Friday, June 5, 2020

Boils Down to One Argument

[You can read today's post on The Higher Path here]


I can't imagine a worse subject to write about in this time and place than the relationship between race and D&D.  Therefore, obviously, let's do this thing.

I've spent too much time lately on Twitter, mostly because the news and the feel for the American landscape there is far stronger and more vital that what can be found on the news.  While individuals are screaming about a need to end the present regime, the News still thinks the upset is about George Floyd and not the literally hundreds of civil rights abuses going on in as many cities.  If George Floyd was raised from the dead today, and For Whatever Reason chose to claim that the cop had committed manslaughter and not murder, there would still be reason to scream blue bloody murder.  But ... that's not what I want to talk about.

On Twitter, I follow POCGamer, or Graeme Barber, who always has a lot to say about the convergence between race and D&D, regardless of whether or not the race is a real one.  All race relations are, from Barber's perspective, stand-ins for the pervasive entitlement that exists among the majority white players of the game.  The fictional races are cardboard, two-dimensional reflections of the way that whites look at non-whites, and he is quite clear about this:
"... They ascribe half Orcs the negative stereotyped features of POC; they’re brutish, incapable of having or enjoying high culture, and violent by nature. Half Elves are the exotic, sexualized Mulattos of the game, there to be sexually desired and act as diplomats because of their inherent charisma. Both are denied “normal” lives, both are rejected by both sides of their families. Neither reflects what would, in a world with many such hybrids and a long history of it, be a normalized and routine part of any culture where people from different groups mix and mingle. Why? Because D&D worlds are segregated ones."

There's really no way for a white person to walk this argument back from this position ~ and that is the power of the racial argument.  If I dispute the right of the speaker to employ the argument above, then I'm a racist.  If I dispute the premise, then I'm an apologist.  If I ignore the argument, then I'm entitled.  My only option as a "good person" is to agree unreservedly with the argument, whereupon I become "entitled, but woke."

In no way and at no time do I come through this clean.

The argument is ridiculous.  The stereotypical nature of fictional races is due to their not being real, and therefore can never be written about at length by armies of anthropologists.  The "violence by nature" is a narrative trope, intended to satisfy the needs of the game to produce experience; it does not represent a political statement.  All sexual desire stems from these things because a creation of humans, their images as well, and humans naturally have sexual desire for humans and the products of humans, regardless of the political fundamentals of those products.  No one here is denied a life because no life exists.  The reflection is arbitrary and speaks more for the describer of the reflection that for anything in the content.  And no part of human culture from the beginning of its existence has been mixed and mingled to any extent closer than they are today.  This does not argue that we are mixed and mingled, but that we have Never been, and in general, in the past, it has been Way worse.  But "bad" is relative, no one can experience the pain of history, so we write the pain of the present in the largest letters possible because this is the pain that is happening to US.

All of this defines me, in absolutist terms according to Twitter, Facebook and Popular Culture, as an alt-right, fascist, elitist and probably ignorant Nazi stooge.  All because I will not repeat the words of another person, regardless of color, merely because they think I should, and they have the names to call me what they will when I do not obey.

I am not a fascist because I do not act like a fascist.  This is plain to anyone who has seen me function day to day, in person, around other people.  I am not afraid of being called a fascist, because sooner or later, everyone, everywhere, will be called a fascist because this is The insult that cuts most people deep.  Most people do not like to be called a fascist.  It hurts.  People avoid things that hurt.

But.

For all of Barber's anger (as it seems to be) and sense of righteousness (written right there on the page), and likely pain (though I can't know for sure if he is a black man or no), he does not speak for me.  And his opinion of me, and my motivations for running a game world with non-humans in it, or what I feel politically about the world, is of no more importance to me than is the opinion of a man who IS alt-right, a fascist and a Nazi stooge.  I don't listen to anyone who builds a straw man out of me to cut it down ... and I don't care on which side of the political spectrum they stand, or how noble is their cause.  If they choose to create a man of straw in order to find justice in attacking my belief system, then they're wrong.

By definition.

I, a white man, run a racist world.  I do this because the world I know is racist.  Racism is wrong.  So why is my world racist, if that's wrong?  Since I am the supreme deity of my setting, why have I made my setting this way?

The Higher Path of D&D, the one beyond merely killing things and taking away their treasure, is the human experience of pitting Self against that which we do not think should be.  Not my self.  The Player's Self.  The players are entitled to fight for those causes they want to fight for.  I won't tell them how to do that; I won't shame them into fighting for causes I think are right and noble; I won't clear the road for them.  I won't judge them for their choices.  I won't encourage them to believe what I believe and I won't punish them when they don't.

I have no idea what a non-racist world looks like.  I have never lived in one.  Likewise, I've no idea what a non-sexist world looks like, or a world where no one starves, or where people are educated, or where every person acts like someone I'd want to know.  I have fantasies about this fictional, non-existent world ... but my fantasies are not the fantasies of other people.

