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The civil thread about racism and fantasy worlds.


Jarno Mikkola

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Done.

Moderators are encouraged to moderate and cut stuff here if they want to, or lock this down, but I have my piece to say.

Here's the jist of this, somebody suggested this. And here we are, quoting the other thread then:

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Jarno, the problem is not with your beliefs about mythical blue-skinned fairies, but with your choice of imagery. Take that shit down, it is overtly racist at worst, and even if you are wholly ignorant and have the most angelic of intentions, it is still squicky as hell. 

Ouh how wron...

My choise of imagery was a chimp, in human cloths. What subtledoctor doesn't realize is that the chimp is likely the closes of the todays monkeys to us, the humans. And by my calculations there's about million mothers between each of us and the chimp. Give or take. The figure coming from the likely separation event 7 or so million years ago. Give or take.
'K, so how does this relate to the "mythical blue-skinned fairies", which is actually a reference to the drow elf called Drizzt Do'Urden that I brought up, kinda, which could be a repesentative of any of these: a Black Person, a Man, a Wrong Religion Representative, a Criminal, a Refugee, Gay, Lower Class Citizen, Military Convict, Thief, Terrorist. Or any and most of them.
What one might not understand is that stories can have other purposes than just tell a good story, it's also to widen the listeners mind, and maybe allow them to project themselves onto the protagonists world and in so doing, also notice what you might want to avoid in your own daily life. But that's just the cynic in me.

Point made. Counter arguments ?

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I didn't think the image was making (or referencing) anything in RL (although I skimmed and didn't give it much thought) - had the previous post been referencing Aasimar attempting to pass for non-aasimar, or a dwarf for a gnome, or an elf for a human - I could see the reply/image being used just as it was then (without others drawing parallels with RL) - if that's the case, then those parallels are just as likely coincidental as they were intentional.  I thought it was just a comedic attempt at pointing out that it requires a lot of imagination in a RP sense to equate a hated/feared/reveiled race in Forgotten Realms as indistinguishable from one that isn't (just like none would mistake a non-human for a human).

I've also never drawn parallels between drow and any RL representations - to me, it's its own unique fantasy concept (just like I don't think of a green skin orc as anything, I don't think of a blue skin elf as anything - although I've always thought of them as EQ dark elves === drow, thus more bluish).

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There's a long and sordid history of this imagery, specifically in reference to darker-skinned people, of which we need to be aware whether it was intended or not. This is an opportunity for everyone to learn something, and be better humans as a result.

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I'm a bit out of context, but I come here to say that I like monkeys. Very much! (In fact, I'm using a monkey picture in my socials networks)

To me (non US), human looking monkeys are not cringe nor racist. But again, it depends on the context.

Banksy's monkeys drawings can't be told to be racist, Michelle Obama caricature drawing are.

I'll add that in western Europe, evolution theory is very mainstream, it might have some influence on the perception.

Edited by Jazira
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My objection was the comparison to drow being able to pass for a surface elf being as likely as a monkey passing as a human. Which is rather tasteless if divorced from the real world, and in light of the real world offensive as all get out.   Especially since it was unneeded comparison when someone (me) just shared one of their personal rp idea they use in the game and hence why they liked the subrace mod. To burst out the monkey comparison, pic and all; was again at best tasteless at worst deeply racist.

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Now, I was not suggesting that a drow could never pass as a regular elf if they made the effort to try, they have this thing a called magic. But that it is unlikely to pass if it's taken to an extream, like asking to take a drow without the skintone, and hairtone adjustment in rp. And even then, it can be kinda guestionable. Yes, they can also cloth up and pass as a stanger, but those measures have their end at a point. And that point can be very bad, as in a ran through blades point. There's even a psychological term for this, %&/ panic...  it's a dark subject and I won't be linking a video about it here. Feel free to as via PM.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
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If you'd just said that and not the monkey comparison we wouldn't be here. The issue was not your disagreement of drow being able to pass as a surface elf. The issue was/is the monkey comparison. This has been explained to you and I don't care to debate with you any further on any of this.

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Sorry to say, but it hasn't been thoroughly enough said why it's so ? You know, if for example Elves would today open up a portal and enter our world, have "magic" and interact, the monkey would likely not still pass as a human, even for them. There I said all the invisible hints you will not be able to detect if you aren't thoughtful enough. Care to response ?

