D&D is being accused of being racist. They're being accused of falling back on lazy stereotypes that create issues when they really didn't have to. Stuff that could easily be avoided by spending a little it of time doing actual research- the same they put into the rest of the setting.

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Well, this is all from the article:

"What would it be like for me as a non-black Dungeon Master to replicate the “tongue clicks” of the black tribal cultures players encounter? Did any people of color work on this?"

"When I asked, Perkins said that no black writers or consultants worked on Tomb of Annihilation."

“It’s not unfair or hostile to say that the genre of fantasy is riddled with racism. Sometimes intentional, sometimes not, it is mostly achieved through the aggressive use of stereotypes and writing tropes, racism by omission, and through substitution (of monsters for human ethnicities). For all intents and purposes, it happens to further the immersion in and to carefully maintain the comfort zone and status quo enjoyed by the main audience and producers of the product, namely, a White audience. . . "

"It has also lead to game companies like Wizards of the Coast (WotC), to (hopefully unintentionally) commit some fairly racist actions that make it hard for [people of color] to invest themselves in their product.”

"He concluded that “WotC has effectively told me, as a POC, that I’m no longer welcome to play in a game world I’ve known and loved for years as a POC player character.”"

The writer of the article quoted those last three paragraphs from a blog, but she chose to include them in her article and IMHO they define part of the tone and purpose of the article. This is where I for one see someone looking at events in a fantasy world through a real world filter that is based on a particular agenda. With due respect, it's WOTC's job to make a cool and interesting fantasy setting, period. There is a whole lot of critique that can be made and offense taken from any fantasy setting if you look at it mainly through a "real world" filter and try to divine a purpose and motive for every location, character and event choice.

When Luke goes into the tree on Dagobah, he asks "What's in there?" and Yoda answers "Only what you take with you." To a degree, when a reviewer places such assumptions on the events and locations of a fantasy setting, they are really holding up a mirror that reveals their own assumptions more than those of the setting.

I would imagine we'd all be just as readily ripping into Forgotten Realms if the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide had depreciated western Faerun as nothing but foggy forests/pasturelands where you made regular saving throws not catch bubonic plague/scarlet fever, had everybody speak in a very polite manner using exaggerated German accents, eat croissants and drink wine, and all warriors wear full plate and saved princesses in castles from dragons when they aren't dancing the tango.

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It's an amusing example and your point is well taken, but actually some fantasy settings have locations and adventures that are not very far from that and I think gamers have accepted a certain degree of stereotypical myth and pseudo-history as being part of the D&D mix for long enough that some of these are just seen as part of the D&D mix, rather than specifically tied to any particular real world meaning.

I have nothing against constructive criticism that encourages WOTC and all of us to make our settings more interesting and where there are still real world locations and myths that could provide plenty of additional inspiration that have not yet been incorporated in some way into D&D let's do that. But IMHO the writer went beyond that and while she provided some good points to consider, she absolutely made sure to insinuate that some (perhaps unintentional) racism could be at work and that Chris Perkins, because of his skin color, should have sought help to write a D&D adventure, which is a pretty ludicrous proposition.

I'm sure there are folks out there, many of whom have a skin color other than white, who could add a lot of valuable information to the creation of a D&D setting loosely inspired by sub-Saharan Africa and many other areas. However, skin color of any kind is in not a reasonable pre-requisite for the job of writing a D&D adventure.

There are many, many white people in the USA who know absolutely nothing about the history, culture and myths of Europe and the same applies to black people or people of any other skin color in the US with regards to Africa or any other place. What the writer probably should have said is that there may have been value in consulting an expert in the mythology, history and cultures of the real world cultures of sub-Saharan Africa (who may or may not be black) that served as a loose inspiration for Chult, but instead she used skin color as a proxy for that which to me again acts as a mirror about her own assumptions.

