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Below is a draft script for an episode of by video-pocast series.
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(Trigger warnings for; racism, religious persecution, sexism, genocide, slavery and related issues)
Greetings from a place of unexpected discomfort or possibly just social consternation.
This week we discuss cultural appropriation in role-playing games.
To paraphrase a column on cultural appropriation by Maisha Z. Johnson that appeared at the Everyday Feminism site;
“A deep understanding of cultural appropriation refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.”
Johnson also states;
“It’s also not the same as assimilation, when marginalized people adopt elements of the dominant culture in order to survive conditions that make life more of a struggle if they don’t.”
Johnson asserts cultural appropriation trivializes violent historical oppression, it lets people show facile interest in a culture while remaining prejudiced against its actual people and spreads mass lies about the marginalized, among other problems.
The name of the Washington Red Skins is cultural appropriation, as are college black face parties and most of the music by Katty Perry. They are a sports team employing the pejorative name and warrior symbolism of a Native American tribe, college -------- acting like -------- and a rich white woman pop-musician assuming the musical traditions of minority groups. All without so much as a thank you.
To digress for a moment, communication always attempts to accomplish something, be it laying out an agenda for a business, a statement of emotion, persuasion to a new philosophy, to entertain at least one person or something similar. All “dialogue” – whatever their format – is about something and dialogue is frequently home to a conflict between the participants, in terms the form of the communication, the emotions employed, who is paying attention to what and so forth. Music is designed to elicit an emotional response, business meetings pursue profit and most conversations serve at a bare minimum as an effort to glen useful information if not an effort by one person to coerce another person into doing something. There is no such thing as “just talking” because all communication is about something and much of it is a contest of wills. The phrase “just talking” is meaningless; both denying the nature and purpose of communication and serving as a moral dodge, a phrase employed by people in an effort to avoid accountability for their message and means of communication. Asserting “you’re just talking” is like saying gravity may suddenly shut off.
The writing, art, design and composition of RPGs is a dialogue, is designed to communicate something, usually someone’s idea of a good time.
Cultural appropriation is hate speech. Cultural appropriation is hate speech against an ethnic minority group, spoken in the language of that ethnic minority. Cultural appropriation is done by gormless people who employ phrases like “just talking” when called on their bad behavior.
Cultural appropriation is a problem in role-playing games and even as racism and sexism is arguably getting better, if only incrementally, cultural appropriation is not improving in any meaningful way.
There two ways to go about representation, direct translation of a real people and culture and the pastiche, even if both may lead to some variant of blackface play.
According to Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, a pastiche is something – such as a piece of writing or music – that imitates the style of someone or something else. For example, Stephen King’s short story “Jerusalem’s Lot” is a pastiche of H.P. Lovecraft’s works, only better. Stephen Sondhheim has composed many tunes that function as pastiches of music originally composed in the 1920s and 1930s. A pastiche does not make the original a subject of ridicule, which would be a satire.
Direct translation of a real people and culture is exactly what it sounds like – an attempt to fictionalize a real world people, their culture and frequently their religion. Examples include White Wolf’s books that asserted the Rom people possessed actual magical powers and that Mexico City and Transylvania were home to most of the puerile evil in the world – which has an interesting subtext about the people living in Transylvania and Mexico City.
Aesthetic, according to Mirriam-Webster, is a set of principals underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or movement and here – in terms RPGs – it refers to how cultural minorities, regions and the like might have a particular artistic style that may quickly be understood upon sight.
For example, a character from Piazo may wield a saber and wear a particular set of robes, so the audience understands she possesses a pseudo- Arabian Nights aesthetic. This is to say, she looks like Arabian… in a vaguely pop-culture manner, meaning she does not have to know the pillars of Islam.
By comparison, any attempt at a direct representation of the Middle East and people of the Muslim faith should get that type of thing correct. Too often RPGs fail in this type of effort. Instead, they become efforts at just creating a pastiche, at just ripping off aesthetic, while pretending to be something more for the purposes of a game.
Both ultimately serve as examples of cultural appropriation, and while one may be worse than the other, that does not excuse the lesser. Class C Felonies might be more severe crimes than Class A Misdemeanors, but that does not excuse the misdemeanors.
