WotC bans racist cards

[crimsonking]

...

* there is one human race. Racism refers to acts of bigotry targeting one or kore specific culture(s) and has no basis on so-called race...

I also want to point out that, although I agree there is some debate upon it, the concept of race denotes animals within the same species (i.e. humans in this case) that have similar morphological characteristics.
I can understand in USA the topic is kind of more "sensible", but technically speaking religion, socio-economical status etc. don't denote a race.
Notably, jews and muslims are not a race, but caucasian, black people, redskins and asians are. At least that's how I've studied it in Italy.
This is very important (at least here in Europe) because the nazis spent 30 years trying to justify the holocaust by saying the jews were "contaminating" their pure "Arian" race.
We now know there is no such a thing as the "Arian" race and the nazis were wrong.
Races aren't inherently a bad thing, it's when people try to give them a negative connotation that we get to racism.
Again, I'm not willing to "teach" anything to anybody, I'm just trying to give a vison from outside USA.

[crimsonking]

As for Imprison, I have to point out that my objection isn’t: “who cares if he’s dark-skinned.”
You said: “what if he was a goblin?”
What I’m saying is: “what if he was white-skinned?”
Think about it: was he white, nobody would have raised an eyebrow. So what we have to infere from this? That slavery towards black people is banned, but slavery towards white people is totally fine?
As I said, to stand against the racism is a good thing, but that doesn’t justify people for acting silly.

You're doing it again. You're not looking into why this card was singled out. And you can't use the "not from USA excuse" again, I already told you to look this stuff up. As an aside, I'm not from the US either, but that doesn't matter. Anyone can understand why this card is racist if they just looked into it.

The mask that the person in this picture is wearing is called an iron bit. It was used as a form of punishment by slave owners. I won't go into details (it may disturb some readers) but this was used as a form of torture and slave capture.

Knowing this info, it's hard to not see this as a reference to oppression. An iron bit on a black person does have a strong connotation. I truly do believe that if it was a goblin it would be different, because then it's not a direct reference to real world suffering. Which is why these cards are out. Death and torment is common in MTG lore, but these cards depict real-world events. Real-world oppression.

So please, stop jumping to conclusions. You are fully capable of seeing for yourself why these 7 cards were singled out. Whether or not this was a good action or just virtue signalling is still anyone's guess.

Here in Europe, when you speak about an "iron mask" the first connection you make is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Iron_Mask

Again, you can believe me or not, I don't deny any of these cards depict unpleasant topics, I'm just saying from a non-USA point of view they're not that evident to justify a banning.
In my first sentence I used the term "far-fetched", I didn't say "false", "arbitrary" or whatever.
I just want to stick to my comment when speaking about Imprison: "Talking about a concept doesn't necessarily imply making apology to it."
By talking about things, you get to know them better and judge them for what they are. By censoring them, you only increase ignorance.
In this, maybe Wizards has taken the correct step, i.e. spreading the word and push people to talk about these topics.
I personally know many more things now than just a couple of hours ago, and I'm glad of it.
Anyway, I still think they could have just posted a message saying they were sorry for printing those cards in the past and they'd have got the same positive result.
The banning is plain silly, at least to me.

[CleanBelwas]

...

* there is one human race. Racism refers to acts of bigotry targeting one or kore specific culture(s) and has no basis on so-called race...

I also want to point out that, although I agree there is some debate upon it, the concept of race denotes animals within the same species (i.e. humans in this case) that have similar morphological characteristics.
I can understand in USA the topic is kind of more "sensible", but technically speaking religion, socio-economical status etc. don't denote a race.
Notably, jews and muslims are not a race, but caucasian, black people, redskins and asians are. At least that's how I've studied it in Italy.
This is very important (at least here in Europe) because the nazis spent 30 years trying to justify the holocaust by saying the jews were were "contaminating" their pure "Arian" race.
We now know there is no such a thing as the "Arian" race and the nazis were wrong.
Races aren't inherently a bad thing, it's when people try to give them a negative connotation that we get to racism.
Again, I'm not willing "teaching" anything to anybody, I'm just trying to give a vison from outside USA.

Dude, this is such a bad take. This has absolutely nothing to do with why WotC decided to remove these cards from their game.

Why are we debating semantics? Who gives a shit about what technically constitutes race? Races (as people understand them) ARE given negative connotations, that's literally the whole point of the problem.

"Yea, actually it's not racism because we're all technically one race. It doesn't matter that you're singled out because of your skin colour because we're the same".
"But we're not treated the same by society".
"Well, my treatment is fine so I don't know what you're talking about".


I'm from Europe. I've likely studied very similar things to you. This is not an issue that is localised in America, and this pedantic attitude doesn't help. Real people are getting unfair treatment across the world for things that are way outside of their control, and the society we live in has normalised this. That's not OK, no matter what the root cause is.

A company recognised the part they have played in it and tried to do better. Regardless of how intentional the initial incursions were or the motivations behind their decisions to change, the fact that change is happening is a good thing.

This attitude of "I don't find it problematic so it's not a problem" will never cease to blow my mind.


WotC: We're removing these cards from our game. They depict or are indicative of real world prejudices that many of our players experience and are causing those people upset or offence.

Magic Players: But it doesn't impact me specifically. It's fucking stupid. It's political correctness gone mad. Who cares? I'm not black so I don't know what it's like, so why can't I play with these little bits of cardboard anymore?

I'm just saying from a non-USA point of view they're not that evident to justify a banning

What more justification do you need? I'm not from the USA, but I completely understand it. People told WotC that these cards portray sentiments or imagery that upsets or offends them. They listened to them and decided that there was merit to their argument and decided to remove them. Why would the voices of people who don't experience these things carry more weight than those that do?