Phasestar said:

True in general, though a lot of that I think simply comes from the fact that D&D grew out of wargaming about medieval Europe. There are still plenty of D&D fantasy nations and settings that amalgamate European myths, including very inaccurate ones, into one location. With that said, there are also many fantasy nations that aren't recognizable as any particular "real world" culture or nation...

It's an amusing example and your point is well taken, but actually some fantasy settings have locations and adventures that are not very far from that and I think gamers have accepted a certain degree of stereotypical myth and pseudo-history as being part of the D&D mix for long enough that some of these are just seen as part of the D&D mix, rather than specifically tied to any particular real world meaning.

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Context is important here.

Settings do amalgamate European myths, but amalgamating African myths isn't the issue here. we're not even talking a single instance here. We're not talking about settings where pretty much every culture referenced is reduced to a more generic/stereotypical form (ala Dark Sun).

It's the dynamic in which all of the world and its peoples are allowed to be diverse and fantastic as a continent- except for one specific nation that is an obvious analogue for darn near an entire continent and pretty much the only place a particular type of character- which happens to be people you want to play the game- most resemble.

It's not the same thing. This is not an example of equal opportunity stereotyping.

Well, this is all from the article:

"What would it be like for me as a non-black Dungeon Master to replicate the “tongue clicks” of the black tribal cultures players encounter? Did any people of color work on this?"

"When I asked, Perkins said that no black writers or consultants worked on Tomb of Annihilation."

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So no assumptions were made and Perkins admitted that no black people were consulted on the project.

“It’s not unfair or hostile to say that the genre of fantasy is riddled with racism. Sometimes intentional, sometimes not, it is mostly achieved through the aggressive use of stereotypes and writing tropes, racism by omission, and through substitution (of monsters for human ethnicities). For all intents and purposes, it happens to further the immersion in and to carefully maintain the comfort zone and status quo enjoyed by the main audience and producers of the product, namely, a White audience. . . "

"It has also lead to game companies like Wizards of the Coast (WotC), to (hopefully unintentionally) commit some fairly racist actions that make it hard for [people of color] to invest themselves in their product.”

"He concluded that “WotC has effectively told me, as a POC, that I’m no longer welcome to play in a game world I’ve known and loved for years as a POC player character.”"

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Gotta say... that it's not unfair or hostile to acknowledge instances of racism in fantasy or in the past of D&D/WotC.

The story of Redgar springs to mind, where Monte Cook and others working on 3e wanted the iconic Fighter to be white, but marketing didn't like it and pushed a marketing campaign with altered art depicting him as a "white guy". I'm pretty sure this is not the only or most subtle instance of WotC ever making some (hopefully unintentionally) racist actions.

But the issue the bloggers was speaking about was the 4e decision to totally obliterate the one place in Chult that wasn't full of what it literally described as noble savages and depraved cannibals. The only place in Faerun where black Africans live. That's pretty insensitive (unintentionally so) and 4e Forgotten Realms got dumped by a lot of players for way less.

Some of the stuff in D&D has objectionable (including racist) elements because that stuff was just more acceptable back then, and unless one wants to continue the tradition, one needs to be a bit more proactive. One can't just repeat the same stuff. One has to change, re-contextualize, and make more of an effort than one's predecessors did.

It's an amusing example and your point is well taken, but actually some fantasy settings have locations and adventures that are not very far from that and I think gamers have accepted a certain degree of stereotypical myth and pseudo-history as being part of the D&D mix for long enough that some of these are just seen as part of the D&D mix, rather than specifically tied to any particular real world meaning.


The writer of the article quoted those last three paragraphs from a blog, but she chose to include them in her article and IMHO they define part of the tone and purpose of the article. This is where I for one see someone looking at events in a fantasy world through a real world filter that is based on a particular agenda. With due respect, it's WOTC's job to make a cool and interesting fantasy setting, period. There is a whole lot of critique that can be made and offense taken from any fantasy setting if you look at it mainly through a "real world" filter and try to divine a purpose and motive for every location, character and event choice.

