I posted this in a different thread, but I deleted it there and am posting it here, as it is more relevant to the conversation here
I saw a something on twitter today and was rather taken aback:
This is just an astonishing take. For all the petty disagreements that take place in fan communities, wotc and 5e is not lacking for praise. There is a constant, months-long stream of hype around every release, and when a book is released, there are gushing reviews from journalistic outlets that at most point out a couple of minor disagreements. Almost every 5e book on amazon as between a 4 and 5 star rating. People spend hundreds of dollars a year on wotc products. Entire fan communities exist not just around 5e as a whole, but around particular adventure modules, sharing advice and making content, sometimes for the dms guild but often for free. Actual plays rush to play the new adventures, because that's what people want to watch. For Abadia to describe the inclusion of racism in the game as 'mistakes were made but the designers are well intentioned' is almost sycophantic. Simultaneously praising Wotc for supposed diverse hires and using Radiant Citadel to deflect criticism suggests an inability to see the forest for the trees
That being said...
I don't think Perkins (or anyone on the team) is racist... I don't know them. HOWEVER, if there was a petition to fire everyone and start over I would seriously think about signing it. Because if it was on purpose, or by accident, this is happening too much.
I am MUCH more willing to assign incompetence and error over malice and prejudice.
In all probably the designers
are well intentioned. That's what makes racism so insidious, and why a more diverse team, with different experiences and expertise in different media, would be really helpful. For example
this paragraph from an article several years back stuck with me as speaking to both how well-intentioned the designers are
and how that alone does not produce good results:
Why has Chult changed over the last two decades? When I asked Perkins, he said that “We didn’t want to create a city that felt backward...It’s a tale of Chultans reclaiming their own city and land and redefining who they are and moving way from the idea of warring tribes to a more business-minded culture.” Perkins explained that the D&D team made a great effort not to depict the Chultans in a regressive way, but added that “The land that they live in is a savage land. That’s just part of what Chult is. It’s a place of monsters. It was our intention to show the Chultans have not only survived it, but have risen above it—that they have dispelled the warring tribal nature that previously defined them and are now actually thriving.” When I asked, Perkins said that no black writers or consultants worked on Tomb of Annihilation.
This is what Perkins chose to say to a games journalist for a story on representation in ToA. He is trying to express a different vision for what Chuult could be, but defaults to using loaded language to describe it. The fact that he didn't bother to hire a consultant to help is the cherry on top.