Sure it is. Monks relying on Dex over Strength plays right into the stereotype of Asian men being unmascuine. The very idea of Eastern martial arts being more graceful, acrobatic, and reliant on percision in contrast to ostensibly more simple, direct, and power-reliant Western martial arts is founded in orientalist nonsense.
That is...a pretty wild leap.
It seems like, out of all the possible interpretations for how monks have become dex oriented, you've avoided all the more likely explanations and leaped right to the most uncharitable possbile.
How is that racist? We're talking about characters in an unreal world with dragons and psionic horrors. Likewise, it's not like the cavalier does a good job modeling the western knight or the warlock does an accurate job modeling real life witches.
Not at all, it’s a very widespread phenomenon.
I’m not making any assumptions about the developer’s intent. Actually, no, I am. I assume that they absolutely did not intentionally set out to make the Monk a racist stereotype. They were just following the blueprint of previous editions and making adjustments based on public feedback. And I assume the developers of previous editions did not intend to make the class a racist stereotype either. That’s the thing about racism, it’s subtle and pernicious, and often rears its head without, or even in spite of conscious intent.
It’s the only racially-coded class in the game and it’s founded on harmful real-life stereotypes about Asians.
But the stereotypes the class is founded on are race-based.
Really? So you haven’t noticed that token Asian characters in Western media are trained in some form of martial arts more often than not? The trope of the frail old man or the scrawny waif who’s revealed to secretly be a master of some martial art, often when some unsuspecting antagonistic character tries to bully or pick a fight with them? The mysterious and cryptic Sensei who teaches the brash (usually white) hero discipline and technique? It’s all over the place.
Even if that is a stereotype (maybe it is, maybe it isn't; depends where you live, probably), I'm confused how it's harmful. I'm also confused how it's any more racially-coded than warlocks, which is a traditionally western concept. As are wizards using spell-books. Personally, I would say that barbarians are a more much problematic stereotype. Portraying outsiders and traditional peoples as angry rage-fueled brutes deserves much more attention than monks.
Maybe ask some Asian people if people have ever assumed they know martial arts, and if they’ve ever been bullied or harassed because of it. It’s quite common. Perhaps especially so in America? Regardless, the stereotype exists and causes harm whether you live in a place where it’s frequently happening or not.
They’re not specifically coded as anything. They are very loosely based on Western folklore, but they are not presented as explicitly European. You could maybe argue that the Druid is vaguely Celtic, but the actual Celtic mythological influences in the class are minimal. Monk is the only Class with a sidebar about reskinning weapons to fit a certain cultural aesthetic. It’s the only class that has a feature named for a concept from a specific religion. It is clearly coded in a way that other classes are not. That coding is racial and not cultural because the Monk’s influences are a vague pan-Asian mishmash, not any particular culture (though Indian influences are conspicuously absent). It’s textbook orientalism.
I think that would be a problem, if barbarians were more modeled after any particular real-world groups. Like, if they were black coded, or Native American coded, or otherwise coded in a similar way to how Monks are Oriental coded, yeah, that would be more egregious.
