Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563889I don't know about vikings or scottish picts but The idea of irish as savage barbarians was certainly a stereotype employed here in Boston when they first started coming here in large numbers. Saw it all the time when I had to go through old newspapers and city records for my history internship.

Something my grandfather (born in 1897) still had to deal with (and told me about).

People really do over react to these things! So there are stereotypes in Golarion and in many other settings - big deal! Does that make them racist? I don't think so, uninformed perhaps or perhaps a tool to used to get some element across to the reader. So some elements relates to misconceptions of romer. But are they gypsies in disguise and therefore racist? I don't think so but that is my opinion. I have meet romer who are thiefs but I have also meet several that is not.

What people from the privileged white suburbia forget is that many of the cultures they so defend is full of discriminatory elements themselves. I have experienced it first hand in asia where people have mistaken me for being british or american and gotten treated pretty badly than if I were for example chinese even in environments where you would expect people to treat you with respect such as hospitals.  

And no I don't consider myself bigotted or ignorant or racist. I don't believe that one culture is superior to all the rest. I do acknowledge however that the human species are inherently ignorant of other cultures than their own. And ignorance does fuel racism.

Personally I don't think the world will change due to removing certain potential elements of racism in a game supplement. But as always vote with your feet!

Sorry for the rant but I get so tired on the knights in shining armour around certain forums that probably should actually try to live in the real world instead of hanging around forums with the intention of creating yet another tempest over nothing.

Quote from: KenHR;563867Haven't read everything here yet (my eyes ache from rolling...I thought the 'site was better than this), but: no.

Golarion is no more racist than Eurocentric settings that distill the variety of Celtic or Northern European cultures into a limited, stereotyped set of archetypes (like the Pict or Viking).

NOW you did it....

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563889I don't know about vikings or scottish picts but The idea of irish as savage barbarians was certainly a stereotype employed here in Boston when they first started coming here in large numbers. Saw it all the time when I had to go through old newspapers and city records for my history internship.

Don't forget drunks.

I don't know if it was intended or not, but his comment reads like stereotypes are only bad when it's white people making them about non-white people.

And, well, that's sort of odd.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563889I don't know about vikings or scottish picts but The idea of irish as savage barbarians was certainly a stereotype employed here in Boston when they first started coming here in large numbers. Saw it all the time when I had to go through old newspapers and city records for my history internship.

Yep, just ask the German Catholics when they started showing up in the Midwest.

Quote from: estar;563890Something my grandfather (born in 1897) still had to deal with (and told me about).

They were very cruel to the irish. I was very surprised to read about. Blatantly racist headlines anytime Irish were involved in a violent arrest.

Quote from: TomatoMalone;563883You cannot be this fucking obtuse. The Viking and the Pict, inaccurate though all their depictions may be, are stereotypes made by other white people. They have never been used to marginalize or oppress minorities. They have never been used to dismiss the entirety of white people as a bunch of savages/thieves/honorable tea-swilling samurai. Stop talking out of your ass and think before you post.

Listen, asshole, you have no idea who I am, nor do you have any idea of my ethnicity or history of dealing with racism (and it's off-topic for purposes of this thread anyway).  I have one hell of a whole lot more knowledge on the topic, first-hand and through academic research, than I know you do by the ignorant fucking response you made to my post.

And anyway, the following posts have pointed up how much YOU'RE talking out your ass.

Go fuck yourself.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563889I don't know about vikings or scottish picts but The idea of irish as savage barbarians was certainly a stereotype employed here in Boston when they first started coming here in large numbers. Saw it all the time when I had to go through old newspapers and city records for my history internship.

Quote from: estar;563890Something my grandfather (born in 1897) still had to deal with (and told me about).

Quote from: Sacrosanct;563893Don't forget drunks.

I don't know if it was intended or not, but his comment reads like stereotypes are only bad when it's white people making them about non-white people.

And, well, that's sort of odd.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563895They were very cruel to the irish. I was very surprised to read about. Blatantly racist headlines anytime Irish were involved in a violent arrest.

Quote from: nitril;563891People really do over react to these things! So there are stereotypes in Golarion and in many other settings - big deal! Does that make them racist? I don't think so, uninformed perhaps or perhaps a tool to used to get some element across to the reader. So some elements relates to misconceptions of romer. But are they gypsies in disguise and therefore racist? I don't think so but that is my opinion. I have meet romer who are thiefs but I have also meet several that is not.

What people from the privileged white suburbia forget is that many of the cultures they so defend is full of discriminatory elements themselves. I have experienced it first hand in asia where people have mistaken me for being british or american and gotten treated pretty badly than if I were for example chinese even in environments where you would expect people to treat you with respect such as hospitals.  

And no I don't consider myself bigotted or ignorant or racist. I don't believe that one culture is superior to all the rest. I do acknowledge however that the human species are inherently ignorant of other cultures than their own. And ignorance does fuel racism.

Personally I don't think the world will change due to removing certain potential elements of racism in a game supplement. But as always vote with your feet!

