Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Bill Zebub]

I can disagree on a factual basis with some of what was stated in the youtube series, but I also try to hear what their experience is like.

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Spot on.

Of the many possible reactions, a possible one was might be "They got the comeliness thing wrong, but I also didn't understand until watching that video how sensitive some asian readers are to something that I thought of as shallow but benign. There's obviously something in their experience there. I guess I learned something."

And not, "They got some basic (albeit obscure) facts wrong, so obviously there's nothing in there worth paying attention to."

(edit: Corrected a typo. Obviously you should discount the rest of my post if I'm the kind of guy who makes typos. Actually, you'd better assume the opposite of my argument is true, just to be safe.)

 

[Alzrius]

Sure, but validating people's feelings doesn't have to mean pandering. It's worth listening respectfully, being open to the possibility that we might be wrong, and being respectful if we're going to offer pushback or correction.

That's true, but it's hard to do when people define their upset as "harm," and say that any attempts to correct that are denying that characterization.

I once saw someone on this board make an analogy in this regard, saying that denying someone's emotional harm when they perceive something upsetting was the same thing as denying their physical harm after seeing their foot get stomped on (or something like that, it was a while ago). That struck me as a very poor analogy, because the source of physical harm in that instance is discrete - in the sense of being separate and distinct - whereas emotions virtually never are.

A friend of mine likes playing competitive games online. There's a lot of trash-talking that goes on, a lot of which would be offensive by most standards. In most cases he shrugs that off, but in one instance he completely blew up, yelling at the top of his lungs and almost throwing his controller through the screen before logging off. At a glance, it seemed like the offensive language had set him off.

The thing was, I knew him better than that, and after he'd had some time to cool off I asked him what was really wrong. He admitted that they were looking at a round of layoffs at work, and he was worried that he was about to lose his job (and the health insurance that his son needs).

Now, at the time I'm sure he never would have admitted that, and said that it was the offensive language that upset him. But emotional reactions aren't discrete the way physical harm is, and so you can't really draw that comparison between the two.

 

[Einlanzer0]

Eh, I'm not sure I'd use the phrase "challenging" when it comes to people's feelings and reactions.

I think it can be very hard to understand the life experience of other people- we do our best, we can listen, but it's hard. Even if you're a member of one marginalized community, it can be difficult to understand the experiences of another one. If you're a gay man, you might have certain memories of fear and discrimination, but those won't be the same as what is experienced growing up a straight women in our society. For that matter, neither of those is the same is being black and trans.

I can disagree on a factual basis with some of what was stated in the youtube series, but I also try to hear what their experience is like. I am also reminded of a commenter here ... for him, OA was a disappointment, because he was an Asian-American that wasn't of Japanese or Chinese heritage, and it was crushing to see that his heritage wasn't represented. It was a familiar experience for many in the 80s, when the dominant culture lumped all Asians together.

Respect and civility should be the touchstones for a better understanding ... on all sides.

Again, though, it's not really so much about their experiences - it's about the way emotions are shaped by biases. This is why we have an increasing problem with entitlement and people screaming over each other instead of taking the time to absorb different perspectives.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This is why we have an increasing problem with entitlement and people screaming over each other instead of taking the time to absorb different perspectives.

As long as you are applying 'entitlement' to the most extreme factions of both sides, I'm in agreement.

 

[Voadam]

The AR podcast were under the impression that Comeliness was introduced with Oriental Adventures. This is technically not correct, but it isn't a major faux-pas in the slightest. And their reactions that the inclusion of a Comeliness mechanic, not present in core D&D, in an Asian supplement, was honest and legit.

I believe they honestly felt that OA's comeliness mechanic was othering and sexualizing Asians.

I believe they said fairly up front that they come from a 3e background and this is the only 1e book they had read.

So they come upon the comeliness stat in OA which is not in 3e.

The part I found offputting is that they do not say "This is new to us. We don't know if this is specific to OA or not. If so it would raise problematic issues of exocitization, othering, and sexualization of Asians in the problematic sexy dragon lady tropes and sexuality portrayal issues of Asian men."

They say it is only in OA and so OA is othering Asians from the introduction of the mechanic in OA. The not knowing and then filling in the blanks with the more problematic assumption to come to their conclusion, and no acknowledgement that that is what they are doing, is off-putting.

If I was not familiar with 1e and just watched their podcast I would have thought that D&D only putting out beauty mechanics in OA was decently strong supporting evidence of design intent to exoticize and sexualize Asians.