RPG examples of settings functioning as at least pastiches include;
• Mazteca from TSR for Meso-America,
• Al-Qadim from TSR for Persia, the Middle East and North Africa,
• Nyambe from Atlas Games for Africa,
• Kara-Tur from TSR for East Asia,
• Rokugan from Alderac Entertainment Group also for East Asia,
• Osirion in Pathfinder and from Piazo for ancient Egypt,
• Galt in Pathfinder and from Piazo for Revolutionary France,
• Chelix in Pathfinder and from Piazo for Colonial or Post-Reconquista Spain,
• Katapesh in Pathfinder and from Piazo for North Africa,
• Qadira in Pathfinder and from Piazo for Persia,
• Ganakagok, from an independent publisher, for Artic peoples,
Examples of real world settings and even real world peoples, employed for role-playing games include;
• The Ravnos vampires from White Wolf Games for the Rom or Gypsies to use to more widely recognized term, though it is a pejorative,
• The Giovanni vampires from White Wolf Games for the Italians,
• The Followers of Set vampires from White Wolf Games for Egyptians,
• The Assamite vampires from White Wolf Games for Muslims,
• Masque of the Red Death from TSR and its representation of many places, including Eastern Europe,
• White Wolf and its representations of Mexico City and Eastern Europe as home to most of the puerile evil in the universe,
• The Dreamspeaker mages from White Wolf games for all the indigenous aboriginal magical forms ever as a single cohesive and coherent tradition,
• The Akashic Brotherhood mages from White Wolf games for most of the Eastern Asian martials arts and philosophical traditions ever as a single cohesive and coherent tradition,
• The Euthanitos mages from White Wolf as a group of mages from southern Asian who more or less worship death and frequently act as serial killers,
• The Uktena and the Windego from White Wolf as Native America werewolves
• Gypsies, from White Wolf, which was a book about how the Rom people possesses actual magic,
• Going Native Warpath, from an independent publisher, which makes a mélange of most of the Native American and Pacific Islander peoples,
• Far West, also from an independent publisher, for most of the Chinese people and cultures while erasing Native Americans,
There are more than those listed here but this column is not just a list of these things and so we shall move on.
Morally and ethically, intent counts for less than we might wish. Only God knows someone’s actual intent and he does not exist – the rest of us have to cope with the person’s excuses and mealy-mouthed assertions about the best of intentions.
We deal with a contemporary world out of our control produced by ante-contemporary people whose actions if performed today would be considered morally insane and functional adults never get to pretend we do not live day-to-day eye-ball deep in this legacy. That legacy includes express slavery, genocide and cultural genocide and a grab bag of lesser horrors.
This will never go away any more than gravity will go away.
When called upon to justify racism and slavery, at various times people asserted that Africans were undeveloped and unprepared for civilization and need slavery to domesticate them properly. Likewise, people with the power stripped Native Americans of their heritage, culture and language in an attempt to “civilize” them, when they subjected to protracted efforts as genocide. While the appearance of minorities in RPG does not approach anything like the level of horrors of genocide, slavery and cultural annihilation, minority people understandably may view any bit of RPG material through a historical lens that includes of horrors of genocide, slavery and cultural annihilation… and entitled whites mealy mouthing stuff about the best of intentions.
This is exacerbated by decades – at least – of media representation of minorities, their cultures and religions that provide grossly distorted depictions of everything “other” as a kind of proverbial comfort food for privileged white people.
Randa Jarrar in a column written in 2014 for Salon asserts that when western women, white women, engage in belly dancing they are engaging in cultural appropriation. They don costumes and employing something from outside their culture – belly dancing, or Raqs Sharqi – for their own amusement. In this, they have stripped the dance of its original intent and make a self-satisfied game of pretending to be something they are not.
“Many white women who presently practice belly dance are continuing this century-old tradition of appropriation, whether they are willing to view their practice this way or not.”
This has been going on for a century or more, however, that long history does not make it morally acceptable for bored white women to wear the trappings of a minority, particularly when they can walk away at anytime while actual women in the Arab world cannot walk away from how society views them, their society and their religion.
