Agents of Edgewatch Update

Lanathar wrote:

Yes - the dispute wasn’t about assuming you were living in Varisia but assuming you were from Varisia and the equivalent of “White European”. Any attempt to try and portray otherwise is misrepresenting the point that was being made. Hopefully not deliberately.

Actually, the dispute started about the "Mighty Whity/ White Savior" trope, specially in Jade Regent. My point is that in Pathfinder and in Golarion it is a discredited trope, because while you can a play as white human you can play as pretty much anything else.

Then the conversation shifted to ¨Travel to the exotic Far East¨, which is a point I am trying hardest get. Yes, people go to the foreign strikingly, excitingly, or mysteriously different or unusual land of fantasy east Asia, but is not a disrespectful caricature or anything of the like, not that I am necessarily against it as it can be hilarious. Also, while I understand why some people may find the "normal travels to real country and there magic" off putting, as you might indirectly compare the inhabitants of the place to magical creatures and rarely depicts the culture accurately, in the case of the Jade Regent party travels from FANTASY version of European mythology to FANTASY version of eastern Asia. Again, I personally find it hilarious.

** spoiler omitted **...

Jade Regent is the story of people coming from not-Europe to save a whole empire in not-Asia from being enslaved to supernatural Evil. Which can easily be seen as local people not being able to do it on their own and requiring the help of foreign people.

Though obviously not intended as such, it does resonate in a bad way with Europeans colonizing people for their own good and because the Europeans considered themselves superior.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

Thank you for this post. I am all for inclusivity but have yet to see Native and Meso Anerican and Hispanic parts of Golarion developed other than saying they are on a other continent that wr really wont explore.

Oh man, how the heck would that even work?

There's no good way to do that.
Even if you hired a small army of sensitivity readers and Native American tabletop designers to do the rules & adventure content, the adventure path itself would take one of three forms: Colonialist people from Avistan going west OR the the PCs being locals, which means the primarily white audience is playing "dress-up" in Mesoamerican culture OR the white heroes going west peacefully but solving all the local problems (like adventurers do) bringing in white saviour tropes.

Even if you did it absolutely perfect (the PCs are in a convoy of ships blown off course, land and explore this new land peacefully, accidentally cause problems that they have to solve) then you'd have to deal with the potential accusations that the adventure is trying to erase the past and absolve Europe of its colonial sins.
And you'd have to deal with the fact that, at the end of the day, Paizo, a white-owned company, would be using and appropriating mesoamerican culture to sell their products and make money.

*

I've often wondered if the non-Avistan continents might be better off being "gifted" to fan communities. Loosely detailed by Paizo and then left to fan sites to explore under the community use policy, or a special licence like the Articles of Nethys.

Acknowledged as regions Paizo can't use at this time, and left to fans from those cultures to expand, detail, and generally curate.

It would work about the same way their existing material on Garund and Tian Xia works. Some controversy, but generally pretty popular.

Campaign setting books would probably be the safest way, since that wouldn't impose any particular PC narrative, but would also be likely to draw less interest without the high profile of an AP to tie into.

Jade Regent is the story of people coming from not-Europe to save a whole empire in not-Asia from being enslaved to supernatural Evil. Which can easily be seen as local people not being able to do it on their own and requiring the help of foreign people.

Though obviously not intended as such, it does resonate in a bad way with Europeans colonizing people for their own good and because the Europeans considered themselves superior.

As others have said, it doesn't necessarily have to be - Ameiko is from not-Asia and it's not impossible for the party to be the same. It would actually be an interesting twist on the AP to do that, but it's clearly not the expectation.

The Raven Black wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Anorak wrote:

For me society is the problem, not the Police. Their corruption and brutality is merely a symptom of our society's various failures.

As for Edgewatch, would have loved for something along the lines of Bosch or the Wire or Law and Order SVU but understand that wouldn't appeal to everyone.

As for the blog post, to me, disavowing it because it focuses on the City Guard is shocking. I'd hoped Paizo would take the leap and show how a properly ran Peace Officer who embodies Serve and Protect could happen. A chance to show how a Police Force focused on Justice and Serving the community would look like.

And again, Pathfinder is a game where the bulk of your abilities are combat-focused, so any police AP is either going to be one about violent police or one where the bulk of the mechanics don't get used.

Many combat abilities can already be non-lethal. And I expect AoE to open more possibilities for non-lethal or even peaceful resolution of conflict than other APs do. Which will be a welcome change.

