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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jaeger" data-source="post: 8324184" data-attributes="member: 27996">It is evident from his earlier comments that Ward was referring to the Drow skin color when he said 'black people', and would be rather upset that his comment was taken as a reference to a real world ethnicity.Because aside from the fact that fantasy races have no real world analogues, you completely disregarded the comments he made no more than some twenty seconds earlier...And in disregarding his earlier comments, you framed what he said about the Drow in the worst context possible.eg. (37:49)Pundit: ..."Bloggers who will call for a boycott of D&D because in their mind Orcs are similar to black people."Jim Ward: "By the way I find that really gross, ... I find that very objectionable."(unfortunately Pundit then interrupts Ward before he could continue.)We know that when it come to the idea that in D&D Orcs = Black people (the real world ethnicity) Jim Ward finds that idea "...really gross, ..." and "... very objectionable."So he obviously believes that equating a real world ethnicity to an Evil D&D race to be gross and objectionable.I think it is safe to say that Drow were depicted with black skin during Ward's tenure at TSR. Yet even with that black skin color the Drow were never drawn with facial features or other ethnic characteristics that resembled real world Black people.Given his familiarity with the Drow art, and his statement about Orcs, I see no reason to believe that Jim Ward equates Evil D&D Drow with real world Black people.So in a back and forth off the cuff conversation, and based on the comments he made just seconds before; we have every reason to give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he was referring to their skin color when he described the Drow as black people.IMHO - That is what any reasonable adult would infer given the overall context of his comments from 37:49 onwards.So let's not go imagining Jim Ward running around in a set of white sheets just yet...</blockquote>

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