Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

[Umbran]

Would you find "What's your ethnicity?" less offensive than "Where are you from?"

You can advocate for "Don't ask don't tell" and for offence-taking all you like, but it's still a bad idea IMO.

Right. Check the logic here for a moment.

It isn't generally your, or my, or anyone else's business what someone else's ethnicity is. But goodness, it is a bad idea to respond negatively to the probing question on something that isn't our business!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's more to it than that though. Even @<i><b><u><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=19675" target="_blank">Dannyalcatraz</a></u></b></i>, who I believe is black, when asked where is he from, would not be repeatedly questioned when he answered New Orleans. No one else seems to get this blank stare of disbelief as when an Asian American or Asian Canadian states that they are Canadian. Like I said, that video resonates really, really well. It's an ongoing thing and it happens all the time.

I mean, sure, people in Canada have asked me where I'm from. But, when I say Toronto, they don't then keep asking. Have you ever had complete strangers question you on your nationality? I've seen it repeatedly. And it only ever seems to happen to people of Asian decent.

It really is offensive as hell. If you feel the need to question someone's nationality, remember, that person may very well have been questioned fifteen times previously that week and just might not appreciate the sixteenth time.

Again, I don't give a fetid dingo's kidney about your friends. Really, really don't. I'm telling you, in no uncertain terms, people of (particularly East Asian) decent get questioned on their nationality very, very often. It's almost like there's a strain of white people that cannot fathom that someone's ancestors came from Japan or China and emigrated to America a hundred years ago or more.

I remember Henry Cho’s career from almost his first televised appearances. For those who don’t know, he’s a Korean-American stand up comedian from Knoxville, Tennessee. His first words in those early routines were, “How y’all doin’? (pause) Blew your mind, didn’t I?” I mean, close your eyes & listen, and there’s no question as to where he’s from.

[video=youtube;WH8E_nkDNDo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH8E_nkDNDo[/video]

 

[Sadras]

It's just that, as both my children are half-Japanese, it's a very, very touchy subject for me. Because, my kids are Canadian and are as Canadian as anyone else. So, when they repeatedly get questioned about their nationality, it's insulting as all get out. Because, I'm going to tell you, no one else ever gets questioned like this.

As to the first quote, do you often ask strangers their ethnicity? Do you often ask anyone their ethnicity? How often do you ask white friends, "So, where are you from?" and when they say, "England", or whatever country, do you then repeat the question until you drill down where their ancestors were born? Do you do this repeatedly?

Because, that's what happens when you are Asian in many Western countries. Saying, "I'm Canadian" is apparently never quite good enough.

Hussar I'm not going to pretend to know how it feels or how often your children get asked, but I pretty much have drilled down friends and people I have recently met as part of an organic conversation with no ill intent. I can only speak for myself, I find that an immensely interesting fact about people, as much as say the reason for a person emigrating, the work they did, how they got the work (if it is particularly different/unique to me) and all the rest that goes with it.

When it comes to Asian people I might ask where they are from as I have never been fortunate to travel to the east and my questions would be to learn directly about their specific homeland. I live in South Africa so you have plenty of African tribes/people - Venda, Zulu, Sotho, Matebele, Xhosa...etc I do the same there as I do with Caucasians.

To note, and this is interesting I have never been asked by an Asian or Black person where I'm from or where my parents are from. The general mentality here (and obviously somewhat politicised) is that whites are from Europe and that is that.

EDIT: Maybe my curiosity comes from growing up with one of those earth globes and studying it when I was kid.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

“Where are you from?” as polite conversation is probably more common in some areas than others. I know it’s pretty common where I am, and I don’t just mean directed at me. I ask all the time because I’m...well...interested in where people are from, and like in a lot of big cities, I get to hear all kinds of accents.

Hell, I’ve even been able to pick out a couple of South Africans, Ukrainians and Finns based on accents.

But I’ve never gone into interrogation mode of trying to figure out if people are REAL Americans. I just want to know about other cultures & places.

I posted my picture: as a Creole outside of Louisiana, I get asked if I’m Arabic, Polynesian, Indian, Mexican- any ethnicity of darker skin other than black because I’m lighter skinned than most blacks in Texas.

