Do orcs in gaming display parallels to colonialist propaganda?

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

Yes, it can and often does. Though as I point out, IME, whether it’s innocent curiosity or gatekeeping is usually revealed in the subsequent questions and/or behavior. See the recent rash of people leaving anti-LatinX messages on the tip line of their recipts in Mexican restaurants.

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.

Where are you from?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

Side note: the last two half-Orcs I played were a male Bounty Hunter (Ranger, with humans and Orcs as his favored enemies) and a female Paladin- a foundling adopted by an old fisherman, who then apprenticed as a mason when she outgrew the fishing skiff.

 

[Riley37]

And if I changed "Orc" to "Nazi"? What then?

I think this sort of hypothetical is a silly argument. You have to take the Orc as an Orc, before
you can judge whether it evokes colonialist tropes - which I think it can, but moreso in recent
usage. AFAICS WotC D&D's 3e-4e-5e orcs 'evoke colonialist tropes' much more than does Tolkien.

I am open to arguments on the comparison between WotC orcs versus JRRT orcs. I predict they'll end with apples and oranges, unless someone can quantify colonialist tropes.

That said, if someone took JRRT's passage about Bill Ferny's neighbor, and changed just the ending, from "looks half a goblin" to "looks half a Paki", then I'd call racist shenanigans. Yeah, Pakistanis don't tend to have slanted eyes, but people expressing racial hatred sometimes get the details wrong, such as the people who attacked Sikhs while calling them Muslims.

If someone took the same passage and changed the ending to "looks half a Nazi", then I'd respond with "hunh"? I'm quite familiar with people presenting National Socialists as The Bad Guys, but never on the basis of their sallow skin and slanted eyes. (Nor bandy legs, use of scimitars, etc.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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]

For any interested in this particular tangent, here’s one of Cho’s appearances from 1989.
[video=youtube;bvI-oxtEfJQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvI-oxtEfJQ[/video]

Note:

1) the boots
2) the mullet
3) the use of “retards” getting a laugh
4) name-dropping Bill Engvall before Bill started getting any real attention.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.)

I think you misunderstood my point. I wasn't saying race didn't matter in southern california (it actually seemed to matter a great deal). But ethnicity among whites didn't seem to matter, and people didn't seem to really care what your heritage was. On the east coast it was totally different.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

I don't know if you read my full post, but I was saying in the US you shouldn't go around asking Asian people where they are from. I wasn't at all suggesting people should do that. I was just weighing on something another person said, and stating that in Boston people asking about your ethnic heritage isn't all that uncommon.

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.

This is actually a bit irritating to read. I think I said about five times, I would be very mindful in that situation, and I wouldn't even use that slur. I haven't even used it in my posts in response to the quoted text. My wife is Asian, so I don't throw terms like that around (and my mom never let us use racial or ethnic slurs in the household).

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.)

I don't even know why you are bringing this up, why would I even suggest that to Danny if he were at my table? I think you believe I hold position that I've never stated in the course of this thread.

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.)

I don't know what sort of person you are under the impression I am. But I can assure you, you are barking up the wrong tree here.

 

[Bedrockgames]

“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.
.

When you travel around, asking people where they are from is a great conversation starter, because most people like talking about their home town. I think this is one of those things where what bothers Asian people is there is no visible reason to think they are not American and they often get asked that question to mean "what part of Asia are you from?".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When you travel around, asking people where they are from is a great conversation starter, because most people like talking about their home town. I think this is one of those things where what bothers Asian people is there is no visible reason to think they are not American and they often get asked that question to mean "what part of Asia are you from?".

I get that, but...

I’m an Army Brat, so I moved around every 1-3 years. Where I lived most of my life, there was a better than 30% chance that a given person I was in school with me was not actually a local.

Where I live NOW, there’s a couple dozen cities and towns all smashed together, and a large international population. And I spend a lot of time on a few forums with global appeal. So I frequently find myself asking where someone is from- or where they live- in order to talk about those places in comparison to here. ESPECIALLY in the context of cuisine, guitar gear or other product availability- knowing where someone is from can be vital to the convo.

 

[Hussar]

That is another good point about the video. In the video I think, if I remember, someone accosts an Asian person who is getting on a bicycle and asks the question. So it is clearly different from people who have an existing friendship. It is sort of like asking someone their religion based soley on their appearance.

Hussar, you had mentioned your experience in Japan and Korea informing your thoughts on this. I am just curious what that experience was if you don't mind sharing.

Let's just say that I have a pretty good sense of what minorities go through. Not to an extreme, but, I'm certainly sympthetic.

When you travel around, asking people where they are from is a great conversation starter, because most people like talking about their home town. I think this is one of those things where what bothers Asian people is there is no visible reason to think they are not American and they often get asked that question to mean "what part of Asia are you from?".

Yup. This.
[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] - the question has been asked and answered. I don't feel a need to repeat the answers.

 

[Umbran]

Where are you from?

Currently, Boston, MA. Originally, Long Island, suburbs of NYC.