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A setting invites that critique when a part of it starts to draw inspiration from the real world, especially in so specific a way and oh so specific a place. If FR wanted to avoid parallels between Chult and stereotypical depictions of sub-Saharan Africa, the obvious solution would be to either spread the stereotypical sub-Saharan depictions around or make more places with black people live that aren't Chult.

That would require making some changes to a setting that was designed back when D&D was less inclusive and such people wouldn't have responded the same to such depictions. Times, player demographics, and attitudes changed, and WotC chose not to change with them in this regard. They changed the way non-white people are depicted in the PHB and DMG, which is great, but they didn't go back and reevaluate the way Chult is depicted in Forgotten Realms compared to the rest of the world.

They dropped the ball.

I have nothing against constructive criticism that encourages WOTC and all of us to make our settings more interesting and where there are still real world locations and myths that could provide plenty of additional inspiration that have not yet been incorporated in some way into D&D let's do that. But IMHO the writer went beyond that and while she provided some good points to consider, she absolutely made sure to insinuate that some (perhaps unintentional) racism could be at work and that Chris Perkins, because of his skin color, should have sought help to write a D&D adventure, which is a pretty ludicrous proposition.

I'm sure there are folks out there, many of whom have a skin color other than white, who could add a lot of valuable information to the creation of a D&D setting loosely inspired by sub-Saharan Africa and many other areas. However, skin color of any kind is in not a reasonable pre-requisite for the job of writing a D&D adventure.


There are many, many white people in the USA who know absolutely nothing about the history, culture and myths of Europe and the same applies to black people or people of any other skin color in the US with regards to Africa or any other place. What the writer probably should have said is that there may have been value in consulting an expert in the mythology, history and cultures of the real world cultures of sub-Saharan Africa (who may or may not be black) that served as a loose inspiration for Chult, but instead she used skin color as a proxy for that which to me again acts as a mirror about her own assumptions.

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That, I can agree with. People in the US (black, white, or whatever) are in pretty much the same boat when it comes to being ignorant about African history.

On the other hand, even a black person who doesn't personally know much about African history is likely to be sensitive to how obvious stand ins for how black Africans get portrayed in games. After all, they bear an actual resemblance to the characters being depicted and it's not as if peoples' opinions regarding Africa aren't used against black people all over the world all the time. Someone who doesn't have to really deal with that baggage could certainly object to the portrayals, but is more likely to come from an academic level or as a matter of principle.

If one is honestly interested in what non-white people think and feel, it couldn't hurt to actually ask them and listen to it rather than assume they know how they should think and feel, and get offended when they happen to think and feel differently.

Alexemplar said:

Context is important here.
It's the dynamic in which all of the world and its peoples are allowed to be diverse and fantastic as a continent- except for one specific nation that is an obvious analogue for darn near an entire continent and pretty much the only place a particular type of character- which happens to be people you want to play the game- most resemble.
It's not the same thing. This is not an example of equal opportunity stereotyping.

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I agree that if your goal is to analyze the fantasy settings to compare how much is inspired by European history and myth and how much comes from Africa, there's definitely more of the former as far as quantity and quality. Given the origin of the game, that's not too surprising, nor is it sinister. There's certainly room in the market for an improved adaptation of African myth and history into a fantasy setting, but the goal of doing that would just be to expand a fantasy setting with something cool and unique.

Gotta say... that it's not unfair or hostile to acknowledge instances of racism in fantasy or in the past of D&D/WotC.

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My point was that you said that the article did not suggest any racism was at work, when in fact it did and logically that would mean that it's insinuating racism in the current employees at WOTC with regard to TOA, which I find baseless. Fantasy being a creation of people in our world, there are certainly instances of racism to be found in fantasy literature, especially as you go farther back in time.

The story of Redgar springs to mind, where Monte Cook and others working on 3e wanted the iconic Fighter to be white, but marketing didn't like it and pushed a marketing campaign with altered art depicting him as a "white guy". I'm pretty sure this is not the only or most subtle instance of WotC ever making some (hopefully unintentionally) racist actions.