Time does not make such practices acceptable.
According to Nayyirah Waheed, in his essay “Cultural Consent is Not a Strange Concept,” modern Western society and its history over the last few centuries “has convinced us that no peoples have agency over their individual expressions of life. That this is a free market, that peoples’ cultures are created for sale, and everyone is free to take what they want, when, how, with no thought to the violence this causes.”
Waheed is correct. At the same time a business in the Western world makes a buck off sexy version of the hib-jab for Halloween, exhibiting abiding disrespect for the faith of Islam, it also makes sexy versions of nun’s habits for Halloween, exhibiting the same contempt for Catholicism as it does for Islam and Native Americans for the matter, all for the same juvenile sexual reasons. The point being, in modern Western Civilization, no one is special, no wounds are worth consideration and everyone and everything exists to be exploited and discarded.
Waheed also asserts that “no,” or refusal is not limited to an individual, but “…peoples also have a right to say no. …we have to check our privilege.”
Waheed – and RPG blogger Christopher Chinn, aka Bankeui – also discuss cultural consent, or that members of one cultural should be consulted by members of another culture, should grant permission for the use of some aspects of their culture in a certain context. This is not a bad idea, but it falls apart – at least somewhat – in application.
Who do we seek permission from when and how we may use something from another culture? How many members of that culture are required to grant permission? What ratio of consenting voices, as compared to objecting voices, is required to proceed on such an effort?
This might seem like snide quibbling, but it is not and this is going somewhere.
In 2014 Monte Cook Games released a product, intended to be a romp, titled “the Strange.” The Strange of the title referred to the phenomena of a series of small, alternate Earths or dimensions – each with a particular theme, such as Roman World, Science Fiction World and so on. One such world, the Thunder Plains, in a section composed by Bruce Cordell, focused on the upper mid-west plains the Native Americans there prior to colonial contact.
Cordell asserts he possessed the best of intentions, is related to Native Americans and that he consulted with Native Americans he knew about the product, that he researched the real background before composing the Thunder Plains.
However, there was sufficient backlash from Native Americans, who blogged about their issues with the product and how it represented them. Some Native Americans created a petition against the product and at first Monte Cook Games attempted to avoid the issue, though eventually they would reach out and make a compromise to work with Native Americans on the issue.
Cordell is likely quite sincere in his statements that he meant well, that he attempted to research the subject matter and consulted with Native Americans… and this proved to be insufficient for a number of reasons.
While Cordell and everyone else at Monte Cook Games is making a sincere effort to correct the errors and do a good job now, it would have been better for all parties if they had made such an effort in the first place. The fact they thought and probably still think that they had all along amounts to little.
A term employed in feminist and minority critiques of all kinds of media is agency. According to Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, agency is the capacity, condition or state of exerting power. It is about the capacity of a character, or characters, to make decisions and pursue those decisions. Stories where a white dude becomes a part of some “minority” group is not about the agency of those people. The Last Samurai is not about the agency of the traditional Japanese samurai – it is about the agency of Cruise’s character fulfilling some Japanophile power fantasy. The same is true of Dances with Wolves and Kevin Coster.
Players and game masters running games set in a minority culture, be it a pastiche or a direct translation, are not actually granting that culture or its people agency. They are fulfilling a power fantasy, complete with otherising, the appeal of the exotic and quite probably brown-face or a variant of brown face play.
Representation does in fact matter but white people have historically failed to adequately represent anyone but white people. Why should white people be granted an infinite series of mulligans to screw-ups allowing then try again? Why should the minorities accept this as a non-negotiable fact of life, like gravity?
This is not to encourage or condone erasure – the disappearance of minorities from gaming, either as players or as characters. However, perhaps such work is best left in the hands of people from the cultures represented. For example, the game Ehdrigor draws heavily from Native American cultures, its themes and motifs. It is also written and composed by Allan Turner, a black Indian and the setting is probably not something a non-Indian could have composed.