But even "non-lethal" combat abilities have a nasty resonance when protests about people killed with "non-lethal" force are being met with "non-lethal" violence.

Non-lethal in PF2 really means that though.

There’s no good way to do that

I think that is true of just about all themes. It just doesn’t matter who writes/publishes it, someone is going to be offended. It seems like the only thing that matters is timing. Try not to publish something at a time of escalated tensions. If Paizo released AoE a year ago, it probably wouldn’t have raised much ire, at least not any more than a typical adventure path. A few pieces would have been nit-picked, but generally it would have been received on par with other APs. Given the current social circumstances, AoE will be scrutinized much more critically and probably result in fewer sales as a result of outrage.

That’s not to say the subject of injustice or BLM, etc shouldn’t have been a topic a year ago, it just wasn’t, at least not anywhere near the current landscape. When Erik and Paizo approved the AP this was not perceived as a major concern and that’s why it passed muster. If our current condition was in place at that time, I seriously doubt they would have proceeded. In the entertainment industry, timing is often as important (if not moreso) as content.

The Raven Black wrote:

Jade Regent is the story of people coming from not-Europe to save a whole empire in not-Asia from being enslaved to supernatural Evil. Which can easily be seen as local people not being able to do it on their own and requiring the help of foreign people.

Though obviously not intended as such, it does resonate in a bad way with Europeans colonizing people for their own good and because the Europeans considered themselves superior.

As others have said, it doesn't necessarily have to be - Ameiko is from not-Asia and it's not impossible for the party to be the same. It would actually be an interesting twist on the AP to do that, but it's clearly not the expectation.

I can assure you that locals do not relish being saved by expatriates coming back either. It still tells the tale of not being able to save themselves on their own.

Indeed an interesting twist then would be "where were you when they killed our families and enslaved our empire?"

This gives me ideas for a darker tone in the later parts of the JR campaign I am GMing.

Jester David wrote:

There’s no good way to do that

I think that is true of just about all themes. It just doesn’t matter who writes/publishes it, someone is going to be offended. It seems like the only thing that matters is timing. Try not to publish something at a time of escalated tensions. If Paizo released AoE a year ago, it probably wouldn’t have raised much ire, at least not any more than a typical adventure path. A few pieces would have been nit-picked, but generally it would have been received on par with other APs. Given the current social circumstances, AoE will be scrutinized much more critically and probably result in fewer sales as a result of outrage.

That’s not to say the subject of injustice or BLM, etc shouldn’t have been a topic a year ago, it just wasn’t, at least not anywhere near the current landscape. When Erik and Paizo approved the AP this was not perceived as a major concern and that’s why it passed muster. If our current condition was in place at that time, I seriously doubt they would have proceeded. In the entertainment industry, timing is often as important (if not moreso) as content.

This is a good point and I applaud Paizo's continued efforts to stay at the forefront of inclusion and respect for all and not rest on their already impressive laurels.

It's standard cultural appropriation rules. Other cultures are not the costumes of people from colonialist countries. (Read: majority cultures.)

Which cultures are majority? Which countries were colonial? Spain was colonized by the Moors and the Ottoman empire was pretty big in colonizing, the Quechuas and Aztecs were colonizers and let's not forget the Zulu empire. The whole world was playing Risk, or do you mean the ones who look similar to the ones who were winning when the industrial revolution card was draw?

It's like doing accents. Would you feel comfortable doing that accent in front of someone who actually has that accent? If you're engaging in minority tourism, would you feel comfortable playing that character if there was an actual person of colour at your table?

Yes, as a matter of fact I was playing Missionary of the cult Prometheus from planet Nocturne in a Rogue Trader campaign. Take a wild guess at who was cracking racist jokes?

That's without getting into the idea of actually playing someone of a different ethnicity without coming across as doing what is an impression at best and a caricature at worst.

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity.

Even if it's done out of love it's tricky. You may adore Samuel L Jackson. But if your character is you doing a Sam Jackson impersonator it's slightly racist.

Why? Nobody is doing blackface at the table.

Humbly,
Yawar

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

It would work about the same way their existing material on Garund and Tian Xia works.

You mean those adventure that have been criticized repeatedly in this thread and commented to be "old Paizo" and content they'd do differently now?

It seems like the only thing that matters is timing. Try not to publish something at a time of escalated tensions. If Paizo released AoE a year ago, it probably wouldn’t have raised much ire, at least not any more than a typical adventure path. A few pieces would have been nit-picked, but generally it would have been received on par with other APs. Given the current social circumstances, AoE will be scrutinized much more critically and probably result in fewer sales as a result of outrage.

