Quote from: CRKrueger;565228It seems like you're looking for the creation of a line, so then it becomes easy to label something racist and be legit, which, actually doesn't surprise me too much, based on that other thread.

Well, that is kind of the point of the thread, right?  

QuoteThe problem with defining racism is that in many cases it is a thoughtcrime, defined by intent.  A historical article defining and explaining what a Minstrel Show is, showing white people in blackface, is not racist, no matter how offensive the imagery might be, or the racial background of the author.  Creating a blog article about the BET awards using those same pictures would be obscenely racist(or would it - if it was satire by Spike Lee?).

Sure, the line isn't always easy to draw.  Nor do I think it should be; this kind of thing requires a good deal of thought and reflection.  I also don't think "No it isn't" makes for a particularly thoughtful answer.  Paraphrasing Doctor Jest's cartoon, 'P makes me uncomfortable, so P cannot be true' isn't a particularly stringent application of logic.

QuoteTalking about black people in Golarion and saying "They're all like this" and showing a picture of a shirtless, spearwielding tribesman is racist.  Showing that same exact picture as an accurate representation of one black culture (one of which Norton proved there are many) is not racist.  Except for yet another white person looking for yet another way to have a conversation about how the modern white world is racist.

A good point.

QuoteBTW, do some reading on the neuroscience/psychology of stereotyping.  Guess what?  The act itself is not "ist", it's a way our brain categorizes and processes information.  I go to a town in the backwoods country of West Virginia, my brain is going to have some ideas about what I will find when I go there.  My brain is playing percentages for me.  It's up to me whether I actually stop in the town and talk to anybody or drive through thinking everyone is going to be an ignorant inbred hick.  What I do with the stereotype is the racist act.  Now some stereotypes are formed from real experience and facts, others are formed from propaganda and "echo-chamber learning" and some are deliberately created as a racist act itself.  

Knowing the difference and judging on an individual basis is the key.

Absolutely.

Quote from: CRKrueger;565228BTW, do some reading on the neuroscience/psychology of stereotyping.  Guess what?  The act itself is not "ist", it's a way our brain categorizes and processes information.  I go to a town in the backwoods country of West Virginia, my brain is going to have some ideas about what I will find when I go there.  My brain is playing percentages for me.  It's up to me whether I actually stop in the town and talk to anybody or drive through thinking everyone is going to be an ignorant inbred hick.  What I do with the stereotype is the racist act.  Now some stereotypes are formed from real experience and facts, others are formed from propaganda and "echo-chamber learning" and some are deliberately created as a racist act itself.

I highly recommend Tucker And Dale Vs Evil.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;565228Knowing the difference and judging on an individual basis is the key.

Stereotypes are naturally used as a way to improve are ability to make predictions in the face of unknowns.  Accurate stereotypes improve the accuracy of guesses, while inaccurate stereotypes can make the guesses worse.  Normal people readily discard their broad stereotypes once they learn more about an individual and can use that information to make better predictions because they understand that stereotypes aren't universal and individuals vary.  Hard core racists, on the other hand, will hang on to their stereotypes even when their knowledge of an individual should invalidate that stereotype or they won't even bother to gather more information about the individual.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;564838I find it funny that those who are calling it lazy seem to have their solutions as one of the following:

1. include every culture (which is logistically impossible)

or

2. completely change the culture so that it doesn't resemble anything like it actually is.

Either one seems awfully boneheaded to me.  I haven't seen anyone give another answer.

I don't think #2 is such a bad idea.  How about the African analogues are the advanced peoples, and the Northern Europeans analogues are the barbarian 'savages'?  Not the height of brilliance or anything, I admit, bit it's a start.  

In other words, do the dark-skinned people have to be based on real African history?  Wouldn't some mixing and matching work better?  Maybe they aren't from a continent that is rather poorer in metal, and has temperate grasslands instead of savannah.  The warmer southern region is bounded by rugged jungles and rainforest, but the somewhat cooler northern part is mostly mountainous deciduous forest.  The southern peoples would probably stick to lighter armours, but they would definitely have better iron or steel weapons and utensils.  The darker skin is a holdover from having to hide in the dim light of the forested areas from predators with very keen eyesight; the ones who were able to blend into the shadows better survived to pass on those genes.