If someone is pursuing writing about real world minority cultures, then there are bare minimum factors of which they need to be aware and which they should pursue. First, the intentions of the writers, artists and other creators involved are at best invisible and at worst irrelevant. Seek out as many people from the culture you are attempting to represent and get their permission for the endeavor, be patient, be willing to walk away from the project if it is not working out – the minorities owe the majority nothing, except at best obeying the letter of the law. Also, as you did in when working math in school, show your work. Set aside space in the publication to discuss the goals and process of the publication.
If you are uncomfortable with the idea, then do no go there, do not do the deed – write the game or play the character – in the first place. Walking away from something which makes you uncomfortable is your right.
Sometimes it can feel like we are morally and ethically standing on a sandy beach and the waves are eroding the foundation out from under us, meaning we move or fall. The technical term for this is life and your choices are only noteworthy if you get them wrong and fall down.
Consider Wil Wheaton’s Law; Don’t be an dick. You are not the only person who gets to determine if you are being a dick and your supposed intent counts for little. The people you are speaking to, for and about have more of the final word about you being a dick than you do.
Sometimes good fences make for good neighbors not so much because it keeps them out of your yard but because it keeps you out of theirs.
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What's the point of playing RPGs if you're going to overanalyze or shut it down because white people are involved role playing something other than real-world white cultures (which pretty much necessarily would also be cultural appropriation since a good half of those cultures or more were dominated or obliterated by the other half)? When does it end? When are we going to draw a line between use of terms like the Redskins, a term racist on its face, and good-faith abstractions of cultural information?
Frankly, I'm getting sick of the politically charged definitions of cultural appropriation and assimilation that appear near the top of this draft. Notice how they paint all non-white culture as permanently victimized because it's only non-white cultures that must assimilate in order to avoid disadvantage. There's no way for minority cultural elements to breakout into broader cultures on their own strength or appeal without it being through appropriation. The active culture is, again, the majority culture and not the inherent power of the minority culture.
The article also seems to treat cultures as monolithic and static. A character who looks Arabian must be Muslim though that isn't even true in modern Arabian culture, much less all of the Arabian cultures throughout history.
I would agree that we should make a serious effort to investigate the real world cultures or time periods we want to use in a game rather than rely on half-baked stereotypes. But the assumption that only Native American can write about Native Americans leads us to the belief that only ancient Babylonians can write about ancient Babylonians and it misses the fact that any particular person's factual knowledge of their own culture may actually be exceeded by a determined and diligent outsider.
If you're looking to spark debate with this draft, I think you're going to get some.
Hrm. Consider the caveat that long dead cultures - Romans, Babylonians, Vikings, etc. - are fair game.
"I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.
You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”
-Neil Gaiman
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Obvious troll is obvious.
In other news, I culturally appropriated some hummus for my lunch today. It was delicious.
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The issue I have with cultural appropriation and RPGs, is that medieval fantasy gets severely whitewashed compared to real world medieval European history.
A crusader setting without a Middle East analogue would not have your crusaders travelling very far, or your players acknowledging the impact of Middle Eastern culture on Medieval/Rennaisance and Modern society.
I think people outside a culture can treat cultures outside of their own with respect, and as long as diligent and careful work is put into celebrating and respecting cultural differences fantasy is a richer place. I think it's important to be critical, but it can be too easy to eat slows alive if we don't acknowledge goodwill efforts and accept that everyone is learning.
Anyway, I suspect this thread could easily become heated and I think we'd all best remember rule 1:
Be excellent to each other.
I think people outside a culture can treat cultures outside of their own with respect, and as long as diligent and careful work is put into celebrating and respecting cultural differences fantasy is a richer place. I think it's important to be critical, but it can be too easy to eat slows alive if we don't acknowledge goodwill efforts and accept that everyone is learning.
Anyway, I suspect this thread could easily become heated and I think we'd all best remember rule 1:
Be excellent to each other.
I absolutely agree with this. Writers, all the time, have to depict cultures and societies they may not be familiar with. At some level, ultimately being able to write believable settings and characters from other cultures or backgrounds is a a combined product of time, attention to detail, and research.
I think a lot of the racism and elements associated with cultural appropriation are really an artifact of laziness, or the product of a very sheltered upbringing. Those issues can be corrected through research and editors.