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I assume you meant they wanted him to be a black guy and marketing wanted him to be white? I hadn't heard that story before, or any others like that regarding WOTC, but it also seems incomplete - what was marketing's reasoning for that? I would assume it was based on market research that said "most of the people playing D&D are white, this will connect with them better"? Marketing and advertising decisions, as far as I know, take all kinds of audience factors into account when deciding who to "target". Personally I think we could all do with a lot less "targeted marketing" for a lot of reasons, but this would hardly be the only instance of it and that does not necessarily make it racist. Deciding that depends on what was in the mind of those who made the decision, which at this point I don't and probably can't know.

I would also assume that Monte's goal was to expand that market by making a different decision. Regdar was the most iconic of the iconics and was used on much of the 3.0 marketing materials so that seems plausible. I think 3.0 would also have succeeded just fine with a black iconic fighter and perhaps 5e is proof of that.

But the issue the bloggers was speaking about was the 4e decision to totally obliterate the one place in Chult that wasn't full of what it literally described as noble savages and depraved cannibals. The only place in Faerun where black Africans live. That's pretty insensitive (unintentionally so) and 4e Forgotten Realms got dumped by a lot of players for way less.

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I think it's easy when your focus is on the game and fantasy rather than the real world to not look at game or setting decisions through this real world filter. That may be considered insensitive if you do have that filter on, but I think Occam's Razor also suggest that any unpopular setting changes (of which there certainly have been many over the years), one should assume a lot of other things first. What is helpful I think for WOTC to know is that there were gamers who were upset by that and attached to that part of the setting, but I'll note that there are a lot of players really attached to Greyhawk and I think they are unlikely to bring that back either.

Some of the stuff in D&D has objectionable (including racist) elements because that stuff was just more acceptable back then, and unless one wants to continue the tradition, one needs to be a bit more proactive. One can't just repeat the same stuff. One has to change, re-contextualize, and make more of an effort than one's predecessors did.

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Ok, but as far as I can tell WOTC did do that with TOA, or are you mostly talking about the 4e change?

A setting invites that critique when a part of it starts to draw inspiration from the real world, especially in so specific a way and oh so specific a place. If FR wanted to avoid parallels between Chult and stereotypical depictions of sub-Saharan Africa, the obvious solution would be to either spread the stereotypical sub-Saharan depictions around or make more places with black people live that aren't Chult.

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Well, I agree with that - I just think some of the critiques are not constructive and over the top.

That would require making some changes to a setting that was designed back when D&D was less inclusive and such people wouldn't have responded the same to such depictions. Times, player demographics, and attitudes changed, and WotC chose not to change with them in this regard. They changed the way non-white people are depicted in the PHB and DMG, which is great, but they didn't go back and reevaluate the way Chult is depicted in Forgotten Realms compared to the rest of the world.

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I haven't read every word of TOA yet, but I haven't seen anything I would consider objectionable - though I'm also traditionally a Greyhawk player/DM and I'm not familiar with previous iterations of Chult or much of the past history of FR. I've mainly started reading about FR as a result of 5e. I agree that they could do a lot more in general with inspiration from non-European cultures and perhaps they will.

On the other hand, even a black person who doesn't personally know much about African history is likely to be sensitive to how obvious stand ins for how black Africans get portrayed in games. After all, they bear an actual resemblance to the characters being depicted and it's not as if peoples' opinions regarding Africa aren't used against black people all over the world all the time. Someone who doesn't have to really deal with that baggage could certainly object to the portrayals, but is more likely to come from an academic level or as a matter of principle.

If one is honestly interested in what non-white people think and feel, it couldn't hurt to actually ask them and listen to it rather than assume they know how they should think and feel, and get offended when they happen to think and feel differently.

