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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7539664" data-attributes="member: 37579">There is very much racism inherent in portraying the evil groups of people as being dark skinned. Having "the other" that is evil and demonized be non-white. That's basically the foundation of racism and xenophobia. And there's a long history of that in the world and in cinema. Having the bad guys be foreigners or "the other". You can see the roots of that in the modern day with every alien invasion movie, which taps into the same primal fears of "an other" coming to our land and killing our people. Making that "other" dark skinned taps into a long, long, long history of racism. Which was used to justify the slave trade. Are they? Are there really? What non-evil PoC are there canonically in Greyhawk? Heck… what canonical PoC are there in Greyhawk…? What illustrations in 1e and 2e books feature people of colour? Plus, the evil subhuman "other" races are universally dark skinned. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, drow, duergar, etc. Even the yuan-ti have an "orientalism" around them.Yeah, he probably did not design them that way as intentional racism. He did so because they were "dark elves" in the myth.But he also didn't decide NOT to make the evil races black because that could be seen as racist. And he also didn't try to make a pale skinned evil race to balance that out OR a generally good dark skinned people. Oh man… discussing Gary's views on race...This is not going to be comfortable because he is so beloved. (And, y'know, dead and not here to defend himself.)Was Gary a racist? Well, he was life long Christian who was initially a Jehovah's Witness who voted Republican most of his life before switching to Libertarianism near the end and was born and raised in the midwest in overwhelmingly white Wisconsin (it's around 90% white now, but would have been whiter in the 1980s of D&D and even more so in the 40s and 50s when Gary grew up).I don't think Gary would have identified as "racist". But he was almost certainly a product of his era and area and wouldn't have been particularly aware of racist stereotypes or knowledgable or concerned about black issues.He'd be the kind of person who would say things like "I'm not racist, but…" or ask "don't all lives matter?" or wonder "why must everything be about race?"So not racist per se. But very much unaware of the issues. Not woke. I really don't want to get political, but I think we all know the kind of hat Gary would be wearing if he were still alive, and whose rallies he'd be attending...Let's gets some quotes as examples. How about The World of Greyhawk follio. Which has in its introduction:"less still is known about the savage inhabitants of the other continents, but such knowledge is, of course, of little use anyway, and of no importance to humanity."So right away we the other continents being "savage" and implied to be inhuman (or subhuman) as what happens there doesn't matter to humanity. Unintentional, but to a modern reading… wow. That's not comfortable. Not everyone in the setting is white. The darker skinned Flan people are present, but are really more akin to the First Nation than African, while the Baklunish are very much Arabic.The Flan description reads:"The Flan tribesmen were hardy and capable hunters but not particularly warlike, and their small and scattered groups made no appreciable civilizing efforts."Using "tribesmen" to refer to a people who were conquered a century ago would raise some red flags in a modern book. As would "civilizing efforts" which is pretty ethnocentric. And when discussing their dress: "Flannae once wore brightly-hued body paints, with yellow ochre and vermilion being the favorites. While the Rovers of the Barrens still use considerable body painting (where theri high boots, loincloth and chest and arm leather don't cover them), the more civilized Flan dress in the mode currently fashionable in their portion of the continent."Again, emphasis on the word "civilized". I think Gary would very much just not have understood the racism (and sexism) of having the drow be evil. The problems of having the only dark skinned elves (and dwarves) in Greyhawk be evil. No.Because there's not a history of two centuries of active oppression with systemic racism that continues to this day.It's all about the context.</blockquote>

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