If you are writing a fantasy dealing with Native American themes, then you should research the crap out of the material, and by research I mean do something other than watch westerns or spend 5 minutes on Wikipedia. Having third parties that may be informed on the subject or offer an alternative viewpoint is also important.
That said I don't think you should necessarily seek out approval from x group to proceed with your product. For one, I don't think it means much, because ultimately groups are not monolithic entities, and even if members of x ethnic group approve of the work, it doesn't mean that other members will.
In my own field, I can only think of the JP World "featherless raptors" problem. One scientist they had as an advisor didn't really care and put his seal of approval on the film, whereas most other paleo folks were annoyed.
And of course there is the whole issue of representation in literature. If I write only what I know (cis white male of protestant background), I build a much poorer world, and I think someone could legitimately complain about creating a setting with such poor diversity and representation of groups that honestly need more positive or nuanced portrayals.
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Without going too deep into the subject of how wrongheaded the entire concept of cultural appropriation as presented here is (though I can't resist pointing out that a passing familiarity with world history shows that civilization always moved forward by cultures stealing ideas from other cultures), I have one actual Pathfinder related point that I think is important to make.
Specifically, I wish yo replay to this:
For example, a character from Piazo may wield a saber and wear a particular set of robes, so the audience understands she possesses a pseudo- Arabian Nights aesthetic. This is to say, she looks like Arabian… in a vaguely pop-culture manner, meaning she does not have to know the pillars of Islam.
Here's the thing though - in Paizo, you can also see a clearly Middle Age Europe inspired knight who has nothing to do with Christianity, despite that being abhorrently incorrect if you consider him to be a representation of a medieval knight.
And that's completely fine. Because D&D, and Pathfinder, and really most other RPGs have never been or claimed to be based on real world history or mythology. Reading the player manuals for D&D, for example, it is really easy to see that the game is inspired by Lord Of the Rings and other fantasy stories that were popular at the time - check out Werthead's excellent article on the subject.
Similarly, representations of "Arabs" in the game have very little to do with real world middle east - instead, they correspond with the populist image of Arabian Nights. This is true for virtually all cultures represented in D&D - does anybody think Vikings were anything like their analog in Golarion?
Examining D&D and it's ilk as representations of minorities is wrong, because that drags the game kicking and screaming out of context. It is not in conversation with real world politics and issues, and it never was. Instead, it exists in an entirely different setting, the symbolism it uses is in the syntax of another language altogether. So what if Vikings didn't wear this kind of helmet? and who cares if those ninjas have nothing to do with actual real world assassins of the same name? The cultures and stories and people of most D&D settings have not been created by historians or anthropologists, but by people who grew up reading fantasy. Hack, in the last couple decades, it is created by people who grew up reading fantasy written by people who grew up playing D&D!
So check this out. By discussing D&D in the context of politics and real world history and geography, one is blindly tearing out one piece in the puzzle that is the subculture of fantasy fiction, and abuses it by draining it's original intent away from it. Without any true understanding of the culture D&D was created and developed in, the political activist is using the entire game as a set piece in some wider argument about politics, without regarding the rich history of the game or the people who play it. He could be said, in fact, to be guilty of cultural appropriation...
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"I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.
You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”
-Neil Gaiman
Now you're appropriating Neil Gaiman - and nothing in that quote actually supports your thesis (unless you're claiming that those who disagree with it are against treating others with respect and only you own that, which is, again, appropriation, no?).
What if I were to say that "fantasy geeks" are their own culture, one whose way of thinking, speaking, and seeing the world around them is unlike the way any other group does, and to claim they're being racist based on, effectively, their geneology and appearance is itself the height of racism?
What it really is, of course, is something far more interesting: A herald of the end of organized cultural identity itself, and the beginning of a world where there are only individuals, ideas, and IDIC. This is what we want, isn't it? I know it's what I look forward to. I studied cultural anthropology for several years, and my professor, who sadly was the kind of person to buy into lines like this (actually, she was a German with an "inheritor state" guilt complex who had come to America to study our Far Right), liked to gloat lightly about how cultural anthropologists would never be out of a job - but that's exactly what they're working toward!