How about all cultures are roughly equal in advances and regressions?  Perhaps Golarion already has this, but each culture (African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern) has one really advanced group (civilized), one really primitive group (savages/barbarians), and several that fall between the two.  I assume it isn't a problem for the various analogues to have similar advances in astronomy, metallurgy, spell craft, or whatever else that is roughly comparable to the baseline assumption for D&D (12th-15th c. Europe).

I'm not saying anyone here is a bad player/DM, or that they lack imagination.  I understand the 'shortcuts'.  I do think they are a bit lazy in this case.  Why use real world analogues at all?  But if they are necessary, just shifting everything one place to the left would probably head off many racism complaints; whether they are valid or not, we can't deny that they exist.  Make the 'Asians' shirtless, spear-wielding 'savages'.  Give the 'Africans' a 'coffee ceremony' and an honour-based culture.  The 'Middle Easterners' explore the world in pursuit of 'scientific' advancements, while the 'Europeans' are almost lost in the inner workings of mysticism.

Maybe I am just too optimistic.  

Quote from: StormBringer;565508I don't think #2 is such a bad idea.  How about the African analogues are the advanced peoples, and the Northern Europeans analogues are the barbarian 'savages'?  Not the height of brilliance or anything, I admit, bit it's a start.  

The is pretty close to what Golarion already does.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;565517The is pretty close to what Golarion already does.

That isn't exactly what I am getting from the descriptions provided so far, but I don't have the books to hand and likely never will. If that is what they are doing, then obviously I would approve.

On the other hand, I am speaking in more general terms, as the racism in Golarion (again, with the above caveat) appears virtually non-existent, and where it could be argued to exist, it sounds more like laziness than malice, as others have pointed out.

Quote from: John Morrow;565468So how should this be handled?  Should the stereotype of the greedy merchant or mysterious and alluring but dangerous wanderer be banished?  Is it enough to simply not associate those roles with a specific ethnicity, leaving the possibility of greedy merchants or alluring but dangerous wanderers as individuals in a broader ethnicity open?  Is it possible to illustrate the inaccuracies of the stereotypes and emphasize the common humanity of those groups without coming off as preachy and self-righteous?  I don't know what the right answer is here, but I do think that justifying their use simply on the basis of their ubiquitous presence in the source fiction that many role-playing games draws doesn't sound very persuasive to me.

Like I said, my preference is to use stereotypes in unexpected ways - deliberately breaking from how they are used in old fiction.  I talked about how I did that with Iroquois and Algonquians in my Vinland game.  

I did have fairly stereotypical gypsies in my old Gothic Fantasy campaign, but in retrospect I regret that.  If I were to do it again, I would probably include a Romany analog and have them fit a number of stereotypes different from the gypsy stereotypes of old fiction but consistent with Romany culture.  For example, I might have the main group of Romany in my game matching pilgrim stereotypes - taking cues from portrayals of Puritans or Mormons.  

Quote from: John Morrow;565468I think that otherness, exotic villains, and alluring but dangerous strangers are all common, useful, and strong fictional elements that can produce enjoyable results.  As I said above, they resonate with the way people interpret certain social roles, even when they are not tied to a particular ethnicity.  I also think that context can matter (whether the stereotype is the only depiction presented or part of a broader palette of characters and character types for that ethnicity).  For example, I think a Fu Manchu villain and other stereotypes in Big Trouble In Little China that exists alongside a wider ranger of Chinese characters is not the same as a Fu Manchu villain leading faceless Chinese minions in a heavy-handed Cold War thriller depicting the Chinese people as a menace.  So part of my answer is that I can imaging a Fu Manchu villain being used to good effect in an appropriate context, holding up Big Trouble In Little China as an example, but  I also can imagine it being a problem and coming off quite racist.

I'd largely agree with this - though I feel like "coming off quite racist" seems hedging.  The original Fu Manchu stories and films were racist, and many later uses of those same tropes were as well.  Big Trouble in Little China took very deliberate steps to deviate from the usual Chinese stereotypes in most of its characters - and even to some degree in David Lo Pan.  It did not simply use the established Chinese stereotypes in American film, but rather mixed things up a lot.  

I could talk more, but I don't have time.  I might follow up later with some more thoughts.

I think the best way to create an interesting Fantasy culture is to make sure that it is "loosely" identifiable as a real-world analogue or blend of analogues.

However, the kicker is to have the players know enough at a glance about the culture so they don't feel like they're on an alien world, yet give the cultures enough depth that there is a lot to discover.