Mom- whose father was from Aricebo- sometimes gets earfuls from the Hispanics who accuse her of trying to pass or being embarrassed about her heritage because she won’t speak to them in Spanish. To which she responds that she speaks English, French, and German. Her language skills have no relationship to their accusations- French is a common second language in Louisiana; learning German is a valuable skill for living in Germany for 3 years.

When I visited Russia, I had already had my mind blown by news a couple years prior that a small town in Kamchatka had elected its first mayor of African descent. (It made the news in the USA, which is semi damning, I suppose.) So I knew that the Africans-descended population in Russia had reached a certain critical mass.

And yet, it still caught me off guard when, in a mall near Red Square, I saw a mixed-race couple, and the dark-skinned, dreadlocked dude in the backwards Chicago Bulls hat, Michael Jordan Bulls jersey over a white T, sagging Bulls shorts and Air Jordan Nikes was speaking flawless Moscovite Russian to his boo.

 

[darkbard]

May I just say how impressed I am that, despite a very few obviously baiting remarks intended to inflame, this conversation has remained as civil as it has! (Knocks wood.) So many similar conversations here have been derailed and shut down because of a lack of serious intent, and I'm delighted that hasn't really happened here.

 

[Derren]

And, that would be perfectly fine if orcs were described as horse nomads.

But, they're not. They're not described as vikings either.

They are being described, rather specifically, as a particular racial stereotype.

But, let's unpack that first sentence shall we? You've never seen orcs as being specifically asian or middle eastern. Fair enough. But, we have direct quotes from Lord of the Rings which does paint them as such. Does your particular experience invalidate that reading? D&D orcs are obviously based pretty heavily on LotR. That's indisputable. If LotR orcs are based on some fairly racist elements, then, well, by association, so are D&D orcs.

And, again, it's not like these are bizarre interpretations that require you to stand on your head under a full moon on the third Wednesday of August. Orcs as "the savages it's okay to murder" is pretty well established in D&D. And, that has some pretty uncomfortable parallels to real world strains of thought, as has been demonstrated in this thread.

See, the problem I'm really having with this discussion isn't the fact that we are having issues talking about what to do going forward. No, my problem is that we've now spent 40 some pages just having to justify having the conversation in the first place. Good grief, how much evidence has to be presented here? If you don't see a problem, fair enough. But, instead of repeatedly insisting that we have to justify that the problem exists at all, why not focus on resolution?

Does anyone really have an issue with the notion that fantasy elements in the game which are linked to racist underpinnings from the past, be given a broader treatment going forward and presented in a more nuanced fashion?

Is that seriously a problem for people?

Why should I focus on the resolution for a problem that does not exist?
You think D&D orcs are asian just because of association with LotR orcs which you think are asian stereotypes?
I disagree. When you want to argue that D&D orcs are somehow intended to represent a specific ethnicy then you have to point out, using D&D orcs, that this association is in fact correct instead of pointing at something completely different.

So, which Monster Manual entry makes you think that Orcs are intended to stand for "a particular racial stereotype"?

 

[Umbran]

“Where are you from?” as polite conversation is probably more common in some areas than others. I know it’s pretty common where I am, and I don’t just mean directed at me. I ask all the time because I’m...well...interested in where people are from, and like in a lot of big cities, I get to hear all kinds of accents.

...

But I’ve never gone into interrogation mode of trying to figure out if people are REAL Americans. I just want to know about other cultures & places.

As with most things in human interaction, context matters. In current America, a white person asking (or worse, pressing) such a question of a member of a minority is going to smack of racist-gatekeeping.

Similarly, on context: In the real world, I'm a big blond, blue-eyed guy. I'm told I read as pretty standard Anglo-Saxon. But, my folks where immigrants from a country nobody hears about, so I have a weird name. The reception I get on the phone, from those struggling with the name, can be markedly different from those speaking to me face-to-face.