"Treating people with respect" isn't the same as "treating cultures with respect," because "cultures" aren't people (and are ultimately illusions at that) and people aren't cultures. There's a sort of creeping - I don't know, "fundamentalist materialism?" - in sociological circles that pushes the belief that individuals don't exist except as constructs of group identities. It simply isn't true, and there's enough people out there who flagrantly break the bounds that such a reality would set to prove it well enough.
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What it really is, of course, is something far more interesting: A herald of the end of organized cultural identity itself, and the beginning of a world where there are only individuals, ideas, and IDIC. This is what we want, isn't it? I know it's what I look forward to. I studied cultural anthropology for several years, and my professor, who sadly was the kind of person to buy into lines like this (actually, she was a German with an "inheritor state" guilt complex who had come to America to study our Far Right), liked to gloat lightly about how cultural anthropologists would never be out of a job - but that's exactly what they're working toward!
Yep. This kind of doublethink is the exact reason I object to so many supposedly liberal doctrines that gained internet popularity. This whole "don't be a racist but respect the cultural heritage of people" is just utter nonsense. The only real way forward is to treat people as people and be done with it.
As a Jew who keeps getting told by everyone around me that this trivia about me is important to me on a personal level and that I will never be accepted anywhere because of what I am, I can safely say that I experienced this kind of wrongheaded argument from both sides of the fence (I also have white skin, you see). Seems to me that if I don't walk around yelling at people to remember the holocaust and just treat every individual I meet as their own person, only forming opinions about them based on personal interaction, then people will act the same towards me. Or, at least, I maximize the chances of them doing so.
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How does one "respect" a culture anyway, and how does one know if one's doing it adequately? I have a hard time seeing the boundary between perceiving cultures and stereotyping individuals. This is a very nasty problem: Enlightened behavior can look bigoted, since in order to visibly fight racism, you have to learn to recognize it, and to do that, you have to accept more than a bit of racism into yourself.
These are unprecedented and dangerous times we live in - but also very important, and if you can manage to keep from being drained by it all, exciting. It's all a pain-in-the-ass Ferris wheel juggling act where you have to recognize the existence of multiple irreconcilable "realities" - and this, of course, is where fantasy shines.
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How does one "respect" a culture anyway, and how does one know if one's doing it adequately? I have a hard time seeing the boundary between perceiving cultures and stereotyping individuals. This is a very nasty problem: Enlightened behavior can look bigoted, since in order to visibly fight racism, you have to learn to recognize it, and to do that, you have to accept more than a bit of racism into yourself.
These are unprecedented and dangerous times we live in - but also very important, and if you can manage to keep from being drained by it all, exciting. It's all a pain-in-the-ass Ferris wheel juggling act where you have to recognize the existence of multiple irreconcilable "realities" - and this, of course, is where fantasy shines.
I do think "racism" might be too vague a word here - does it only mean discrimination based on race, or also any sort of impact on your behavior based on the race of the person in front of you?
The first is clearly immoral and wrong, the second is very hard to avoid - if I live most of my life surrounded by European and middle easterners, an Indian or Australian would look different to me than the people I'm used to, and I would have a different initial reaction to such a person. However, what I choose to do with that reaction is what matters. In my case, the choice to suppress those instincts and base my behavior purely on what the other person is doing. This is quite possible to do, and I do it often. But I wouldn't call that initial, lizard-brain reaction "racism". Putting such a response in the same category as race-based discrimination is clearly irrational.
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So, in a word - if you don't include them you will be dinged for being racist or 'culturalist' or whatever because you are only including the dominant culture. Where if you do include them, you will be dinged for cultural appropriation.
Ah, but you're forgetting the middle ground, where you depict some non-white people, but not the entire culture, and get accused of "tokenism."
Well...I mean I disagree with umbrella statements in the OP's post, but I do think there are valid points and criticisms.
Using an example from Paizo, with Quadira. I don't see any issue with sabers and loose clothing/robes; in fact I would expect any culture of similar technological and cultural development in a hot desert area to have similar clothing. Which is pretty much what we see throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
I contrast, the whole militant Sarenae worship feels off to me, since it doesn't jive with the rest of the setting, and seem a bit too much like an attempt to shoehorn a jihad into the setting without any basis.