Knowing the context of 1e comeliness I don't consider the inclusion of comeliness as supporting evidence of design intent to exoticize and sexualize Asians in OA. Other parts of OA can be taken as exoticization, but I don't think the design intent was to particularly sexualize Asians. The one picture in OA of a woman is not salacious, there is no discussion of geishas or such, and the most I can think of for sexualization was the back cover text sentence about the Orient opening her gates to the West.

Knowing the podcasters were making factual statements about stuff they were actually only making factually incorrect inferences on is an issue. That they jump to the more problematic inference when doing so is another issue. That they make conclusions about OA in that first episode based on this factually incorrect problematic inference is an issue. That this is still the common go-to reference for exploring racism in OA is an issue.

 

[Cadence]

Accidental duplicate.

 

[Cadence]

Deleted. Too political and off topic.

 

[Einlanzer0]

Yes, anything can be taken to an extreme, but...

Today some African Americans can't wear natural hairstyles in schools or at work, some Indians are made fun of for having dots on their heads, Sikhs are beaten up for looking like they belong to a totally different religion (as if bearing up that one was good!), some Native Americans are still living in substandard conditions on land there ancestors were forced to move to, women with face coverings are harassed, those speaking anything bit English on the street are not uncommonly told to speak American or move back home.
The horror of someone having to spend a few minutes thinking about their Halloween costume or not having some themes at a sorority or fraternity party.

Someday, maybe we'll fix the former and then give it a while and folks fan go all out not worrying about the things in the later.

Thing is - all of these things are more ideological narratives stemming from obsessions with the past than they are salient points about modern society. Native Americans are born US citizens and can leave reservations, pursue education, anything they want. White people are far more criticized for things like wearing dreads than black people are - virtually no one who has good hygiene is criticized for wearing natural hairstyles. Hate crimes against Sikhs and religious minorities aren't particularly common, and western women carry tons of privilege in all kinds of unrecognized ways.

My European friend from Serbia, who is both white and christian, has been told to go back where he came from on more than one occasion - one time even being verbally assaulted by a stranger in the street. It has nothing to do with anything other than he's from another country and can situationally spark someone's generalized xenophobia.

But here's the real issue - constantly pandering to these kinds of ideas as a justification for double standards is ironically the best way to keep people trapped in the past rather than allowing us to move together into a more egalitarian future. And it isn't unique to them - all kinds of people have faced oppression throughout history.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm sure their reactions were honest and legit. And we've all been there. We've all reacted strongly to something only to find that our initial reaction was predicated on having limited information. The right thing to do when presented with additional information is to reevaluate your opinion based the additional factors you now know about. But a lot of people just double down with their initial reaction new information be darned. (Sorry about swearing there.)

I'm not sure if you aren't getting my point, or we just disagree.

Yes, their initial reaction was an honest reaction based on a slight misunderstanding of where Comeliness is coming from. My point is . . . it doesn't matter where Comeliness first appeared. Their first reactions were not wrong, and they don't need to be re-evaluated.

From a purely game-centered perspective, Zeb Cook included Comeliness because it was the latest in AD&D technology at the time, it didn't (likely) have anything to do with his views on Asian culture. Any resulting cultural insensitivity was unintentional. Explain this to the panelists of Asians Represent . . . . and it changes nothing.

But if you are familiar with the racist tropes the West often uses towards Asian cultures, focusing on the physical beauty, femininity, of both Asian males and females is a real problem. The inclusion of Comeliness in OA inadvertently plays right into that, and is therefore problematic and hurtful. Unintentionally so.

Had Zeb Cook, back in the day, been more aware of these cultural issues, he would have likely decided NOT to include Comeliness in OA, and saved it for a later book.

 

[Irlo]

I'm not sure if you aren't getting my point, or we just disagree.

Yes, their initial reaction was an honest reaction based on a slight misunderstanding of where Comeliness is coming from. My point is . . . it doesn't matter where Comeliness first appeared. Their first reactions were not wrong, and they don't need to be re-evaluated.

From a purely game-centered perspective, Zeb Cook included Comeliness because it was the latest in AD&D technology at the time, it didn't (likely) have anything to do with his views on Asian culture. Any resulting cultural insensitivity was unintentional. Explain this to the panelists of Asians Represent . . . . and it changes nothing.

But if you are familiar with the racist tropes the West often uses towards Asian cultures, focusing on the physical beauty, femininity, of both Asian males and females is a real problem. The inclusion of Comeliness in OA inadvertently plays right into that, and is therefore problematic and hurtful. Unintentionally so.

Had Zeb Cook, back in the day, been more aware of these cultural issues, he would have likely decided NOT to include Comeliness in OA, and saved it for a later book.

Thank you for saying this. You saved me a lot of time.