If you do that, I don't care if the Zulu-esque analogue people are pale yellow skinned, with green hair, and live in the bitter north or not.  Because in the end, they're not Zulus and someone who thinks I'm saying something about Zulus through my fantasy culture is a fucking moron.

Quote from: John Morrow;565065Yet there are people who feel exactly like that about Wagner or even buying Volkswagens.

"Jews in BMWs.  What's up with that?"
-Sarah Silverman

Quote from: StormBringer;565508I don't think #2 is such a bad idea.  How about the African analogues are the advanced peoples, and the Northern Europeans analogues are the barbarian 'savages'?  Not the height of brilliance or anything, I admit, bit it's a start.  

The European Dark Ages were the heyday of the Mali Empire.

JG

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;565369I don't think people have to announce themselves as racist for them to be so. Most racists probably don't believe they are racist.

I'm talking about accusing games of being racist and not engaging in witch-hunts. Here's a parrallel that occurred to me yesterday:

The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) lists the Nation of Islam as a Hate Group, because the Nation of Islam say "We hate whites, they are demons created by a mad scientist". All well and good. The SPLC don't then go over the views of the NAACP and say "Hm, this is an explicitly pro-black group that has some views in common with the Nation of Islam - I bet some of their members are closet racists - better list them as a Hate group too!"
When it comes to dealing with black Hate groups, the SPLC go by whether the group explicitly define themselves around Hate. They don't engage in witch-hunting activity, trying to delegitimise every group whose views in any way resemble those of the Hate group.

If you don't want to engage in witch-hunting of RPGs and their designers, this is the better model to follow.

Quote from: John Morrow;565488Hard core racists, on the other hand, will hang on to their stereotypes even when their knowledge of an individual should invalidate that stereotype or they won't even bother to gather more information about the individual.

I watched "Louis Theroux and the Nazis" again recently. Tom Metzger is pretty much the definition of a hard core racist, but he had a non-white friend he was clearly fond of.  He simply compartmentalised his mind and when away from his friend, denied that they were really friends - he was just 'being polite' or somesuch.

Quote from: StormBringer;565508I don't think #2 is such a bad idea.  How about the African analogues are the advanced peoples, and the Northern Europeans analogues are the barbarian 'savages'?  Not the height of brilliance or anything, I admit, bit it's a start.  

I've seen simplistic role-reversal used in a few sf stories, but I don't think it works well.

I have created campaign settings (or, one setting in different time periods) where the most advanced civilisation is a black tropical empire that sends missionaries and paladins north to civilise the barbaric white northerners; it works IMO because:

a) No heavy handed inverse racism; the 'European' culture may be going through a dark age in one version of the setting, but it's not denigrated.

b) I use the real world dark age & medieval 'Prester John' myth that a great Christian nation in the east, often identified with Ethiopia, would save beleaguered Christendom from the Arabs/Turks/Mongols. Basing it on stuff that people actually believed keeps it a lot more plausible, and gets away from the post-18th-century worldview of Europeans on top.

Quote from: S'mon;565553I'm talking about accusing games of being racist and not engaging in witch-hunts. Here's a parrallel that occurred to me yesterday:

The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) lists the Nation of Islam as a Hate Group, because the Nation of Islam say "We hate whites, they are demons created by a mad scientist". All well and good. The SPLC don't then go over the views of the NAACP and say "Hm, this is an explicitly pro-black group that has some views in common with the Nation of Islam - I bet some of their members are closet racists - better list them as a Hate group too!"
When it comes to dealing with black Hate groups, the SPLC go by whether the group explicitly define themselves around Hate. They don't engage in witch-hunting activity, trying to delegitimise every group whose views in any way resemble those of the Hate group.

If you don't want to engage in witch-hunting of RPGs and their designers, this is the better model to follow.

Ah, then we are in luck:, "There is no racism in RPGs, yay!".  Even RaHoWa does not mention 'hate' or 'racism', let alone admit to it.  So all we have to do is keep a lookout for games that flat out claim to promote racism using those exact words, and we are good to go.

Quote from: James Gillen;565546The European Dark Ages were the heyday of the Mali Empire.

JG

I think you mean the European Middle Ages.  

Quote from: StormBringer;565520That isn't exactly what I am getting from the descriptions provided so far, but I don't have the books to hand and likely never will. If that is what they are doing, then obviously I would approve.

How have you missed the numerous examples that have been posted in this thread?