Some thoughts (recognizing that I am myself a white dude):
1) Yes, it would be great to hear from the prospective of POC on this issue. Which is exactly what this article does. The article, aside from the historical context parts, is primarily a collection of takes from black gamers. They asked several. Which is kind of the point, seeing as whatever number of black gamers this article consulted about
ToA was also the exact number of black gamers the article's author consulted
beyond that which WotC consulted in making
ToA.
2) There's been a lot of hand-wringing in this thread about how white (and/or male, and/or straight, and/or etc.) creatives "can't win" and you know what? There's a certain degree of truth to that. But to simply stop there is to only scratch the surface and ignore
why that might be. When you dig deeper you realize the problem isn't sensitivity; it's privilege. The white straight male story has been done to death, and continues to be done to death. Our culture is increasingly demanding, appreciating and celebrating diverse stories. This is not to say that white people can't or shouldn't continue to tell their stories, but they should expect a certain degree of pushback or at least eye-rolling, but that's really the worst they can really expect, considering how privileged white narratives still are from a financial/mass market appeal perspective.
2a) Side-note, but if you think that we have no way of knowing what African fantasy is supposed to look like, it is not because such stories do not actually exist.
It's because you haven't been reading them.
3) Of course, the better alternative for white creatives is to incorporate diverse perspectives within their own stories. This does, of course, appear to be a fraught and perilous endeavor. But it doesn't have to be. You just have to put in the work. Research. Consult. Workshop. Open yourself up to the criticism
before you ship the final product. Or you could skip all of that and just go with your instincts. Guess which path WotC took? (hint: remember how many people of color consulted on
ToA?)
4) And here is why people with privilege
need to do that work if they choose to present diverse perspectives: the greatest hallmark of privilege is to see one's privileged position as the "default". Remember that ridiculous Jack Nicholson line from As Good As It Gets? About how he writes women by starting with a man and taking away reason and accountability? That's a pretty on the nose representation of this phenomenon.
4a) I almost wrote "mentality" instead of "phenomenon" but I wanted to make one thing clear: in the vast majority of these cases (i.e; those in the real world, as opposed to Nicholson's character) this is entirely unconscious and unintentional. It's the way we're socialized. Everything that we've been presented, up to and including many of the ways we present and talk about issues of "diversity" reinforce the notion of "white straight and male (and able-bodied and etc.)" as defaults. I'm a white straight male who has spent the last decade or so trying to un-learn this and it's still difficult. Nobody said this was going to easy. At the same time, don't expect any credit just for trying. When it comes to actual impact of what you do, your intentions are ultimately irrelevant.
4b) Anyway, back to research. This mostly entails
actually seeking out and finding diverse perspectives. And, and this seems to be the more difficult part for a lot of people,
taking them at face value. You have to listen and you have to believe. You want to know how to "win"? This might not encompass the entirety of the work you have to do. But it's absolutely where you have to
start.
4c) What this allows you to do is to imagine others complexly, to borrow a turn of phrase from John Green. This goes beyond mere "empathy" and into the realm of "understanding".
4d) When you don't bother with doing any of these things, the only things you have to fall back on when trying to present diverse perspectives are commonly recognized stereotypes and tropes. Note that, in the vast majority of these stereotypes and tropes were invented by white creatives for largely white audiences. These are therefore definitionally
not "diverse perspectives"; they are still quite solidly
white perspectives on diverse cultures. This is what
ToA, with it's distinct lack of diverse voices anywhere within the development process, ultimately is.
5) Good intentions do count for a few things, I suppose, even if they fall woefully short of adequate. That the hearts of the designers were probably in the right place is evident by the fact that, in updating a 20+ year-old setting rife with horrifically racist depictions (some from as recently as 9 years ago, it seems), they managed to create something that isn't all that overtly offensive (mad monkey disease notwithstanding). But that's a depressingly low bar, and one which they still managed to clip a little in the vaulting. Why they didn't bother to consult with POC gamers or creators, we probably will never truly know. But whether it was because they didn't want to put in the effort or because the thought never crossed their mind it was something they ought to do in the first place, it represents a clear display of laziness.
6) And here we reach the point where we have to talk about the expectations game. See, all those earlier depictions of Chult (or, as has been pointed out, all of the other incredibly lazy and/or incredibly racist non-white real-world culture fantasy mash-ups that typify the broader Forgotten Realms setting) didn't suddenly become more racist overnight. They were always racist. But nobody really batted an eye, not even at that line about noble savages and cannibals, released several months after Barack Obama became the first black major party presidential candidate. I mean, I'm sure there were voices of anger and frustration within the community at these depictions, I don't want to diminish that at all, but they weren't exactly widespread and they weren't spawning think pieces in internet nerd culture journalism. But in the majority of the community, they either didn't even notice or didn't think it was a big deal.
5a) The 5e Player's Handbook changed everything though. D&D was suddenly a very inclusive game, and it wanted to let you know that. The title image for "Humans" is black woman. Artwork of diverse characters proliferate the entire document. There were inclusive statements on sexuality and gender, and it's easy to forget how radical its statement calling out its specifically trans inclusivity was; that it's still not a broadly popular stance within mainstream
liberal community, let alone the wider population as a whole, nearly three and a half years later. This was a D&D that was trying to do so much better for its diverse array of fans.
5b) This brings us to the paradox of "knowing better"; when you appear to know better, to "get it", the expectations for you are higher and when you mess up, the criticism comes that much stronger. Thus, why this version of Chult is
significantly better than any that have preceded it, but that it's still not good enough, and why WotC seems to be receiving
more criticism than they had in the past, when nobody expected any better. You might think that this is not fair, and you'd be absolutely correct. But imagine, for a moment, the amount of privilege required for the following scenario: the biggest release from the biggest company in an forty-plus year-old industry prominently features black characters and a black culture
and not a single person of color was involved in its creation. And nobody involved thought this was enough of a problem to do something about it. "Fair" has
never been part of the equation.
6) Ultimately, the issue is the fact that you had this great team with many years of experience among them and all of them were white. And it's endemic of gaming; I mean, it's endemic of basically every American (or hell, Western) media, but gaming is no exception and if anything it is less diverse than other forms of media. By the way, this is why there are women-only gaming writing competitions people seem to love to talk crap about (I'm not away of any POC-exclusive competitions within the field, but there really ought to be). It's about developing and promoting diverse voices so this kind of lazy essentializing stops happening in products released in 2017 and beyond. I mean, even just consulting with prominent fans of colors on your pan-African-inspired setting is a pretty damn low bar, and it's still one WotC failed to clear. And yeah, we do expect better of WotC at this point.
7) But, and here's the main takeaway, I would certainly hope that WotC expects better of itself at this point also. Because if they don't, then yeah... maybe our expectations for them were too high after all.
