Justice and Rule
Legend
This is it right here. There isnt a thing on this planet that could not be misconstrued as racist at this point, or taken and made as such by actual racists. I'm reminded of the 'OK' sign as an example of this stupidity.
I mean, at the same time when used in certain contexts, that naughty word actually means something. It's like Nordic tattoos: while they could be harmless, it's dumb not to realize that those symbols have meanings in certain communities and that they can be symbols of a racist movement.
Alignment is not inherently flawed. The argument that it is racist, is.
I mean, are a lot of people saying it's inherently racist, or are they saying that how it's been used fuels racist tropes? Because the former comes off as a strawman, the latter is actually correct.
I see alignment as another tool to be used - a dial that can be turned up, turned down, or turned sideways, as a DM and the players like. It's a handy shorthand for new DMs to get a handle on playing monsters and NPCs. Some assume that all new DMs will be offended by alignments, but I don't know if that's the case. People all learn differently, and what works for one new DM might not work for another.
It seems like the ship has sailed, but it's too bad they did not use 3.x's alignment entries like "Usually Neutral Evil" to directly imply the possibility of other alignments for a creature. Or use "Any Alignment" for free-willed humanoids and make it very clear for certain species.
The problem is that alignment is a terrible tool for that. Those terms are vague and often have varying meanings depending on who you are talking to. Like, is there anything that alignment does that a short line that says "Morality for sale to the highest bidder" doesn't? Because I get a lot more out of the latter than the former.