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<blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 7726997" data-attributes="member: 40166">Orcs are non-white. Looking at the Lord of the Ring movies as mentioned above, the good races are consistently portrayed as white; looking at the 2ed Monstrous Manual (the first color Monster Manual), with the exception of a couple gnomes who look sort of Asian, and a one light brown human of several humans, all the PC races are white. For better or worse, most of the giants and most of the other human-like or part human creatures are also white (at least in their human parts). But orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins and goblins are all darker.Ugly versus beautiful may be complex racially, but it's not any less problematic to say that ugly people are evil and good people are pretty.Your last point is like saying you didn't draw Bob, because Bob doesn't have horns.Some depictions of the Devil have drawn accusations of anti-Semitism because of facial features similar to that of Eastern European Jews. It certainly doesn't always go one way, especially as the modern images of horrifying fantasy monsters are built on a previous images of &quot;savages&quot;; in fact, I don't know of any fantasy monsters pre-Tolkien that orcs resemble so much as certain depictions of Africans. You can't separate things from their associations simply; if people feel like orcs look like stereotypes of Africans, it will make some people uncomfortable and lead others to make racist jokes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="prosfilaes, post: 7726997, member: 40166"] Orcs are non-white. Looking at the Lord of the Ring movies as mentioned above, the good races are consistently portrayed as white; looking at the 2ed Monstrous Manual (the first color Monster Manual), with the exception of a couple gnomes who look sort of Asian, and a one light brown human of several humans, all the PC races are white. For better or worse, most of the giants and most of the other human-like or part human creatures are also white (at least in their human parts). But orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins and goblins are all darker. Ugly versus beautiful may be complex racially, but it's not any less problematic to say that ugly people are evil and good people are pretty. Your last point is like saying you didn't draw Bob, because Bob doesn't have horns. Some depictions of the Devil have drawn accusations of anti-Semitism because of facial features similar to that of Eastern European Jews. It certainly doesn't always go one way, especially as the modern images of horrifying fantasy monsters are built on a previous images of "savages"; in fact, I don't know of any fantasy monsters pre-Tolkien that orcs resemble so much as certain depictions of Africans. You can't separate things from their associations simply; if people feel like orcs look like stereotypes of Africans, it will make some people uncomfortable and lead others to make racist jokes. [/QUOTE]

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