Of course, the problem is they plan these a year in advance, since each AP takes 8 months to write. They probably already have a chunk of the AP folowing AoE in the can, as they need to words in so they can commission NPC art, maps, and beginning editing passes.

YawarFiesta wrote:

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

Race doesn't exist. Racism does.

Ethnic prejudices are pretty much the same thing though, they just fade more quickly when the markers aren't as clearly visible as skin color or other physical features.

I can assure you that locals do not relish being saved by expatriates coming back either. It still tells the tale of not being able to save themselves on their own.

Are you making this assertion based on history or personal principle?

The history of Africa's liberation is steeped in the history of Africans who went abroad, got a law degree, came back and kicked a$$. Chinua Achebe even had a term for them, the "been-to's" (as in, been to Oxford, been to Cambridge, etc.). There's nothing more satisfying than learning the oppressor's system from the inside and then dismantle its ugly configuration back home. Gandhi is another famous example. Called to the bar in London, then went to South Africa etc. You know the rest, you watched the movie or read the book.

So while I'm sure the oppressed locals would have preferred to rise up to the challenge without the been-to's, your allegation of how these people feel doesn't resonate with the people I spoke to who lived through this experience. (Was in South Africa in the 1990s.)

Without singling out your post, but in discussions like these, I'm always amazed by the claims that are asserted on behalf of an oppressed people. For one, oppressed people are not a homogenous mass, they are highly diverse in their experience, desires, and reactions to situations like the one you describe. For another, precisely because such people were oppressed for so long, we should strongly prefer to hear those people talk to their own experience, be it in our personal exchanges with them--especially if they lived through it last century--or from histories written by them. I'm not saying you do neither, but I would advise to steer free of categorical assertion.

Jester David wrote:

It's standard cultural appropriation rules. Other cultures are not the costumes of people from colonialist countries. (Read: majority cultures.)

Which cultures are majority? Which countries were colonial? Spain was colonized by the Moors and the Ottoman empire was pretty big in colonizing, the Quechuas and Aztecs were colonizers and let's not forget the Zulu empire. The whole world was playing Risk, or do you mean the ones who look similar to the ones who were winning when the industrial revolution card was draw[n]?

An excellent point and one that I'm sure will go unnoticed in this thread. It's a striking feature of humanity that the urge and ability to colonize others is hardly unique to the Indo-German tribes who ended up in Europe (incidentally, colonizing Europe).

And again, Pathfinder is a game where the bulk of your abilities are combat-focused, so any police AP is either going to be one about violent police or one where the bulk of the mechanics don't get used.

I agree that Pathfinder is built around a combat engine, but I don't think it follows that the PCs will be violent cops.

The previous 2E APs had PCs has castle-builders and circus performers, but not necessarily violent ones. I would expect the police work in AoE to be more like a skill-based subsytem, the way runing a circus was in Extinction Curse.

It’s pretty weird that folks don’t recognise the white saviour trope that is prevalent in Jade Regent saying “But player characters can be from anywhere!”
The AP is framed to introduce the Tian and Minkai elements slowly to players unfamiliar with the culture. They don’t even assume PCs speak the language.

Trying to restore a secret heir to the throne in Ameiko, but Ameiko is more culturally Varisian than Minkaian. She’s three generations removed from Minkai, and culture is more than blood.

I’ve been running Jade Regent for like 8 years now, (just finishing up a Tuby Phoenix tournament which means we’ll actually hit Minkai soon), and unpicking that particular knot in the story is a lot of goddamn work let me tell you.

Because I am not running a Last Samurai/Wolverine/White Heroes are better at being Japanese than the Japanese story. So I have to do massive rewrites of the back end of the AP.

I ran it because I wanted an “Epic Journey” AP, and with the end of the epic journey there’s a lot to consider.

But I think if folks want to talk about cultural appropriation, white saviour tropes and the like as it relates to JR, maybe that should go in its own thread. This one should really be focused on the issues of Agents of Edgewatch.

The Raven Black wrote:

I can assure you that locals do not relish being saved by expatriates coming back either. It still tells the tale of not being able to save themselves on their own.

Are you making this assertion based on history or personal principle?

The history of Africa's liberation is steeped in the history of Africans who went abroad, got a law degree, came back and kicked a$$. Chinua Achebe even had a term for them, the "been-to's" (as in, been to Oxford, been to Cambridge, etc.). There's nothing more satisfying than learning the oppressor's system from the inside and then dismantle its ugly configuration back home. Gandhi is another famous example. Called to the bar in London, then went to South Africa etc. You know the rest, you watched the movie or read the book.

