D&D 5E Thoughts on this article about Black Culture & the D&D team dropping the ball?

[S'mon]

No one will not hire a German because he thinks he might be hiring
an evil Nazi.

It's always dangerous to generalise like that. Yes, some people do discriminate against
Germans.

 

[pemerton]

This is so shockingly racist I can't believe you posted it. You aren't actually engaging the arguments made. Instead, you are dismissing them out of hand simply because they are being made by white males. The only two words to describe such a train of thought are "racist" and "sexist".

The only one trying to exert control is you by telling white men to shut up for being white men.

There's not much to add to what [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] said - only an extreme sense of privilege or hubris would lead a white person to tell a person of colour how s/he should go about trying to describe explain his/her sense of racialised experience.

 

[pemerton]

Didn't Gygax just lift "halfling" from Tolkien too? It's in Lord of the Rings, as an exonym for "Hobbit". (Presumably derogatory, but not much is ever made of that in the course of the story IIRC -- everybody has bigger things to worry about.)

"Halfling" is used by the Gondorians - eg in Boromir's dream; and Denethor referring to Pippin as "Master Halfling".

There's no suggestion that it's derogatory. But, like "Little People", it is clearly a term that comes into use from the human rather than Hobbit point of view (ie relative to humans, Hobbits are little/half-sized).

 

[DeJoker]

Real racism hurts real people. Fictionalized racism hurts real people if and only if it obviously or obliquely references those people in the depiction. Completely fictionalized racism- for example, where the victim and methodologies have no real world analogs- is at most allegorical, and is usually merely fiction, thus hurting no one.

(No one who understands the distinctions between mere fiction, allegorical fiction, and reality, at least.)

Really no real world analogs -- hmm the term half-breed never used in the real world ... in fact derogatory terms used for other mixed races has never historically ever occurred -- interesting claim?

I did make assumptions, yes. Here's why:

Odds are good that you weren't referring to something that would have gotten censored by the language filter. But, having been a multiracial* black man all my life, I can tell you that if a term is considered racist NOW, blacks weren't OK with it THEN. Ditto for the people targeted by any slur you'd care to pick.

It's just that THEN, people were ignoring or not hearing the objections.

And I think, deep down, you somehow realize this, because otherwise, you'd have listed those terms for discussion.

* pretty much, if you have a racial slur you want to sling, I could justifiably take some offense.

You know you are a fairly pretentious individual and interestingly blind to the views of your own sub-group but that is not all that surprising I have met individuals like you before and I acknowledge that not everyone even those that belong to said groups are even fully aware of what some of their own groups find offensive. Rather sad though. As for what terms I was referring to -- actually all and every one of them -- however I see no need to waste my time voicing them all to a group of individuals that obviously only surfacely care about racism to just prove a point -- I mean you are either aware or you are not -- and if you are not it is most likely because you choose not to be as this group in general (and yet mind you not all -- it should be fairly obvious to whom I am referring to) has made self-evident.

If those here are an indication of the personalities associated with that article then I am definitely glad that I did not do more than gloss read as it probably would have made me ill trying to digest such garbage.

Oh [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] please do me the favor of blocking me -- I would have simply blocked you but you seem to hold an ill placed position of authority here and as such I am not allowed to block you.

May you and your compatriots enjoy your false stand of whatever you want to call it because it is pretty obvious that it is based on a lies

 

[pemerton]

I think the articles makes a good point. Unfortunately, WotC wedged themselves between a rock and a hard place with this.

The Forgotten Realms is over 30 years old, and reflects the sensibilities of the time and the generation of the creator and early contributors, so it's not surprising that parts of the world are presented in a less-than-enlightened fashion.

1. It's hard to put a finger on African fantasy archetypes from a western author's perspective simply because the teaching of African history was marginalized for a long time in the West.
2. Add to this that many civilizations were wiped out and languages suppressed by western powers during the colonial era.
3. The reality of the situation is that African history and legend has been and is being actively rediscovered by scholars. Just look up some TED talks on the matter and you'll find them.
4. So the best thing to do given the situation that exists and the increased awareness of how horrible the events in points one and two are is to research, read, discover and learn. Integrate things into your games and correct the missing pieces in your games if the topic concerns you.

having been a multiracial* black man all my life, I can tell you that if a term is considered racist NOW, blacks weren't OK with it THEN. Ditto for the people targeted by any slur you'd care to pick.

It's just that THEN, people were ignoring or not hearing the objections.

I think Dannyalcatraz's point provides an apt contrast to the first two of the posts I've quoted.

