Im not sure SJWs acknowledge racism against white people. But albinism maybe.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 10, 2022, 01:19:18 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 09, 2022, 09:40:45 PM
I guess you could interpret it as racist, if you were a paint-chip eating SJW.

Also, Second Darkness discusses what it takes for an elf to fall (and remember, as GM you don't even have to run the Second Darkness AP). Typically just being evil won't cut it. It has to be a betrayal of your very ideals -- something that would cause, in OSR terms, a full on alignment shift. There are plenty of evil elves in Golarion who haven't become drow.

It's very similar to a paladin falling from grace and becoming a blackguard.

Blackguards don't become literally black-skinned as a result of falling, tho. They wear black spiky outfits more for the cool factor than anything else.

Come to think of it, I suppose that in the world of White Man's Burden, D&D's elves are normally pointy-eared black african-featured, the drow were cursed with white skin (but still afro-featured), and SJWs complain about how racist this is against white people (and albinos and people with vitiligo) and that we need better white representation in fantasy. Also, orcs are a racist caricature of white people and other non-African indigenous peoples. Can you imagine?

I have no idea what you're trying to argue here.

I would like to note that drow and orcs are not black people, and if you are trying to equate them you are super fucking racist.

Try actually telling most POC they look like Drow and Orcs and wonder why they yell at you or worse kick your ass. I notice many of them say it though never to a POC directly.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 11, 2022, 09:04:00 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 10, 2022, 01:19:18 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 09, 2022, 09:40:45 PM
I guess you could interpret it as racist, if you were a paint-chip eating SJW.

Also, Second Darkness discusses what it takes for an elf to fall (and remember, as GM you don't even have to run the Second Darkness AP). Typically just being evil won't cut it. It has to be a betrayal of your very ideals -- something that would cause, in OSR terms, a full on alignment shift. There are plenty of evil elves in Golarion who haven't become drow.

It's very similar to a paladin falling from grace and becoming a blackguard.

Blackguards don't become literally black-skinned as a result of falling, tho. They wear black spiky outfits more for the cool factor than anything else.

Come to think of it, I suppose that in the world of White Man's Burden, D&D's elves are normally pointy-eared black african-featured, the drow were cursed with white skin (but still afro-featured), and SJWs complain about how racist this is against white people (and albinos and people with vitiligo) and that we need better white representation in fantasy. Also, orcs are a racist caricature of white people and other non-African indigenous peoples. Can you imagine?

I have no idea what you're trying to argue here.

I would like to note that drow and orcs are not black people, and if you are trying to equate them you are super fucking racist.

It was a tangent on the universality of human psychology. I'm not trying to equate anything, so kindly get thee behind me there Adversary.

Anyway, people are going to see racist parallels in works that weren't intended to be racist tracts. I doubt Gygax was intentionally invoking the Curse of Ham when he wrote the drow (e.g. racists tracts don't draw the minorities they hate to look like supermodels), but people are going to see the resemblance and they are going to take offense even if none was intended.

That's why I try to take pains not to accidentally offend marketable demographics. I may disagree with different political views or fail to understand why so and so minority takes offense at something, but I still want their views and monies. Is it annoying to have to steer clear of certain topics like people being cursed with a particular skin color for the sins of their ancestors? Fuck yeah, but I value my livelihood more than my artistic integrity.

Quote from: Abraxus on January 11, 2022, 09:27:35 AM
Try actually telling most POC they look like Drow and Orcs and wonder why they yell at you or worse kick your ass. I notice many of them say it though never to a POC directly.

I've seen plenty of PoC say it on Twitter. I don't see the resemblance. Intentional racist caricatures try to make real people look as ugly as possible for obvious reasons, but modern art draws all drow and around half of orcs as desirable supermodels. That number increases to about 99% of orcs if we include erotic artwork.

Also, if you look closely at typical drow and orc art... whenever their features are comparable to human faces they invariably have Caucasoid features. I have never seen art of orcs with dreadlocks that didn't draw them like sexy hunky romance novel heroes.