So while I'm sure the oppressed locals would have preferred to rise up to the challenge without the been-to's, your allegation of how these people feel doesn't resonate with the people I spoke to who lived through this experience. (Was in South Africa in the 1990s.)

I think there's a difference between the "been-to's" you describe and what Raven Black was thinking. Going to study abroad and returning to fight for your home is one thing. Living abroad for extended times - even a generation or more as implied in my original post on Jade Regent, may be a different matter.

]I think there's a difference between the "been-to's" you describe and what Raven Black was thinking. Going to study abroad and returning to fight for your home is one thing. Living abroad for extended times - even a generation or more as implied in my original post on Jade Regent, may be a different matter.

Seen more as people from abroad than returning locals

Fair enough! It's certainly not easy to make the distinction. Some people who go abroad to take a degree stay behind considerably longer than others (e.g., in the US, obtaining a work visa, then marrying etc.). But your point is well taken. Thank you.

Trying to restore a secret heir to the throne in Ameiko, but Ameiko is more culturally Varisian than Minkaian. She’s three generations removed from Minkai, and culture is more than blood.

Another excellent point, though again I'd be careful to jump to conclusions based on the number of generations removed. I've met Jewish merchants in Amsterdam whose ancestors moved there centuries ago, and let me tell you, they cultivate their belongings more deeply than a great number of secular citizens of Israel. That's no knock on either of them, but a cautionary example of how 'number of generations removed' is no indicator here.

The in-game example you picked is a particularly poignant example. In Burnt Offerings, Paizo gave us two families who were split on that exact issue--that is, how members within the same nuclear family disagree on whether culture does, let alone should, run "deeper than blood" (to use your words). One is Ameiko's own family, as per the falling-out between father and son, and the other is Sheriff Hemlock's falling out with his brother. Hemlock adopted a Varisian name and left behind his native culture. A propos the former, the module says how the father and his "family are newcomers to Varisia, the survivors of an exiled family from Minkai sent over the crown of the world a half century ago for unknown crimes. Lonjiku was born in Magnimar and has never visited his motherland, but he carries memories of its wonders in the form of stories told to him by his now deceased parents." This is a powerful reminder that when people leave their country behind, their bond to their home culture occasionally actually deepens. The correlation of territory to culture is then inaccurate at the level of lived human experience.

Paizo's own modules display an inspiring diversity in how people respond to an inherited as well as an adopted culture; how such a choice is not binary (an either/or); how it's often not even principled but responsive to life's vagaries and vicissitudes; and how that decision can change many times over a person's lifetime.
In doing so, they set a wonderful inspiration for players to emulate. I agree with you that such emulation is often fraught with difficulty. But I'd rather see it attempted than not done at all, and hope Paizo's adventures remain inspiring source material along those lines.

thejeff wrote:

]I think there's a difference between the "been-to's" you describe and what Raven Black was thinking. Going to study abroad and returning to fight for your home is one thing. Living abroad for extended times - even a generation or more as implied in my original post on Jade Regent, may be a different matter.

Seen more as people from abroad than returning locals

Fair enough! It's certainly not easy to make the distinction. Some people who go abroad to take a degree stay behind considerably longer than others (e.g., in the US, obtaining a work visa, then marrying etc.). But your point is well taken. Thank you.

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Trying to restore a secret heir to the throne in Ameiko, but Ameiko is more culturally Varisian than Minkaian. She’s three generations removed from Minkai, and culture is more than blood.

Another excellent point, though again I'd be careful to jump to conclusions based on the number of generations removed. I've met Jewish merchants in Amsterdam whose ancestors moved there centuries ago, and let me tell you, they cultivate their belongings more deeply than a great number of secular citizens of Israel. That's no knock on either of them, but a cautionary example of how 'number of generations removed' is no indicator here.

The in-game example you picked is a particularly poignant example. In Burnt Offerings, Paizo gave us two families who were split on that exact issue--that is, how members within the same nuclear family disagree on whether culture does, let alone should, run "deeper than blood" (to use your words). One is Ameiko's own family, as per the falling-out between father and son, and the other is Sheriff Hemlock's falling out with his brother. Hemlock adopted a Varisian name and left behind his native culture. A propos the former, the module says how the father and his "family are newcomers to Varisia, the survivors of an exiled family from Minkai sent over the crown of the world a half century ago for unknown crimes....