Thirty years ago is not all that long ago. I knew as well in 1987 as I do in 2017 that presenting the Chultians in the way the 4e FRCG does was casually racist, grounded in pulp stereotypes that have their own, deeper cultural/historical roots.

The issue seems not so much to be about the lack of attention to actual African history, but rather (i) the inability to see a city or country of black people outside a frame of colonisation, enslavement and/or "jungle" "savagery", and (ii) a treatment of the framing in (i) not from a historical or interpretive or (even) ironic point of view, but as it it's common sense and just the way things are.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[robus]

Thank the gods for small mercies, it looks like I’ve been blocked! And I even held up my end up the bargain to quit the thread. I imagine I’m in excellent company

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Really no real world analogs -- hmm the term half-breed never used in the real world ... in fact derogatory terms used for other mixed races has never historically ever occurred -- interesting claim?

Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said "half-breed" had never been used IRL. I was responding in general terms to your overgeneralization. I was pointing out why the proposition "real racism = fictional racism" is a false equivalence, and explicitly broke things into 3 categories.

You know you are a fairly pretentious individual and interestingly blind to the views of your own sub-group

Thanks for the ad hominem!

...but that is not all that surprising I have met individuals like you before and I acknowledge that not everyone even those that belong to said groups are even fully aware of what some of their own groups find offensive. Rather sad though. As for what terms I was referring to -- actually all and every one of them -- however I see no need to waste my time voicing them all to a group of individuals that obviously only surfacely care about racism to just prove a point -- I mean you are either aware or you are not -- and if you are not it is most likely because you choose not to be as this group in general (and yet mind you not all -- it should be fairly obvious to whom I am referring to) has made self-evident.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, carebear.

But believe me that a black man in the USA who forgets about racism is going to be victimized by it. As for my blindness? You know nothing about me. I have relatives who have expressed hate for Mexicans, Indians (as in, from India), and- of course- white people. While I have no kids of my own, I'm the one who forcefully fought against a couple of my cousins who were falling into the trap of hating Koreans and- worse still- antisemitism. (We're descended from- among other things- Jews from Alsace-Lorraine.)

Oh [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] please do me the favor of blocking me -- I would have simply blocked you but you seem to hold an ill placed position of authority here and as such I am not allowed to block you.

May you and your compatriots enjoy your false stand of whatever you want to call it because it is pretty obvious that it is based on a lies

I block no one. As I learned from a very wise Rabbi, sometimes the people we least want to speak to are the ones we most need to hear; the ones we least want to socialize with are the ones who need our help.

Have a nice day.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I think Dannyalcatraz's point provides an apt contrast to the first two of the posts I've quoted.

Thirty years ago is not all that long ago. I knew as well in 1987 as I do in 2017 that presenting the Chultians in the way the 4e FRCG does was casually racist, grounded in pulp stereotypes that have their own, deeper cultural/historical roots.

The issue seems not so much to be about the lack of attention to actual African history, but rather (i) the inability to see a city or country of black people outside a frame of colonisation, enslavement and/or "jungle" "savagery", and (ii) a treatment of the framing in (i) not from a historical or interpretive or (even) ironic point of view, but as it it's common sense and just the way things are.

Thanks for the post Pemerton - I've been sitting here for about 20m just reflecting on it and of course you're right. Alcatraz also makes a good point about general ignorance/ignoring.

Instead of commenting directly on where my quote was taken, I think I just want to be really clear about what my intention was with the post in the event it gets more life in the comparison that it did in the original posting.

If you teach stereotypes such that someone actually believes that a civilization was at it's height as savages, then writers are going to continue the stereotype.
If you don't have evidence that contradicts the stereotype because of generational neglect in academia, then it lingers.
I expect that stereotype to change as conversations and academic papers rewrite African history without depending on a western audience to write them.
I expect writers to be more aware and realign themselves to whatever reflects the actual appropriate state of "fantasy African civilzation" should be over time.

Just in case the intent was to polarize and show the difference between conventional "white" and conventional "black" realism, I had no intention of being on the "white" side even if I am white. Just going off of the tragic but improving state of documented African history prior to Europe screwing it all up.

I'm trying really hard not to be a part of the racist/not racist discussion and feel like I'm failing horribly so I'll bow out.

Boots

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Hah, you do know that the Bavarians love to hate the "Saupreißn" as they call the Prussians? (which is, to them, everyone north of Bavaria)

Yeah. It's like how to non-Americans, a Yankee is an American; to American Southerners, a Yankee is a Northerner; to Northerners, a Yankee is a New Englander; to New Englanders, a Yankee is a Connecticutter; and to Connecticutters, a Yankee is a RICH Connecticutter.

...or a New York City baseball team for some reason.