Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8332435" data-attributes="member: 21169">CONTENT WARNING: GENOCIDAL RACISM, IN QUOTATIONThis post examines whether some of the D&D 5e "savage" humanoids — bugbears, gnolls, kobolds, lizardfolk, and orcs — cannot be considered racist because they are more like animals than people.In the D&D 5e Monster Manual (2014) artwork the bugbear's snout resembles a bear's. "Hyenas were transformed into the first gnolls." Gnoll heads look like those of hyenas. Gnolls and kobolds have digitigrade legs, like dogs or hyenas. Kobolds are "egg-laying" and have tails. Kobolds and lizardfolk are "reptilian" and have heads resembling those of lizards. Orcs have "low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks."The category of "humanoid" in D&D 5e includes the races "most suitable as player characters" — humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings — as well as the "savage" humanoids — bugbears, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and orcs. All humanoids have "language and culture, few if any innate magical abilities (though most humanoids can learn spellcasting), and a bipedal form."In addition, the "savage" humanoids that could be considered beast-like all use tools, such as weapons. Most wear clothing or armour, lizardfolk being the only exception. Most have religion. Most build or modify structures, even gnolls. All are social and live in communities. They have alignments rather than being unaligned as animals are in D&D 5e."Gnolls rarely build permanent structures or craft anything of lasting value." But this demonstrates that they occasionally do so. Gnoll leaders adorn their bodies with art, including "demonic sigils." This suggests they have a form of writing. Gnolls worship Yeenoghu. Kobolds possess "a cleverness for trap making and tunneling" and worship Kurtulmak. Lizardfolk live in "hut villages." They dance, tell stories, and "craft tools and ornamental jewelry." They have shamans and worship Semuanya. Orcs can interbreed with other humanoids, including humans, producing children. Gruumsh and Luthic are the orcish gods.It can be concluded therefore that the beast-like features of bugbears, gnolls, kobolds, lizardfolk, and orcs are superficial. They are, in all important respects, people.The Racist Use of the Idea That People Are Like AnimalsAssigning the properties of animals to real world peoples has been, and continues to be, a significant element of racism as the following examples demonstrate. Robert Miles and Malcolm Brown, Racism 2e (2003):The African was attributed with a bestial character and there was much speculation about the origin and consequences of the supposed physical similarities between Africans and apes, both of which were 'discovered' by Europeans at the same time in a common geographical location. Some Europeans suggested that sexual intercourse occurred between Africans and apes… the African was less civilised, a barbarian, by virtue of supposedly looking more like a beast and behaving in ways that approximated to the behaviour of beasts.Robert Sussman, The Myth of Race (2014): "Charles White (1728– 1813), an English physician… proposed that black Africans... were an intermediate form between true humans (white Europeans) and apes, with other races intermediate between these extremes." Orcish "low foreheads" and, in the artwork, disproportionately long arms correspond to this idea that black people resemble apes. Nathan G Alexander, Race in a Godless World (2019):Charles Bradlaugh… used the French physician Jules Cloquet's facial angle, measuring "an European, a Negro, an infant chimpanzee, a full grown chimpanzee, a male gorilla, and a Newfoundland dog" to show that the facial angle was highest for a European and gradually became lower as one moved down to the lower races and non-human animals... The arm of "the Negro" was longer than that of the European and was nearly indistinguishable, proportionally, from a gorilla's.Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil (2007):The Sydney Herald claimed in 1838 that Aborigines had "bestowed no labour upon the land—their ownership, their right, was nothing more than that of the Emu or the Kangaroo." Governor George Gipps... had 12 men tried for the Myall Creek massacre; they were acquitted. A juror called blacks "a set of monkies and the earlier they are exterminated from the face of the earth the better."David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness (1991): "It was an open question in the mind of nineteenth-century white Protestants whether these Celtic immigrants belonged to the white race. They were vilified, segregated, and castigated as savage, simian, and bestial." Sussman:Ernst Haeckel (1834– 1919) was one of the most respected scientists of his time… He called for the halting of immigration of the "filthy" Jews and, claiming that since inferior races are "nearer to the mammals (apes and dogs) than to civilized Europeans, we must, therefore, assign a totally different value to their lives."Karl Hannemann in Bulletin of the German Association of National Socialist Physicians (June 1938): "Rats, bedbugs and fleas are also natural occurrences in the same way as Jews and Gypsies. All existence is a struggle; we must therefore gradually biologically eradicate all these vermin." Katie Hopkins in The Sun (17th April 2015): "Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches."EDIT: This section's argument isn't that all animal people are racist. It's that the use of animal features applied to real world people by racists demonstrates that animal people in fiction can be racist.</blockquote>

Verification