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17 hours ago, kijikun said:

This has been explained to you

 

17 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Sorry to say, but it hasn't been thoroughly enough said why it's so ?

 

On 2/27/2022 at 11:40 PM, CamDawg said:

There's a long and sordid history of this imagery, specifically in reference to darker-skinned people, of which we need to be aware whether it was intended or not.

I love being able to make a point solely by quoting what's already been written.

Jarno, to make it crystal flaking clear, since I think you are from a place where that sort of thing is outside the daily experience, a place where racial conflict is rare because every last person is blessedly white as the driven snow:

In more polyglot places in the world, where people of more varying hues coexist, that coexistence is not always easy and sometimes it involves conflict. In particular, ever since the mid-1800s there has been a long history of using ape imagery and comparisons to unjustifiably insult and dehumanize this or that group, generally along ethnic lines. (Not always targeting people with dark skin!) It is stupid, it stems from a time when the brightest and most privileged people on Earth were stupid and didn't understand science. Now in the 21st century, we do understand science, and this kind of insult therefore persists solely to be hurtful. The comparison of this or that ethnic group to apes is used, these days, as a way to enthusiastically express one's racism.

So when you post imagery of an ape, in the context of a conversation about race, even though the conversation is specifically about a mythical fairy race, it implies all sorts of things that you probably don't mean to imply, and people can quite naturally assume that you are enthusiastically expressing that you are racist - racist in particularly stupid, hurtful way.

That's why I suggested, if you did not mean that post to trumpet your own racism, then you should probably take the image down. Because even if you only meant to make a point about blue fairies, that imagery in the context of race is so toxic that people are likely to misinterpret it.

(And if you are enthusiastically racist, well, it's a free country* but we don't want to hear about it so please STFU about it and take that shit to 8chan or something.)

* (in some countries... fewer every day it seems :( )

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3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Jarno, to make it crystal flaking clear, since I think you are from a place where that sort of thing is outside the daily experience, a place where racial conflict is rare because every last person is blessedly white as the driven snow:

In more polyglot places in the world, where people of more varying hues coexist, that coexistence is not always easy and sometimes it involves conflict. In particular, ever since the mid-1800s there has been a long history of using ape imagery and comparisons to unjustifiably insult and dehumanize this or that group, generally along ethnic lines.

Holy cow, that's some internalized racism. Ahh, well, I think this tells about you more than about me. See, I live in a town that produces things, and as such, we don't choose our people, they choose to live here and I have a lot of neighbors that are various groups of ethnicities. Yes, in Finland, in the year 2022.

The "white as the driven snow", doesn't really make sense, I would take a picture, but you know when you wake up at 7PM, and there's kinda darks outside, when the day normally has about 3 hours of light. So yeah, I won't bother.

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Huh. I gave you waaay more words than should have been necessary, trying to explain something of which you seemed ignorant (though you still haven’t confirmed that you weren’t being overtly racist, which, not great). And you take it as... a provocation? An offense?

OK man, I’m done trying to help you take your foot out of your mouth. Good luck.

Edited by subtledoctor
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How about this, I'll state that there is no real races except that of a humans, and non-humans, and so your consept of race, the one you have probably taught to, is wrong, cause if you skip the few millimeters down from your skin, it's mostly red anyways. And the deeper you go, the bloodier it gets.. and the structures will generatically be then either one or the second one, depending on the genetical variant that can be measured with simple xy/xx chromosome test, and yes, there are other types of results for that, like xxy, and x, but those are still all humans. While some texts might say othervise. But texts are for base knowledge, not the actual circumstances, or rather if infered as such, cause you can take the text as is and in so doing misread that hunams can only have 23 pairs of chromosomes.

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

And you take it as... a provocation? An offense?

When, you are wrong and I show it to you 🙄, you might want to not take it as such, yourself. But then again, we have this old relationship, so why turn it around. 

 

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Good luck.

Thanks, now, take my words sincerely, they are meant as such.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
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The problem you're having is realizing that the perception of what you say is not at all dependent on what you think. That doesn't matter at all — you could believe in green zebras and monkeys in dresses would still trigger bad cultural memories.

And races of course exist; it's a taxonomical category like any other. Whether it makes sense to try to describe human differences that way is another, contested, issue.

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