And if I were to impose my fantasies on those of other people, for the sake of creating an "appropriate, positive political setting," then I would be committing the exact same sin that Barber and thousands of others commit when every political argument runs thusly:
Person A: Do you believe [statement]?
Person B: No.
Person A: Then You're a [label].

This describes at least three quarters of Twitter.  The rest is nice things people say to each other.

It is impossible for humans not to do this to each other.  Because we're human.  And trust is hard for us.  And we're much better at labelling people than we are at understanding them or counting them as complex.

But it's wrong.

8 comments:

  1. While I agree with much of what you’ve written here, I think there are a couple things to consider from Mr. Barber’s points:

    - while fantasy species are clearly fictional and doubtful in the intent to stand for human races/ethnicities of the real world (early founders of the game are emphatic in their statements that they are not), it is possible that some folks treat them as such. In fact, they HAVE been treated as such by some players (so I’ve been told and read about from other POC gamers’ accounts). Which is clearly bad/wrong on many levels (telling a black-skinned youth that “their kind” are orcs, etc.) and antithetical to an inclusive, cooperative game. Regardless of whether or not it should happen, acknowledging it DOES happen is an important step to building trust and showing empathy.

    - my personal feeling is that D&D should encourage a feeling of “human togetherness,” i.e. an “us against them” mentality when faced with inhuman “others” (monsters or fantasy species) that cuts across divisions of culture, race, societal status, etc. It’s similar to the “alien invaders from space” or “zombie apocalypse” film (here I think of the rather subversive Night of the Living Dead film). This, I feel, is somewhat undermined when we start thinking about fantasy races as simply “humans with pointy ears” or, worse, something to breed with (if elves and orcs are genetically compatible it implies a shared humanity, doesn’t it?).

    However, I don’t think Tolkien - who introduced half-elves and half-orcs (and from which D&D draws the concepts) - was attempting to “sexualize” other cultures; he was drawing from folklore (both Nordic and British) with tales of fairy wives and half-Alfar (regarding half-elves) and more sinister tales of dark fantasy (changelings and such) for half-orcs.

    That being said, people being people, things get sexualized regardless. Even without half-species in the game, folks would make off-color commentary about hot dwarf-on-goblin action (or whatever). Our world is trashy in a lot of ways. The point, I think, is to acknowledge it happens and that it makes some folks uncomfortable...or can be downright problematic when used to denigrate and insult.

    All of which is a long-winded way of saying I think there’s a point to having these discussions out in the open, acknowledging them, not saying they’re not there (or ignoring them), or...well, that’s it. Disputing the premise doesn’t make you an apologist, nor does disputing the argument make you a racist. It might make you a bit of an ass (if you dismiss what the person is trying to say out of hand), but that’s about it.

    Only being a racist makes you a racist (says the white guy to the other white guy). For me, racism comes from a place of ignorance combined with intolerance (or hatred at the far end of the spectrum), and the LATTER is based mostly in fear (fear that comes in large part from ignorance...what a vicious cycle it is!). I acknowledge my own racist inclinations (based on ignorance and “institutionalized racism”) and try to stay present, aware, and educated/abreast of injustice...and try to combat it when it happens to enter my sphere of influence. That’s the best most people can’t do.

    POCGamer’s blog (which I read) offers a different perspective from my own, and one that I find valuable in shedding light on my own ignorance. Less ignorance in the world is a good thing. Not everyone agrees (many US Republicans, for example).

    Oh...and I hate Twitter.

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  2. JB,

    I'll keep this as short as possible.

    I won't be held accountable for the way other people manifest their passions. Some folks get so excited when their sports teams win that they burn and destroy property in large groups. What "some" people do is irrelevant to what any single person does ~ and does not bear argument.

    What feelings D&D encourages is up to the player's agency more than it is up to me.

    Agreed. Everything gets sexualized.

    These recent racial-call outs aren't "discussions." They are a promotion of a particular belief-based philosophy, with little to no legitimacy, as they are based on fanciful ideas of what restitution for race-based hatred demands of an enemy who might be anyone who pokes their head up like a pre-whacked mole. Discussion implies two sides. These are Accusation-Judgement fests.

    I am a racist. I can identify my entitlement, handed to me by my enormously racist, Russian forebears, who did not bother to conceal their racism in the least. I know I cannot look at this subject without being hopelessly damaged and biased by my upbringing.

    But who can?

    Right now, twitter is a better news source than the news. I'm not overly fond of it, either.






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  3. I agree that “agree with this or you are fascist” is a style of argument that doesn’t leave room for discussion, and it is your right to argue against the parts of the “racism and DnD” discourse you disagree with, but I’d also love to see you address (or engage with other folks who are addressing) how looking at the intersection of DnD, race, and racism can inspire better structures for the game rules, a better experience for players, and a fuller engagement with the human condition.

    I’ve seen people who talk about race, racism, and conventional DnD make their point with nuance, and seek to be persuasive. For example, I liked James Mendez Hodes’ essay about orcs: https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/6/30/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-ii-theyre-not-human

    I’d summarize his argument as: 1. Tolkien originally characterized orcs based on negative stereotypes of Asians that British Empire types used to justify their conquering.