Sorry for the rant but I get so tired on the knights in shining armour around certain forums that probably should actually try to live in the real world instead of hanging around forums with the intention of creating yet another tempest over nothing.

True enough, and sorry Pundit if I'm drifting this thread further off topic, but my mother, a Korean, is the nicest, most accepting person in the world who will make friends with anyone.  Unless they're Chinese or Japanese.  Then what comes out of her mouth is shocking.  Considering the history there, I can understand on some level, but wow.

But no, the sociology 101 kids would have it that racism is an invention of white Western culture...and, well, I'll stop here and bow out of the thread because I'm doing exactly what the site owner doesn't want.

Quote from: Benoist;563866That however I'm going to answer to. Assuming some people would take that shit seriously (I'm not talking about you, Rum, but some asshole who might read this and think to himself "YEAH, DAMN RIGHT!"), let me put it that way.

I'm French. Not Quebec-French. I'm French-French, from the motherfucking Homeland of the French. The Froglands.

I have NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER with what RPG Pundit did with France in his Dark Albion setting. ACTUALLY, it completely makes sense from a crazy fantasy version of the prejudices the British had against the French, and vice versa, ESPECIALLY when we are talking about the time frame where a little something occured that's called the motherfucking ONE HUNDRED YEAR WAR.

It's a parody. It's a carricature. And I think it's a damn cool carricature because you also have this idea that the Frogmen took over the country and stuff, that there are collaborators who help them control the lands, which means... there also could be a Resistance out there... you see where this is going? Well, I'm feeling it and want to run with it so much in fact that I'm going to spin this into its own thing.

I'm going to flesh out the Froglands for Dark Albion. Me. A Frenchman.

OMG The Prejudice this asshole has against the French...

Wait a minute. He just said he's a Frenchman. Hating on his own people the bastard!!

Give me a fucking break.

The fact that your hatred is self-hatred doesn't mean you're not a racist.  

Quote from: KenHR;563900But no, the sociology 101 kids would have it that racism is an invention of white Western culture...and, well, I'll stop here and bow out of the thread because I'm doing exactly what the site owner doesn't want.

Well duh. If you're not a white male, you can't be "ist".  WTF did you go to school?

:popcorn:

Quote from: KenHR;563900True enough, and sorry Pundit if I'm drifting this thread further off topic, but my mother, a Korean, is the nicest, most accepting person in the world who will make friends with anyone.  Unless they're Chinese or Japanese.  Then what comes out of her mouth is shocking.  Considering the history there, I can understand on some level, but wow.

When I lived in Korea, I too noticed how much hatred a lot of Koreans had especially towards the Japanese.  Knowing the history, I can't exactly blame them.

But in the context of racism, living in Korea gave me a huge lesson in perspective.  See, I'm a white guy.  When I grew up in the US, I knew racism existed and was bad and all that.  But it wasn't until I lived in Korea before I realized just what white privilege was.  You know, the things you take for granted but don't realize.  In Korea, I was discriminated against a lot because not only was I an American, but I was a soldier as well.  Not violent discrimination, but smaller things, like the stares of contempt, being charged twice as much as anyone else, being pushed to the back of the train lines, etc.  That gave me some more perspective.  Re: white privilege, I now understood what it felt like to be the only person of your race in a room full of people.

As I told my white friends, "Next time you go to class (they were in college), imagine everyone else there is black, and you're the only white person.  How do you think that would make you feel?"

My non-white friends all shook their heads like, "Now he understands."

That all being said, I really liked my time in Korea, and spent 4 years there

But these threads?  This is the impression I get from TBP crowd:

If it can be racist, then it must be racist.  Maybe if people stopped looking to be offended at everything, they could actually enjoy a game.  Accusing someone of being racist is pretty serious.  Accusing a company of being racist is even worse because now your fucking with someone's livelyhood.  So before doing so, you better damn well have solid evidence and not just personal bias because you get offended at something minor.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563895They were very cruel to the irish. I was very surprised to read about. Blatantly racist headlines anytime Irish were involved in a violent arrest.

No shortage of anti Irish racism these days either. There's really only two places it persists though, those would be the UK and some limited parts of Australia. I put it down to them having smaller penises.

Hmm this thread has moved waay beyond what I'm comfortable discussing so I'll bow out for now with the final words of IMO Golarion is no more racist than any other Fantasy world which some parts are loosely based on our own  world's races/cultures etc..
Which to me means it simply isn't racist, it's just drawing information from familiar concepts we can work with.

Anyway good night all

I was going to post a trolling comment saying 'I can't judge if Golarion was racist because I only read the parts of the setting about white people': but then I recalled Golarion is the setting where the only white people in the setting are either Viking rapists that only stopped raping because they were put down by their Evil (as in actually worshiping demons and evil Gods) Imperialistic Oppressor cousins that enslave all the non-whites in the setting for the lulz.

All of the other bastardized, non-evil European cultures in the game were given to some ersatz non-white real life analogue because the core campaign setting was too much of a progressives wet dream to have any positive portrayals of white people apparently.