D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[pemerton]

people need to understand that different people might come away from a product with different conclusions about how much of an issue it is

This is a banal point. It doesn't tell us anything about whether or not a particular work is racist (or sexist, etc).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think this is true. The only work of his I know well are his Conan stories - they are blatantly racist whenever black characters are introduced. A quick Google turned up this short essay - Robert E. Howard was a racist. Deal with it. — Jason Sanford - which is consistent with both the stories and what else I have read about REH (including the "Southern Discomfort" essay).

I'm not going to get into an extended discussion here, because I'm not enough of a Howard fan to care, but I'll simply state I've seen other discussion that seemed convincing on this point. But note the "of his time and background" was not accidental.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Then you’ve probably never been in a situation in which expressing offense could result in serious bodily harm or death.

This is a very important point and I'm shocked more people don't get it, especially on a role-playing game forum.

Like, I'm a heavyset 6'2" white guy who sounds kind of expensive (transatlantic accent leaning Recieved Pronunciation) and dresses in a way that people find "respectable", and it's extremely unlikely anyone other than an actual lunatic is going to try and mess with me (it has happened - but the guy was on serious drugs and/or insane and still ran away when he realized the size difference). But that's because of those factors. As a DM I constantly imagine myself as other people and it's extremely obvious that stuff I can get away with casually presents an actual risk to other people.

Serious bodily harm or death are at the extreme end, too, but lesser physical harm, verbal abuse/being screamed down, threats (often of sexual assault or murder), intimidation, being prevented from doing basic things, visiting certain shops/areas/etc., stuff which can really mess people up are basically increasingly likely as you deviate from the "societal norms", and that's even without "expressing offense", just existing. If you actually do express offense, you confront people or just openly express your opinions then things can get very heated very fast. People are much more likely to shut you down or ignore you too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

People say 'for their time' like there weren't people back then that knew this crap was wrong.

Like science and basic human decency was invented in 2005.

 

[Micah Sweet]

People say 'for their time' like there weren't people back then that knew this crap was wrong.

Like science and basic human decency was invented in 2005.

Look, we all know everyone from before 2005 reaching back to the dawn of civilization was a jerk at best. Doesn't make everything else they did bad too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

People say 'for their time' like there weren't people back then that knew this crap was wrong.

Like science and basic human decency was invented in 2005.

If it didn't make a difference what the overall society and your local culture looked like, history would be a lot different. I'm not going to compare everyone who grew up being dragged around cowtowns in Texas in the 20's and 30's to the best people of that time and place. If you don't contextualize things, 99% of the human race across most of history seems terrible, and if that's how other people want to see it, that's on them, but I'm not going to forget when people were steeped in expectations that this stuff was okay, especially when they apparently got better about it over time.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you don't contextualize things, 99% of the human race across most of history seems terrible, and if that's how other people want to see it, that's on them, but I'm not going to forget when people were steeped in expectations that this stuff was okay, especially when they apparently got better about it over time.

IF you do contextualize things; that people knew exactly what they were doing and desperately did everything in their power to absolve themselves, from inventing pseudosciences, to perverting religious texts to creating prejudices as ad campaigns, most humans look terrible... because they were.

The only other explanation that there were 'a few bad apples' that created those societies and everyone else was intensely stupid.

And running away from that, hiding that, excusing that does no one any favors besides the people who still think that way.

 

[Malmuria]

People say 'for their time' like there weren't people back then that knew this crap was wrong.

Like science and basic human decency was invented in 2005.

I was in middle and high school in the 90s, and people would say things like that. "Oh it was the 50s, times were different." It seemed like ancient history to me then. What those statements actually are, to me, is a dismissal of the ideas that maybe 30 years, or 60, is not a long time, and the problems that were present then are still with us now, and will be with us unless people speak up about them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

IF you do contextualize things; that people knew exactly what they were doing and desperately did everything in their power to absolve themselves, from inventing pseudosciences, to perverting religious texts to creating prejudices as ad campaigns, most humans look terrible... because they were.

The only other explanation that there were 'a few bad apples' that created those societies and everyone else was intensely stupid.

And running away from that, hiding that, excusing that does no one any favors besides the people who still think that way.

No. The other explanation is some people went out of their way to justify the prejudices of the time, and most people just didn't think about it much. That entirely fits my observation of people about, well, everything.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was in middle and high school in the 90s, and people would say things like that. "Oh it was the 50s, times were different." It seemed like ancient history to me then. What those statements actually are, to me, is a dismissal of the ideas that maybe 30 years, or 60, is not a long time, and the problems that were present then are still with us now, and will be with us unless people speak up about them.

And that's perfectly legitimate. I just think there's a big difference between someone with access to modern communication being a big ole bigot when confronted in the 21st Century, and someone who was probably rarely confronted with anyone wasn't, in practice, one degree or another of one in the early part of the 20th. One is a far more proactive process than the other.