 

[Riley37]

This seems like a regional thing to me. I spent five years in southern California as a kid and ethnic ancestry didn't seem to come up as much…

I take your word on your experience as a child. I grew up near San Francisco, and fellow children occasionally asked me, in a friendly tone, if I had mixed ancestry. The only one with an explicitly expressed negative reaction was an adult. (I have genes from Asia, but via the Trans-Bering Migration, and they first mixed with European genes in the New England colonies in the 1700s. More phenotypically prominent in my face as a child, than as an adult.)

That said, in California during the 1941 Internment, “is your ancestry Chinese or Japanese” determined which native-born USA citizens were detained in camps, and often lost their homes and farms to white take-overs. Which leads me to another of your points…

…across racial lines it would be a lot more touchy.

I’m glad to hear you recognize that factor. I’m white, so if I’m the one pressing the question, then that echoes the history of white people, in authority roles, with badges and guns, demanding answers from people with Asian features, and imposing consequences.

Anyways, yes, you get to disagree, you get to see the world as round when everyone else sees it as flat, or vice versa. That said… if you ever find yourself reading “Lord of the Rings” to a group of children at a library… and you reach the passage about the sallow-skinned, slant-eyed guy looking like a half-breed with goblin ancestry… and if any of the children are sallow-skinned and slant-eyed, or any of their parents might be, or any of their friends might be… then please, please handle that passage with more care than JRRT did.

It doesn’t have to be a reference to a specific race, to do harm. Even if the child got the slanted eyes from a Finnish grandmother, hearing “hey, you look like a goblin!” from the other kids on the playground afterwards is STILL gonna hurt. And no, that’s not particularly YOUR fault; but you can prevent it, so please do.

Is that a reasonable request? Well, it’s a set-up: now I’m gonna ask you to practice the same level of caution, the same recognition that something that isn’t YOUR fault, could still be something you can handle in a way which does more harm or less harm. If someone who looks like DannyAlcatraz sits at your table, and chooses to play a half-orc, please don’t push him (or her or them) to play up the savage, hot-tempered, and intensely physical aspects of half-orcs. Because, *not your fault*, he’s been stereotyped that way, since he was a child, *not by you*, and maybe he’s using D&D to play against stereotype. (Maybe without even realizing that consciously. Respect it anyways.)

This is a request. Insofar as I’m setting a standard, you’re free to disregard that standard. I’m not the Gaming Police showing up at your door with a warrant. (Nor will Gary Gygax show up to enforce his rulings about dwarven women and facial hair, no matter how strongly he expressed opinions on that one, back in the 1980s.) If you attend a TRPG convention, then yeah, the convention might have expectations - that’s up to whoever plans the convention. The convention planners might even be influenced by this very conversation on En World. But your table is yours; I have no power there. Not even if I expressed the request in more academic language. (Which I could, but that seems less likely to go over well with you.)

 

[Riley37]

May I just say how impressed I am that, despite a very few obviously baiting remarks intended to inflame, this conversation has remained as civil as it has! (Knocks wood.) So many similar conversations here have been derailed and shut down because of a lack of serious intent, and I'm delighted that hasn't really happened here.

Me too. In the first ten pages, I wanted to respond, but restrained myself because maybe someone else had already made the same point. I was pleased to reach page 44 and find the thread still taking responses. I expected it to have already ended with a mod's ruling of "Okay, we're done here." (I had a strong response to a post on page 35 or so, so now I'm gonna wade back until I find it again.)

I'm gonna quibble on a minor nuance: I think that a few of the usual derailers DO have serious intent. Not one that I respect, but one which they hold seriously. (shrug) It's not my place to say which of my fellow posters has what intent, but I can say this much: Thanks, mods!

 

[darkbard]

I'm gonna quibble on a minor nuance: I think that a few of the usual derailers DO have serious intent. Not one that I respect, but one which they hold seriously. (shrug) It's not my place to say which of my fellow posters has what intent, but I can say this much: Thanks, mods!

For sure, and, in fact, I though about going back and editing my language immediately after posting. When I say "lack of serious intent," read "said intent being the thoughtful analysis of these difficult questions" rather than the "serious intent of derailing conversations in an attempt to obfuscate, demean, or otherwise exhibit the lesser qualities of human interaction."