[crimsonking]

I think I've already answered in my last post.
By the way, let's say I was living under a rock all this time (it could be), if everything was so “straightforward” and “obvious”, why during these 25 years everything was fine to everybody then?

[CleanBelwas]

I think I've already answered in my last post.
By the way, let's say I was living under a rock all this time (it could be), if everything was so straightforward and obvious, why during these 25 years everything was fine to everybody then?

They weren't. Many people have gone on record to say that they have complained about these cards repeatedly for years. The difference is that WotC only took action amidst pressure brought about by the global situation. That's on them, but it doesn't invalidate why people felt these cards were problematic.

[Morganator 2.0]

In defense of a lot of companies, it can be difficult to show that you care, especially if there really is nothing you can do. My favorite example:



But Magic was aware of these cards. I knew of a few of them before, but not all 7. Clearly this was something WotC had been sitting on. I think it was good of them to address it. I'm still not sure if this is actually helpful.

Also, not gonna lie, Invoke Prejudice was a pretty good stax piece. Oh well. It sucks, but I'll manage.

[WWolfe]

Kind of OT in a way but...

Notably, jews and muslims are not a race, but caucasian, black people, redskins and asians are. At least that's how I've studied it in Italy.

That term is actually becoming a hot button topic in the US at the moment to some degree. Native Americans for many years have complained about the term being racist and offensive. Now in light of all the attention to racial insensitivity in the country this has been given more attention. The Washington Redskins (an American pro football franchise) are being pressured more than ever before to change their nickname. So much so that they're getting financial pressure from companies such as FedEx, who owns the naming rights to their stadium as well as 10% of the team, to do so. Rumor is other companies (Nike and Pepsi among others) are privately applying pressure as well.

ETA- Nike has now removed all Redkins merchandise from their online store and the mayor of Washington, DC has publicly stated that if the team wants to build a new stadium in the location they were looking at that they would have to change the name first.

[WizardSpartan]

I think we're looking at this topic in the wrong way.

It doesn't matter whether or not if you specifically are not insulted by it/think those cards should be banned. It does not matter one bit. It's impossible for some groups to understand what goes on with other, more oppressed groups. We can sympathize, we can fight with them, but we will never truly understand what they have had to go through.

If they say that this small list of cards makes them uncomfortable/is inappropriate in this time, then those cards should be removed. End of story.

Note: I personally do not agree with the banning of Cleanse but if a wide group of people all want that card removed, then who am I to disagree?

Also, I recently read something I found very interesting. A lot of people have been hating on these big companies like Hasbro for making statements in support of BLM, LGBTQ+, and other groups fighting for equality, saying that they are only doing so to look better in the eyes of their customers. While this may be true, that indicates something very healthy for the state of the world. These big companies won't say these things unless it is "safe" to do so. These statements indicate that people on a wider scale are ready and willing to be a part in these issues. If most people are against these groups, then these companies wouldn't be saying what they are saying.

[Colt47]

The history of WoTC mishandling things largely comes from two different angles:  Lack of transparency and over-reacting to outside influences around the company.

1) The company needs to learn that taking no action can be a valuable thing.  If some card from 20+ years ago is racially insensitive, don't draw attention to it by acting on it.  If someone is screaming out their lungs on some issue they have personally with the way the company is run, don't go out of your way to ban them.  Those people are fringe at best and don't represent the majority of people playing.

2) They need to redo the entire play design system.  There's nothing wrong with powerful cards, but powerful cards that are open in terms of interaction in a game with thousands of cards available is playing with fire.  It allows organic growth, but at the same time also makes it very easy for deck builders to break the game in tournaments.  If they want to work with planeswalkers as the focal point for deck theme, than build powerful, useful cards that are tied to the mechanic of that walker.  Even if this means we end up having to sub-type spells as (Fire) or (Ice), and then have creatures or walkers that specifically interact with those kinds of keyword cards.

[crimsonking]

I thought a good exercise to look for other “racist” cards.
I still think this ban is stupid (of course it is), I just want to go with it and see where it gets me.
It could be interesting, regadless of everyone’s opinion, so I invite others a to join me in this.

Army of Allah

I honestly don’t understand why Jihad is banned and this is ok.
I mean, they have a card with Allah in its name, that’s a huge sin for muslims. Many companies have fallen in big troubles for this kind of things.
In fact, when I was younger, I even remember some of my friends complaining about Wrath of God because it was “disrespectful to Christianity” (I’m actually atheist but - hey! - I do have friends that are truly observant nonetheless).
While I honestly was unaware of Invoke Prejudice and other cards, this and Jihad have always baffled me: how can be that nobody complained about them? (Maybe because it wasn’t that big of an issue after all?)

[crimsonking]

Tormod’s Crypt

This card (in its The Dark version) depicts the celtic cross, which is a well known nazi symbol.
In fact, in Italy and Germany, the depiction of symbols attributable to nazi-fascism are allegedly forbidden.
In practice, however, nobody applies this norm because the “fascio” originally was from the roman empire (you can see it even today in the coat of arms of the spanish “guardia civil”) and the swastika is a protection rune in I don’t know which far-east religion.
https://www.google.com/search?q=swastika+temple&rlz=1CDGOYI_enES887ES887&hl=it&prmd=imvn&sxsrf=ALeKk037ZaXa-VFa7IJzySxx2CQl6B-fMg:1593857051128&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdruuarLPqAhV07OAKHWf5BvQQ_AUoAXoECAwQAQ&biw=375&bih=640
The same is true for the celtic cross, which has (as the name implies) more ancient origins than the nazi-fascism.
You could always say you were referencing the other stuff, not the nazi-fascist symbols, and bribe the law.
For the very same reason, I think MtG’s banning is stupid.