    2. These stereotypes made it into contemporary DnD and are also recognizable as the way Black people are negatively stereotyped in America.

    3. This matters because having a negative real-world stereotype apply to the entire fictional race in a world’s canon makes him think “oh yeah that’s how racists think of me” and disengage before the DM even starts presenting the other parts of the world

    4. Putting in work to develop in-game races to be more fully fleshed out while removing some of the things that correspond to real-world racist stereotypes make for a world that more people dealing with racism in their daily lives want to play in.

    Some of his suggestions about what to do with orcs are stuff you already do: give different cultures to orcs from different places, have those cultures be full of details about the full range of human experience from music to food etc.

    Some aren’t: he’d like to see race-based stat bonuses removed because they easily map onto real-world stereotypes, but thinks other race-specific things like poison resistance or breath weapons are fine because they don’t map directly

    Overall, I see his argument as more in line with “provide your players with snacks and water and bathroom breaks so they can fully engage with the game” than “no in-game group can be racist against any other in-game group because racism is bad and therefore taboo.”

    So I guess my thought is that “It All Boils Down to One Thing” is a poor summary for the argument over whether there is an issue with the races of DnD as they are usually conceived and run in game.

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  4. Hm.

    Back to front, Samuel, the "boiling down" refers specifically to the strawman argument that's handed to me, described in the post.

    I'm an agency-friendly DM, as you know. I won't couch a game of mine on the basis of what I think is "bad," because I'm not in the moralism business. My players bring their own snacks, though I'll provide the tea, and I do not give a rat's ass how they engage with the game. That said, I don't have any alt-right reactionary white pricks as friends ... so it's a safe bet none of them will play a racist.

    I do not get the race-based stat bonus argument. We're not giving stat bonuses to white humans and stat penalties to black humans. All humans obey the same stat adjustment. To accept that elves shouldn't get one, I'd have to first acknowledge that empowering elves over humans is "racist" ... which is just fucking stupid for anyone not deeply fucked up about real issues in this world.

    Elves weigh a lot less than humans. They have lighter bone structure and less mass to move, and they are Differently Constructed. Of course they have a higher dexterity. They also have a lower constitution, because they're freaking bird-boned. This has nothing to do with racism.

    My partner Tamara is shorter than me, as most women are. She's not as strong as me, as most women aren't. This isn't a condition of my imagination, my prejudice or my hateful upbringing. It's a simple fact. I'd like to go back to a universe where we acknowledge facts and stop pretending that acknowledging facts is "racism" or whatever other label you'd like to put on it.

    (cont...)

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  5. Obviously, I love my partner. My height and strength are slaves to my partner because that's what I think males are for: to use their height and their strength to make women's lives a luxury. The way that players use their character races in aid of each other and in support of their causes is a billion times more important than adjusting a die 1 point for such-and-such a reason.

    We could try paying attention to what's actually important.

    Some of my orc cultures are bloodthirsty. Some human cultures are and certainly were bloodthirsty. My game takes place in the 17th century; and I deliberately run it AS the 17th century. Virtually everything about the period is damned unfriendly, without needing stereotypes. People were pretty happy about killing other people for a wide variety of not-that-well thought out reasons. Life was pretty cheap back then.

    I don't really care what Tolkein based his orcs on. I've read the books, Silmarillion included, and the only thing my orcs share with Tolkein's vision is that they are spelled with the same three letters. As I said, I come from really, really racist Russians. I can point to a dozen towns in Central Alberta that were built on racism one fuck of a lot more subtle than anything Tolkein ever experienced in a nightmare.

    Those towns aren't very racist any more. They all have anti-hate laws that make being openly racist illegal, because this is Canada and we don't fuck around with free speech the way America does. What they "were," therefore, is a Dead Issue. Anyone who's lived long enough begins to realize that calling things out for what they were 50 years ago is a pretty stupid way to go about designing a moral outlook.

    Frankly, I don't believe that racism inspires much of anything except outward hate and self-hate. I don't see that D&D needs racism as a means of inspiring D&D players to kill orcs or anything else. The sins of Greed, Wrath and Pride seem to be plenty sufficient, just as they were in human history before racism really was a thing. The timing of my world is very close to the start of that thing; was a time when people didn't need country or color to kill other people. Not believing in the same God and having a lot of stuff we don't have was quite enough.

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  6. Darn. That should read, one fuck of a lot LESS subtle ... why don't I read my comments before posting them?

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  7. I guess I should apologize, Samuel.

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  8. I think this topic is a perfect example of how people read RPGs as through they were traditional texts, akin to books or movies. They're looking at the words on a page and the pretty artwork, they're bringing up connections with past artists and authors, and they're drawing inferences about the meaning of the things they see.

    What they're not doing is taking it to the next step, where we play the game.

    . . . and now I'm thinking that one of the reasons for not going to this next level, is that any and all arguments fall apart into "do what works for you."

    Because it's hard to moralize ~ regardless of the validity of your moral position ~ if your audience can respond with, "Well, that's like, your opinion, man."

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