Though even those who hold to their culture over generations often find their homeland strange. Or the circumstances and struggles their parents fled and they return to fight have changed and the people no longer share goals with the exiles.

YawarFiesta wrote:

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

Are you sure about race (3.3.c) not existing? It is something testable and measurable.

Humbly,
Yawar

Jester David wrote:

YawarFiesta wrote:

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

Are you sure about race (3.3.c) not existing? It is something testable and measurable.

Humbly,
Yawar

Yes. The concept known as race doesn't exist. Random mutations that you can track doesn't actually mean anything.

Rhoden points out that suspects with similar genetic ancestry can look significantly different from one another. A person whose profile is 75% Sub-Saharan African, for example, may have skin color that is nearly identical to someone whose profile is 35% Sub-Saharan African.

Because I am not running a Last Samurai/Wolverine/White Heroes are better at being Japanese than the Japanese story.

I really wish folks would stop holding up The Last Samurai as some kind of cultural appropriation movie. Tom Cruise is not the last samurai, Ken Watanabe is. Hell, Cruise isn't any kind of samurai. Cruise is merely the vehicle through which Watanabe's story is told to a, yes, Western audience. The movie does overplay the role of the US military in Japan's transformation, but the US military was involved. Watanabe definitely should have been on the poster, but I don't think he was well known in the US at the time the movie was released, hence his absence. A mistake in my eyes.

Its silly that APs about violent revolutionaries or pirates are ok but police apparently not (and no, pirates still exist in real life and they are not nice).

It shows how much influence the media has on the perception on what is acceptable and what is not. Pirates are cool even though they are violent criminals as are rebels. Police is not even when many/most of them do a good job and the role of the PCs will most likely be SWAT and not the guy pulling people over for broken lights on his car.

So what will happen in the future? Will all future APs contain advice how to make the PCs unaligned? And wouldn't this limit the APs?

Not to mention that we have an AP where playing as evil as can be characters seems to be all well and good yet playing fantasy evil seems to be more of an issue. They even advise in Skull and Shackles to not play Lawful characters and no Paladins as chances are good players will be more than likley playing amoral pirates. Yet somehow less of an issue.

I get the apology though and not really against it so much so that it came off as someone having borrowed a favored book forgotten to return it and apologizing like they slept with their best friends significant other.

And Hell's Vengeance is a moot point here; it never said those people weren't Evil, whereas the whole snarl is Good-aligned police brutality.

According to the statement “Good-aligned police brutality” is not the whole snarl.

the very concept of police, the idea of in fact taking on the role of police, makes some members of the Paizo community deeply uncomfortable, no matter how deftly we might try to pull off the execution.

Not the very concept of “Good-aligned police,” and not “taking on the role of Good-aligned police. The “very concept of police.”

“Police” is the whole snarl.

Hell’s Vengeance was about operatives in service to a nation of slavers, and invited players to take “on the role of” operatives of a nation of slavers. I don’t see how that’s a moot point.

I didn’t suspend my AP subscription during Hell’s Vengeance, but the very concept of operatives of a nation of slavers, the idea of in fact taking on the role of operatives for a nation of slavers, made me deeply uncomfortable. The idea of diving into it deeply enough to GM it was absolutely off the table, “no matter how deftly [Paizo] might try to pull it off.”

I have no problem with the statement, but I don’t see how it’s unreasonable to compare it to Paizo’s handling of other relatively recent APs.

Jester David wrote:

YawarFiesta wrote:

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

Are you sure about race (3.3.c) not existing? It is something testable and measurable.

Humbly,
Yawar

Yes.

"Race" is the debunked 17th century idea that humans belong to five distinct "racial groups" (aka subspecies) and was BS science used to justify why certain people were inferior and could be used as slaves.
Race is imaginary and does not exist. It is a societal construct and there is no significant biological difference between different types of humans.

Ancestry and DNA testing tracks ethnicity. Which is different as it's tracing the origin of your ancestors through very, very minor differences in DNA. Countries and regions of origin.
Kinda.
Because there's a lot of bunk in those tests and they're not entirely reliable as people have been travelling and trading and intermarrying for most of human history.

Ethnic prejudices are pretty much the same thing though, they just fade more quickly when the markers aren't as clearly visible as skin color or other physical features.

This is the point where the Irish citizen mentions that the short explanation of ethnic tension in Ireland starts in 1169, yes?

Do you understand that Antifa are revolutionaries and are using violence to achieve political goals?

???