You guys don't understand. Someone once made a racist comment, and made certain allusions as part of that comment (black Africans were cursed with dark skin because they fell from grace), that means any superficially similar allusions (a fictional race of fantasy people became black because they're evil) are the same and objectively racist. And the only interpretations that can ever arise from such allusions can only be racist, because someone made a racist comment one day. So other interpretations (black is the color of night and darkness, and universally associated with evil across all cultures around the world, which is why dark elves are also black in Norse mythology) can never be valid, and the only interpretation we can accept is that it's racist and therefore objectively offensive.

You racists.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 11, 2022, 10:07:30 AM
You guys don't understand. Someone once made a racist comment, and made certain allusions as part of that comment (black Africans were cursed with dark skin because they fell from grace), that means any superficially similar allusions (a fictional race of fantasy people became black because they're evil) are the same and objectively racist. And the only interpretations that can ever arise from such allusions can only be racist, because someone made a racist comment one day. So other interpretations (black is the color of night and darkness, and universally associated with evil across all cultures around the world, which is why dark elves are also black in Norse mythology) can never be valid, and the only interpretation we can accept is that it's racist and therefore objectively offensive.

You racists.

You made a couple mistakes in your research:

Black is not universally associated with evil. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSacredDarkness

There's no evidence that dark elves in Norse myth were literally black-skinned. Or even what we would think of as elves, since they were dwarves. They also weren't evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svart%C3%A1lfar

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 12:15:52 PMBlack is not universally associated with evil. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSacredDarkness

Ah, TV tropes, the ultimate source of knowledge. Alongside wikapedia, the great bearers of wisdom. Use better sources.

Also our understanding of Norse Mythology isn't fully complete because it was relayed by christian monks observing a culture mostly dead at the time, after it underwent subjegation by romans. Thats why the difference between dwarves or elves is fuzzy and incomplete. How in some they are fine craftsmen, and in others they are greedy and cruel.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 11, 2022, 12:47:17 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 12:15:52 PMBlack is not universally associated with evil. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSacredDarkness

Ah, TV tropes, the ultimate source of knowledge. Alongside wikapedia, the great bearers of wisdom. Use better sources.

Aside from tvtropes there are no essays on how blackness is not seen as universally evil in world cultures. I guess nobody thought it was important enough to write about.

Here's a better source: Nyx and Erebus are the primordial deities of night and darkness in Greek myth and they aren't evil. The yin force in Taoism is associated with darkness and isn't evil. So no, blackness is not universally associated with evil in human culture worldwide.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 11, 2022, 12:47:17 PM
Also our understanding of Norse Mythology isn't fully complete because it was relayed by christian monks observing a culture mostly dead at the time, after it underwent subjegation by romans. Thats why the difference between dwarves or elves is fuzzy and incomplete. How in some they are fine craftsmen, and in others they are greedy and cruel.

So it can't be used to argue that Norse mythology had black-skinned elves who were black because they were evil.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 12:15:52 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 11, 2022, 10:07:30 AM
You guys don't understand. Someone once made a racist comment, and made certain allusions as part of that comment (black Africans were cursed with dark skin because they fell from grace), that means any superficially similar allusions (a fictional race of fantasy people became black because they're evil) are the same and objectively racist. And the only interpretations that can ever arise from such allusions can only be racist, because someone made a racist comment one day. So other interpretations (black is the color of night and darkness, and universally associated with evil across all cultures around the world, which is why dark elves are also black in Norse mythology) can never be valid, and the only interpretation we can accept is that it's racist and therefore objectively offensive.

You racists.

You made a couple mistakes in your research:

Black is not universally associated with evil. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSacredDarkness

There's no evidence that dark elves in Norse myth were literally black-skinned. Or even what we would think of as elves, since they were dwarves. They also weren't evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svart%C3%A1lfar

Positive (or neutral) depictions of Darkness also exist, therefore negative depictions of darkness cannot be found the world over?