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Well, here we differ somewhat. I'm not offended, but I'm not impressed by some of the key elements of that article. I'm interested in what all people think, but I see them as individuals so I don't assume that skin color predicts how people think or what experiences they've had. I don't subscribe much to the idea of assumed group identity based on skin color in this day and age when the world is effectively such a smaller and more diverse place, but I do listen to each person's opinion with interest and treat each person as an individual, to be heard, respected and judged as such.

I also don't recall people asking WOTC why they didn't hire a Scandinavian Ethno-Historian after the release of Storm King's Thunder, or why no one from Romania was consulted about Strahd, etc. As far as the 4e changes, I would have first said "check with your biggest Forgotten Realms fans and see what they think before you destroy any parts of the setting" before thinking of going to real world historians or culture experts. After all, sub-Saharan Africa also has a massive number of differences compared to Chult, probably as many as it has similarities, because it's fantasy.

I certainly think that if they revisit Chult or add another similar area in the future, they should take the feedback here as a guide to show them that they could do much more with an area with similar culture in Faerun that isn't devastated/ruined/overrun by undead and dinosaurs. Setting aside though, for a moment, the concerns about providing more representation for sub-Saharan cultures and myths in D&D and FR, what they did succeed with in Chult is creating a very cool, interesting, different and fun setting purely from a fantasy D&D perspective and at the same time I gather they did improve it from the state they left it in in 4e.

Quick question here. What is "Black Culture"? Pretty racist to use such a blanket statement. Africa is as culturally diverse as any other part of our world.

I also want to know why anyone thinks it is important that a"person of color" be used on TOA. Does the color of one's skin make someone more qualified to work on a project than someone else? Should we ask WOTC how many native Americans were hired to create the Maztica setting? Were Mongolians hired to write material on the Great Horde? How far do we want to take this exercise? How many people of Arab descent were hired to create the old 2E Al-Quadim setting?

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The problem is that the default assumption is that characters are cis white hetero men.

Any deviation from that requires a reason, as that is the default. So any deviation becomes a character trait or a plot point.

A character can't just be black. If they are black they need to have something about them that is specific to being black. It is like chekov's gun. If there is a gun it must be fired. The heart of the problem is what is and is not considered default.

DocMoriartty said:

Quick question here. What is "Black Culture"? Pretty racist to use such a blanket statement. Africa is as culturally diverse as any other part of our world.

I also want to know why anyone thinks it is important that a"person of color" be used on TOA. Does the color of one's skin make someone more qualified to work on a project than someone else? Should we ask WOTC how many native Americans were hired to create the Maztica setting? Were Mongolians hired to write material on the Great Horde? How far do we want to take this exercise? How many people of Arab descent were hired to create the old 2E Al-Quadim setting?

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1) usually, I find that "Black Culture" is a shorthand for "Black American Culture"...which is also not monolithic. And here, probably a misnomer.

2) Good writers can, indeed, write on just about anything, from a variety of viewpoints, including those not their own. But when certain stereotypes & errors pop up, the question gets asked because it would be a surprise if any PoCs were involved. IOW, it is a question about how much research was actually done; whether or not knowledgeable people (of ANY demographic) or reputable sources were consulted about the culture or peoples in question.

ad_hoc said:

A character can't just be black. If they are black they need to have something about them that is specific to being black. It is like chekov's gun. If there is a gun it must be fired. The heart of the problem is what is and is not considered default.

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I bet Chekov's Gun was black...

Dannyalcatraz said:

1) usually, I find that "Black Culture" is a shorthand for "Black American Culture"...which is also not monolithic. And here, probably a misnomer.

2) Good writers can, indeed, write on just about anything, from a variety of viewpoints, including those not their own. But when certain stereotypes & errors pop up, the question gets asked because it would be a surprise if any PoCs were involved. IOW, it is a question about how much research was actually done; whether or not knowledgeable people (of ANY demographic) or reputable sources were consulted about the culture or peoples in question.

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But they didn't ask how much research was done. The only question and was the color of skin....

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