What you just said is a little like saying "Vegans are revolutionaries" or "nihilists are using violence to achieve their goals."

Anonymous is more consistent and unified than antifa.

YawarFiesta wrote:

Jester David wrote:

YawarFiesta wrote:

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

Are you sure about race (3.3.c) not existing? It is something testable and measurable.

Humbly,
Yawar

Yes.

"Race" is the debunked 17th century idea that humans belong to five distinct "racial groups" (aka subspecies) and was BS science used to justify why certain people were inferior and could be used as slaves.
Race is imaginary and does not exist. It is a societal construct and there is no significant biological difference between different types of humans.

Ancestry and DNA testing tracks ethnicity. Which is different as it's tracing the origin of your ancestors through very, very minor differences in DNA. Countries and regions of origin.
Kinda.
Because there's a lot of bunk in those tests and they're not entirely reliable as people have been travelling and trading and intermarrying for most of human history.

But as I said above, racism certainly exists, even if race doesn't. Race is a societal construct, but the effects of that construct are real and pernicious.

"Race" is the debunked 17th century idea that humans belong to five distinct "racial groups" (aka subspecies) and was BS science used to justify why certain people were inferior and could be used as slaves.

Race is imaginary and does not exist. It is a societal construct and there is no significant biological difference between different types of humans.

Ancestry and DNA testing tracks ethnicity. Which is different as it's tracing the origin of your ancestors through very, very minor differences in DNA. Countries and regions of origin.
Kinda.
Because there's a lot of bunk in those tests and they're not entirely reliable as people have been travelling and trading and intermarrying for most of human history.

Indeed, race is an incredibly fluid concept because, as a political and legal category, it's unfailingly defined by the dominant group in a given society.

A person who's 20% black qualifies as black in the US for employment etc. purposes, but is white in post-apartheid South Africa for the same reasons. Trevor Noah's granny had to protect him from the black kids in Soweto township. Why? Because to them he was a white person. Now that he's in the US, if he ever wanted to obtain another graduate degree, there's no doubt what box he'd tick on his application form--it certainly ain't "Caucasian."

My perhaps favorite historical example is the Pocahontas Exception. What sounds like a Disney joke was actually enshrined under that very moniker in American law at one point - to establish that Pocahontas and her heirs are white. Why? So that the "first family of Virginia" would be pure white too, and all those incredibly proud Virginians could go around for centuries claiming how superior they were on account of their whiteness.

It's really incredible the lengths to which people go to define inclusion in this or that race. And yet it all makes perfect sense if you answer two questions: who's in power, and what do they stand to gain from this fabrication?

YawarFiesta wrote:

Jester David wrote:

YawarFiesta wrote:

You seem to be conflating race with ethnicity

That's because ethnicity actually exists and race doesn't.

Are you sure about race (3.3.c) not existing? It is something testable and measurable.

Humbly,
Yawar

Yes.

"Race" is the debunked 17th century idea that humans belong to five distinct "racial groups" (aka subspecies) and was BS science used to justify why certain people were inferior and could be used as slaves.
Race is imaginary and does not exist. It is a societal construct and there is no significant biological difference between different types of humans.

Ancestry and DNA testing tracks ethnicity. Which is different as it's tracing the origin of your ancestors through very, very minor differences in DNA. Countries and regions of origin.
Kinda.
Because there's a lot of bunk in those tests and they're not entirely reliable as people have been travelling and trading and intermarrying for most of human history.

Okay, now I think I get the problem. I was using a colloquial definition of "race" that is synonymous with "ancestry". I believed that was clear when I linked to 23andme.

Now ethnicity means : "of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background quality or affiliation".

Humbly,
Yawar

Focusing on the riots and seeing it all as some kind of conspiracy nicely draws away attention from the very real undeserved deaths that made people angry to begin with.

And from the way Black people are treated in the USA.

It is not Black Deaths Matter. It is Black Lives Matter.

Think about it. It is your fellow countrymen and countrywomen being oppressed merely because of their skin.

Righting this wrong goes far beyond Antifas or political activists.

captain yesterday wrote:

I absolutely hate Disney and for my daughter's sake I would never buy an AP where you're a "Disney Princess".

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the thought is something like "young royalty coming of age to fight/defend/free their kingdom", possibly with a helping of "entertaining playful sidekick companions", rather than something that carries all of the usual (and heavily gender-laden) Disney tropes.

Does Eutropia Stavian count as a Disney Princess? Because it's pretty easy for your party to become a group of entertaining playful sidekick companions.