Oriental Adventures, was it really that racist?

[Irlo]

I was just hoping to get some of those direct textual references TerraDave was suggesting were absent in the comment "There is very little reference to the actual text...whatever it might be."

Oh, I see. Sorry, can’t help you there.

 

[Voadam]

So, they got a fact wrong there. However, that the mechanic was not made for that purpose does not mean that the mechanic is not problematic in the OA context. There's still a solid argument that, given the stereotype issues, Comeliness should have been left out of OA.

I would say that comeliness was a problematic mechanic that sexualized and artificially directed roleplay to caricatures of beauty and how people react to them.

I agree that the comeliness mechanic can feed into problematic sexualization issues and tropes about Asians.

However their point was that it was wrong because it was created to sexualize and remove autonomy from specifically Asians, to otherize Asians, and it was a problematic issue that did not apply to Western characters.

These would be separate issues in a racial context from a generic problematic sexualization mechanic that feeds into problematic tropes about Asians.

 

[Mallus]

OA has serious problems- this isn't one of them.

Some people really struggle with the idea that an antiracist argument or analysis can be wrong. Not because racism is good and right, but because the argument is poorly made or contains factual errors that undercut or undo the conclusion (or even framing).

And I struggle with how to communicate this without my natural inclination to turn every point into a 2-gin-drinks-into-the-evening zinger. Talking about racism is hard. Important hard. Maybe I'll get better at it someday...

edit: and then there's the whole 'the argument may be terrible, but the feelings expressed are real and need to be respected'. Like I said hard stuff. Pretty far from settled.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Some people really struggle with the idea that an antiracist argument or analysis can be wrong. Not because racism is good and right, but because the argument is poorly made or contains factual errors that undercut or undo the conclusion (or even framing).

And I struggle with how to communicate this without my natural inclination to turn every point into a 2-gin-drinks-into-the-evening zinger. Talking about racism is hard. Important hard. Maybe I'll get better at it someday...

Well, I think that there are different things going on here.

On the one hand, you have communities and the people within them, often with a history of being marginalized by the dominant power structures. One way to marginalize valid concerns is to employ various techniques, such as sealioning, or ignoring the "bigger picture" to concentrate on small issues or the form of the protest, or just tone policing (Why so angry?). All of this has a long history, and it is so frustrating to have valid concerns dismissed by people that have no actual interest in addressing the substance of what you're saying; in effect, it's dismissive.

The flip side of that, of course, is that while people have personal experiences that are valid for them ... if you are making a generally applicable critique of something, if you are trying to persuade people, then you have to actually get your facts correct. And when these issues arise, far too often people resort to variations of, "Well, that's just tone policing / gatekeeping whatever." Or, "You can't comment unless you are the specific marginalized community- and even if you are, you have to have a appropriate opinion or you are the equivalent of Clarence Thomas / Milo Yiannopoulos ...." Or, "You need to listen, and not talk." All of this can be incredibly frustrating to people when they have valid concerns about an analysis and how it affects the substance; in effect, it's dismissive.


And I think that this is frustrating for everyone. It can be very hard to tell the difference between someone who generally agrees with you and has good-faith issues with some specifics, as opposed to someone who is simply using argument in order to frustrate you and turn the issue into something else. Just like it can be frustrating when you see something that is clearly in error (here, comeliness, or the false etymology of picnic that was circulating for a while) and people just keep doubling down.

 

[Voadam]

I was just hoping to get some of those direct textual references TerraDave was suggesting were absent in the comment "There is very little reference to the actual text...whatever it might be."

Here's one from the back cover

"...The mysterious and exotic Orient,
land of spices and warlords, has at last
opened her gates to the West."

You generally see little of that type of characterization in the book itself but it is there on the back cover copy.

Here's from Zeb Cook's introduction on page 4:

"The bulk of this material deals with Japan, with China a close second. This is not due to any oversight. Most of the material available deals with Japan, through the choice of various writers. From the standpoint of gaming, Japan's history and culture provides greater opportunities for adventure and advancement. Although often seen as a rigid society, Japan has had several periods of tumultuous upheavel where a person of any rank could make his name—the Sengoku period or the collapse of the Heian government being only two. Of course, anyone who looks carefully at China will find the same occurred there. However, fewer people cared to write about it."

 

[Aldarc]

Since the answer to the question of "Was OA really that racist?" is an obvious 'yes,' it seems that people have sought to deflect from that fact by criticizing the Asians Reresent podcast's criticism of OA.

And this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Mallus]

Since the answer to the question of "Was OA really that racist?" is an obvious 'yes,' it seems that people have sought to deflect from that fact by criticizing the Asians Reresent podcast's criticism of OA.

Hey, some of us don't agree and are part of the Asian-American community. With lived experience of anti-Asian racism and several decades of experiencing life in the US with an Asian face. I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's opinion. I just ask that I receive the same courtesy.

 

[Parmandur]

To be fair about Asians Represent, it took them a little while to take the analysis more seriously: it starts out as fairly aimless Ketchikan, but once they bring more people on board and start talking more in depth, it becomes more fruitful.

 

[cfmcdonald]

Since the answer to the question of "Was OA really that racist?" is an obvious 'yes,' it seems that people have sought to deflect from that fact by criticizing the Asians Reresent podcast's criticism of OA.

And this is why we can't have nice things.

That's not at all what happened. One poster said, "if you want to understand why OA is racist, go listen to this source", and others said, "but there are all sorts of inaccuracies in what that source says."

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That's not at all what happened. One poster said, "if you want to understand why OA is racist, go listen to this source", and others said, "but there are all sorts of inaccuracies in what that source says."

In addition, the OP didn't ask the same question as is in the title. The actual question the OP posed is as follows:

But what are your thoughs...was it that bad back in ye olden times?

Answering that question would require ... you know, discussing the standards for the time, and whether it was "good" or "bad," not just people discussing how they feel about it now having come across it for the first time.

I would add that OA's bibliography is truly amazing for the time- and includes numerous Asian authors and primary sources. In addition, unlike almost all the stuff that TSR was pumping out at that time, it was playtested, critiqued, and modified ... by Masataka Ohta, Akira Saito, Hiroyasu Kurose, Takafumi Sakurai, and Yuka Tate-ishi.

This was also, AFAIK, incredibly uncommon at that time. These are some of the only acknowledged Asian contributors to D&D for ... well, decades.

In short, like many things, it's complicated. Parts of it are very much "of its time," and parts of it are arguably far ahead of the typical standards for its time. Those are different issues than how it would appear to people today, nearly 40 years after it was published.