Similarly, I think arguments about cultural appropriation are completely valid when talking about things like White Wolf's treatment of the Romani, or the The Strange's Thunder Plains, since they seem to exist as bad stereotypes of real cultures and ethnic groups.
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Similarly, I think arguments about cultural appropriation are completely valid when talking about things like White Wolf's treatment of the Romani, or the The Strange's Thunder Plains, since they seem to exist as bad stereotypes of real cultures and ethnic groups.
Or more accurately, they exist as reflections of types of horror stories, which are the actual source material for the World of Darkness. Since the game is in conversation with and inspired by these stories, the Romani of White Wolf are not those of the real world.
Plus, why are the Romani cultural appropriation when the vampires and the werewolves aren't? When the changelings aren't? they are all based on mythologies and superstitions from the past. From Wikipedia:
Vampires proper originate in folklore widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized.
Finally, about Golarion specifically - again, I can't see why having the followers of Sarenrae be militant is somehow cultural appropriation while creating the worldwound to stage a superficial "crusade" situation for the Europe analogs of Golarion is somehow not. What, precisely, is the difference? Golarion shamelessly bases itself on pulp fantasy adventure stories of all kinds. Quadira is not supposed to be a realistic representation of the middle east anymore than Cheliax is of Rome.
Honestly, I have yet to hear an argument against cultural appropriation in popular culture that isn't some combination of ignorant or hypocritical.
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I think that there is a world of difference between blackface and Rokugan. Literally. One is an action that is specifically insulting to real people in the real world. The other is a fantasy world that has similarities to existing culture, but does not claim to be accurate. It's one thing if you are specifically setting a game in a historical period on Earth. In that case you need to be accurate. In fantasy, it's a different story.
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This sounds like an appeal to ethnocentrism which has worked so well in the past. What happened to intent and context? For once im with Bill Maher.
Similarly, I think arguments about cultural appropriation are completely valid when talking about things like White Wolf's treatment of the Romani, or the The Strange's Thunder Plains, since they seem to exist as bad stereotypes of real cultures and ethnic groups.Or more accurately, they exist as reflections of types of horror stories, which are the actual source material for the World of Darkness. Since the game is in conversation with and inspired by these stories, the Romani of White Wolf are not those of the real world.
First off the big difference is that the actual book WoD published was titled World of Darkness: Gypsies. Which is considered by a lot of people an ethnic slur. So that is the first strike. And then there is the portrayal that all Romani are mystically inclined superstitious magic users. Which is a pretty huge stereotype. That sort of like making a WoD book about the Jewish people and then talking about how they control the supernatural banking industry or something.
I mean just because fiction depicts a certain people a certain way...doesn't mean that depiction is good or should be followed.
Plus, why are the Romani cultural appropriation when the vampires and the werewolves aren't? When the changelings aren't? they are all based on mythologies and superstitions from the past. From Wikipedia:Vampires proper originate in folklore widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized.
Because they are fictional creatures...there are no real world vampires and werewolves to be offended over. And at any rate vampires and werewolves in fiction at this point have little if anything in common with the original beliefs, and practically every culture has there own version of the above creatures.
Finally, about Golarion specifically - again, I can't see why having the followers of Sarenrae be militant is somehow cultural appropriation while creating the worldwound to stage a superficial "crusade" situation for the Europe analogs of Golarion is somehow not. What, precisely, is the difference? Golarion shamelessly bases itself on pulp fantasy adventure stories of all kinds. Quadira is not supposed to be a realistic representation of the middle east anymore than Cheliax is of Rome.Honestly, I have yet to hear an argument against cultural appropriation in popular culture that isn't some combination of ignorant or hypocritical.
In the case of Sarenae, James Jacobs has stated for years that it is a mistake. Sarenae is a peaceful NG goddess associated with Mercy. Apparently the Sarenite war mongering crept in from other writers making assumptions about the setting based on it's influences, which James and other editors didn't catch. Now that it has crept in, they have had to kind of write around it.
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White people get to like stuff from other cultures.
If your definition of cultural appropriation doesn't leave room for appreciation of other cultures, then your definition is too broad.
