What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Justice and Rule]

I am "avoiding" it because I have no idea whats your point is.
The question is who can write about a culture. What have stereotypes have to do with it? Which stereotypes do you mean anyway? The stereotypes "white" Americans have about African-Americans? The stereotypes (African-)Americans have about, for example, Nigerians? The Stereotypes Nigerians have about (African-)Americans? The stereotype Europans have about any of those groups?

This is a whole bunch of whatabouting around the point.

 

[Mesero]

This is a whole bunch of whatabouting around the point.

Then please, spell out the point.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It’s fairly indisputable that the Ptolemies had practically 0% Egyptian ancestry though. Their genealogies are fairly well established. I don’t see the relevance.

The relevance is just a subset/tangent of the discussion about how good of an idea is it that the Egyptian pantheon in a game product should be represented by The Swedish Pharaoh and his wife.

Blondeness- while present in Greeks- is extremely rare. Someone raised the question of Cleopatra’s (a Ptolomaic ruler) appearance in particular. Looking at contemporary examples of her image, we see typical Greco-Roman and traditional Egyptian depictions…and nothing dispositive about her hair color.

So, if if the unusual characteristic of blondness was not noted in contemporaneous depictions of the most famous Ptolemaic Egyptian ruler- indeed, one of the most famous Egyptian rulers of all- why would you use that art to introduce the Egyptian pantheon?

 

[Justice and Rule]

Sure we do!

But we’re probably less likely than the average non-black to be willing to cement negative ones in a piece of intellectual property we’re creating.

You took what I said in a different manner, but this also hits largely on what I was getting at: African-Americans would be more likely to see and less likely to use stereotypes that would carry across both groups.

Then please, spell out the point.

I already have. It's pretty obvious. That you are trying to muddy the waters with every conceivable stereotype comes across as trying to avoid addressing the obvious: that there are a great many stereotypes and tropes of African-Americans that are directly related to their African origins.

 

[Cadence]

The relevance is just a subset/tangent of the discussion about how good of an idea is it that the Egyptian pantheon in a game product should be represented by The Swedish Pharaoh and his wife.

Blondeness- while present in Greeks- is extremely rare. Someone raised the question of Cleopatra’s (a Ptolomaic ruler) appearance in particular. Looking at contemporary examples of her image, we see typical Greco-Roman and traditional Egyptian depictions…and nothing dispositive about her hair color.

So, if if the unusual characteristic of blondness was not noted in contemporaneous depictions of the most famous Ptolemaic Egyptian ruler- indeed, one of the most famous Egyptian rulers of all- why would you use that art to introduce the Egyptian pantheon?

Given the statues in many churches and nativity scenes every Christmas, I kind of wonder what a lot of Americans honestly think folks from huge swathes of that region and adjacent places look like (as opposed to say reality). :-/

 

[Mesero]

You took what I said in a different manner, but this also hits largely on what I was getting at: African-Americans would be more likely to see and less likely to use stereotypes that would carry across both groups.



I already have. It's pretty obvious. That you are trying to muddy the waters with every conceivable stereotype comes across as trying to avoid addressing the obvious: that there are a great many stereotypes and tropes of African-Americans that are directly related to their African origins.

So basically you think that what makes someone qualified to write about a specific culture is that this person faces the same stereotypes that someone from that culture would most likely face in the USA even when those stereotypes have nothing to do with the culture?

 

[Justice and Rule]

So basically you think that what makes someone qualified to write about a specific culture is that this person faces the same stereotypes that someone from that culture would most likely face in the USA even when those stereotypes have nothing to do with the culture?

So again, you don't answer the question.

 

[Umbran]

So basically you think that what makes someone qualified to write about a specific culture is that this person faces the same stereotypes that someone from that culture would most likely face in the USA even when those stereotypes have nothing to do with the culture?

Mod Note:
We have watched enough of this sealioning.

We have reason to believe this user is an alt of an EN Worlder who was banned for anti-inclusive content. Mesero will no longer be part of this discussion, or any other on this site.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Given the statues in many churches and nativity scenes every Christmas, I kind of wonder what a lot of Americans honestly think folks from huge swathes of that region and adjacent places look like (as opposed to say reality). :-/

Tangent: my Mom collects nativity scenes, and has among its sets crèches done in styles representative of many cultures. So she has an Eskimo set, another handmade one from Africa, a few from Central & South American countries, etc.

As to the point you made, there’s whitewashing in Europe, too, but IMHO, not NEARLY as much as coming out of our country. Especially considering how much we exported via Hollywood over its history. We’re #1! (Dang it.)

Part of that is the legacy of the “1 drop rule” of American racism: 1 drop of nonwhite blood made you non white. So a lot of people “passed” for white if they could. And that “white lie” got transmitted down histories, both familial and official. There’s a phenomenon going on right now where some white supremacists are getting unpleasant surprises from DNA registry searches- kinda the other side of the coin from what I described with my cousins upthread.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Er, yes? What I'm not following is the assertion that since fantasy is just made-up, we can put slavery or bigotry or whatever in our fantasy worlds and it doesn't matter. I hope I'm misunderstanding, because "none of this matters, it's all make-believe" is a pretty startling claim coming from people in the TTRPG community. Stories are important and they mean things and that's part of why we play these games, no?

Of course. But if you can't publish games with bad things in them because those bad things happened in the real world too, you're restricting the tools we have available for creativity.