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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7976927" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Nothing is simple, IME. Definitely a topic worth being considered and thinking through, not just sprinting headlong into potential social rejection because you didn’t consult anyone who could have told you that you were accidentally using a trope that has been used against a particular marginalized group, in your work. There are plenty of POC who are part of the TTRPG and fantasy communities, so there is no need to act like it’s a question of hiring someone based solely on being a POC. Sensitivity readers/consultants help a project avoid public ridicule, but also provide insight into how people who relate emotionally/socially to a culture will interact with the product even beyond “will they view the product as trashy and lazy due to ill informed appropriation” and “will people reject the project because it’s all about African and South Asian cultures, and the company hired people to work on it, but they were all white*”, etc.Things like, “folks will be excited about this element,” and “this is an element that is normally overlooked that a lot of SA nerds wish was used more”, etc, are valuable insights. Because the western games/fantasy market is diverse, and POC nerds tend to have a better idea of what POC nerds want to see in a work that features cultures and faces that they identify with. No, it’s pretty rare that outsiders have a solid grasp on a culture without becoming part of it. They often think they understand it, though, and are laughably off-base. No, there is no such flipside.It’s real simple. Power dynamics change the ethical nature of an action.POC in the US have every ethical right to subvert, parody, and otherwise play around with elements of white American culture. The reverse is not true.White American Culture benefits materially from the marginalization, both historical and current, of POC in the US and abroad (things like Apple factories in China, etc.) Since White people aren’t being oppressed in any context in the world that has any impact on the lives of American POC, the reverse is not true.That is a power dynamic that defines cultural appropriation.</blockquote>

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