I want more of this delicious "cultural appropriation" thing.
It's going to make me look so much more human - which is a godsend for the gnome I am.
You humans have such diverse ways of - how shall I put it ? - play with yourselves ; it's a wonder :-).
Also, SilverCat Moonpaw, your post made me howl with laughter. Well done.
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First off the big difference is that the actual book WoD published was titled World of Darkness: Gypsies. Which is considered by a lot of people an ethnic slur. So that is the first strike. And then there is the portrayal that all Romani are mystically inclined superstitious magic users. Which is a pretty huge stereotype. That sort of like making a WoD book about the Jewish people and then talking about how they control the supernatural banking industry or something.
About the gypsies/romani thing - Okay, I can see how that is a misstep. However, a book about Jewish Kabbalah sorcerers would be cool, not offensive, and unless one is trying to be offended, I just can't see how that would be any different for Romani.
Because they are fictional creatures...there are no real world vampires and werewolves to be offended over. And at any rate vampires and werewolves in fiction at this point have little if anything in common with the original beliefs, and practically every culture has there own version of the above creatures.
Yes, but they are the mythos of one people that inspired the mythos for other people. In other words, exactly the same kind of "cultural appropriation" the OP was talking about. I think I understand now that your issue with the gypsy book is that it might be actually outright racist towards gypsies, not that it dares use their mythology and culture as inspiration. That is a different matter altogether, and you won't find me arguing that it's legitimate.
In the case of Sarenae, James Jacobs has stated for years that it is a mistake. Sarenae is a peaceful NG goddess associated with Mercy. Apparently the Sarenite war mongering crept in from other writers making assumptions about the setting based on it's influences, which James and other editors didn't catch. Now that it has crept in, they have had to kind of write around it.
Granted, but how does that make their presence into cultural appropriation? how is the presence of a militant religious organization modeled after fantasy fiction versions of Jihad offensive to anyone? If it is, how is it more offensive than the Worldwound Crusade?
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So, I kind of see where you're going with this article. And there is a lot of problematic stuff re: World of Darkness I generally agree with.
But as many posters have pointed out, everything in Golarion is a pastiche modeled after a pulp fiction take on something that, on the surface level, has some analogues to mythology from actual cultures. It is exceptionally far removed and these analogues fall apart pretty fast once you go past the surface. There's a huge difference between this, and, say, a book that talks about "[Roma] having actual magic powers in this world!" and making their formal title a word said group has made clear is a slur.
The one big misstep in this model is the Sarenrae militants, but a previous poster pointed out, that was never intended to happen and Paizo has worked around the material (since they can't possibly retract it or reprint it all) to de-emphasize it and move away from it.
Your sources on appropriation are known and reliable; they talk about modern struggles in art/culture and the way some cultural pieces (yoga, belly dancing) are treated as "fads" without context for where they came from. And yes, RPGs have done some pretty rough things (again, White Wolf) in this context. But they don't really fit your content. Writing on hipsters wearing indian headdresses to music festivals, folks profiting from yoga without engaging the cultural/religious aspects of it, and the aforementioned belly dancing trend doesn't easily engage with the fine line we need to walk in Fantasy/Sci-Fi RPGs that often borrow from problematic fiction that came before.
I'd challenge you to read more feminist literature on genre media and cultural appropriation if you're aiming to write about this topic. There are nuances to it, and a lot of writing on the ways using tropes stolen part and parcel from exploitation oriented media (say, the pulp fantasy/fiction Golarion borrows from) to in turn undermine exploitation/appropriation. We're seeing this happen in comics with B$!~! Planet and Virgil. We've seen it done in film with Kill Bill and Django.
I'd be really interested in this as a podcast that teases out where the line is in RPGs: when do we stop being vague pulp media pastiche and move on to harmful or inappropriate things (because there are some clear examples out there). Maybe even better as a discussion between you and a guest or two who have clear, research informed opinions on this.
And please, if you're going to go waste deep into the realm of feminist theory re: media, stop quoting Merriam-Webster for definitions. There are lots of articles on what "agency" for example, means in the context of story telling. Use these instead.