Shrieking Banshee already covered issues about dark elves.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 01:13:24 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 11, 2022, 12:47:17 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 12:15:52 PMBlack is not universally associated with evil. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSacredDarkness

Ah, TV tropes, the ultimate source of knowledge. Alongside wikapedia, the great bearers of wisdom. Use better sources.

Aside from tvtropes there are no essays on how blackness is not seen as universally evil in world cultures. I guess nobody thought it was important enough to write about.

Here's a better source: Nyx and Erebus are the primordial deities of night and darkness in Greek myth and they aren't evil. The yin force in Taoism is associated with darkness and isn't evil. So no, blackness is not universally associated with evil in human culture worldwide.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 11, 2022, 12:47:17 PM
Also our understanding of Norse Mythology isn't fully complete because it was relayed by christian monks observing a culture mostly dead at the time, after it underwent subjegation by romans. Thats why the difference between dwarves or elves is fuzzy and incomplete. How in some they are fine craftsmen, and in others they are greedy and cruel.

So it can't be used to argue that Norse mythology had black-skinned elves who were black because they were evil.

The Yin and Yang represent polarity of forces where Yin (Black) represents the negative side. And it's not exclusively evil and the Yin Yang symbol represents a balance of forces, and such matters are complex in Eastern traditions, but it still uses black to represent Yin/Negative for a reason.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 01:13:24 PMHere's a better source

Also taken from TV tropes. Il hand it to you and say its not a purely universal thing. But its like pitbulls. Not all pitbulls are universally more aggressive. But as a rule they are (and nothing against pitbulls, it just means you need more experience as a owner).
Kali for instance is a nuanced goddess with elements of death, and life (depends on the instance). Order and chaos. But she was a goddess of dark complexion that came about after another goddess purged darkness that came to be her skin after she absorbed a demon.
So black skin = evil isn't an uncommon mythological element even if there is nuance involved. It warrants no apologies or take-backs if ever included.

QuoteSo it can't be used to argue that Norse mythology had black-skinned elves who were black because they were evil.

Yes. You are correct.

Okay then.

In the event that the SJWs create those hypothetical white drow I mentioned earlier (they've done crazier shit already so I wouldn't put it past them, especially as white people become a persecuted minority in western countries), if you guys complain that it's racist then I will write a strongly worded letter expressing my indignation.

A lot of bickering here hinging on the word "universal."

Nothing cultural is absolutely universal, but often cultural ideas or practices are universal enough to register as significant. There. Are we all good now?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 05:10:32 PM
Okay then.

In the event that the SJWs create those hypothetical white drow I mentioned earlier (they've done crazier shit already so I wouldn't put it past them, especially as white people become a persecuted minority in western countries), if you guys complain that it's racist then I will write a strongly worded letter expressing my indignation.

Your hypothetical white drow with black African looking elves is such an obvious inversion it would come off as SJW cringe. But I could definitely see a race of European looking evil creatures cursed with "deathly paleness" as a sign of their evil. Maybe make them vampires or something. Evil bloodsucking "deathly pale" white devils that come from the abyssal depths of the earth!

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 11, 2022, 06:48:10 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 11, 2022, 05:10:32 PM
Okay then.

In the event that the SJWs create those hypothetical white drow I mentioned earlier (they've done crazier shit already so I wouldn't put it past them, especially as white people become a persecuted minority in western countries), if you guys complain that it's racist then I will write a strongly worded letter expressing my indignation.

Your hypothetical white drow with black African looking elves is such an obvious inversion it would come off as SJW cringe. But I could definitely see a race of European looking evil creatures cursed with "deathly paleness" as a sign of their evil. Maybe make them vampires or something. Evil bloodsucking "deathly pale" white devils that come from the abyssal depths of the earth!

Some scholars have seriously proposed that Dracula is Slavophobic and Nosferatu is antisemitic (altho there's little evidence the parallels were intentional, since Stoker was Irish and several of Murnau's actors were Jewish). So it's a small leap to anti-white.