I think when we engage in this kind of dialogue, where its simply assumed disagreeing over orcs is the product of racism, rather than a genuine disagreement about what the orcs themselves actually represent, it is difficult to have a real conversation.
Who is saying that disagreement over orcs is the product of racism? In this thread I (and others) have claimed that
orcs as presented by JRRT and as inherited by D&D are expressions of racist tropes and ideas.
I think some who disagree with that are themselves trapped within (perhaps rather similar) racist tropes and attitudes. In my experience it's not uncommon for some white people to not be very sensitive to the way certain received elements of (say) British or American culture express and reproduce racist tropes.
Some others who disagree may be very capable at analysing racist tropes and disagree. For instance, if I recall correctly Bryan Magee in his book Wagner and Philosophy argues that Wagner's dwarves in his Ring Cycle are
not anti-Semitic caricatures. I tend to think Magee is wrong, but I don't think Magee is insensitive to the expression of anti-Semitic tropes. (I think he may have been led a bit astray by his evident admiration for Wagner.)
What concerns me here, is I see more and more rules being laid down about what is acceptable in a fantasy gaming setting. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for differences in interpretation. You say the author's intent shouldn't matter, but I don't think we can just limit this to our own subjective reactions. There is a world that exists outside of us. We have to reach beyond our own minds and see what the intention behind the creation was.
To be honest, this reads like special pleading -
why can't I still have my jungle savages and my harlots without anyone judging me for it?
I don't care what Gygax intended with his random harlot table. Was his intention to pander to juvenile male fantasies about readily available sex? Was his intention to emulate and evoke the world of the fantasy pulps? Was his intention to celebrate the contribution made to humanity by sex workers? I am talking about
the work he produced, not the work he hoped or wanted to produce. And this, as I take it, is [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point: we are not discussing what authors hoped to do, we are discussing what authors have actually done in producing
these works with
these tropes and evoking
these ideas. If they didn't know what they were doing, or didn't care, or thought it was just innocent fun - well, that tells me something about them and their personal history, but it doesn't tell me anything about their work.
If someone wants to defend the presence of a random harlot table in their FRPG, then
do that. Don't explain to me that Gygax meant no harm by it.
Explain to me why it does no harm; why it is a good thing. After all, if you think there is such reason, that justifies Gygax's decision to include it, then you should be able to reproduce it. And if you can't adduce such a reason, then that pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it?
To reiterate a point I made upthread, I am saying these things as a citizen of a country in which it is routine for prominent national newspapers to publish blatantly racist cartoons, and when criticised for doing so to hide behind arguments of
we didn't mean it and
free speech. But free speech is a red herring - no one is threatening to censor your latest RPG project that features inherently evil swarthy, scimitar-wielding orcs. And the fact that you didn't mean it - well, lot's of people do and don't mean lots of things, but the complaint is about the work produced, not the intention behind it.
I am just a bit worried because people are so quick to draw conclusions, and so fast to insist others share their conclusions. And often times we don't even disagree on the underlying points behind about society, we just disagree on what the art means.
Welcome to the world - often people disagree.
But you present this as if you are being asked to give something up -
no more swarthy sword-fodder orcs - by unreasonable others. You're completely ignoring that
you are asking others to give something up - you're asking others to tolerate the widespread presence in the shared gaming culture of tropes and ideas that directly draw upon and evoke racist sentiments about them. And why should they do that? Why should they yield to your preferences when you aren't prepared to yield to theirs?
If you now turn around an insist that they are wrong - that, say, these inherently evil swarthy orcs
don't draw upon and evoke racist sentiment - well, now you're doing exactly what you've criticised others for doing, namely, insisting that everyone should accept your aesthetic judgement.
Appeals to toleration, or mutuality, or reciprocity, are at best ineffective and at worst hypocritical until a proper acknowledgement and account is given
on all side of what people are being asked to give up, or to tolerate. And that's precisely what a thread like this is trying to unpack.
people are going to have honest disagreements over whether something is racially coded, whether it is a problem, etc. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes we can get too caught up in making things as wholesome as possible, and miss some of the rough contours.
So if a cigar sometimes is just a cigar, are you asserting that JRRT's orcs
do not draw upon and express racist tropes and ideas? If not, then what's the point of that remark.
And of course there can be honest disagreements over what is racially coded. But the judgements of people of colour on these things are generally where one would start. And I've not seen anyone actually present an argument, let alone a good one, that the stuff [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION] quoted is
not racially coded. Nor have I seen anyone explain how authorial intention is relevant to that. How is Gygax's opinion on what
he believed to be the significance of the use of the word "mongrel" to describe half-orcs possibly relevant to whether or not he was reproducing racist tropes and evoking racist ideas?
