Here's a link showing the cards themselves: https://scryfall.com/search?q=Invoke+Prejudice+OR+%28%21Clea...
And here's an example of how they look now in Gatherer, the official card database: https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?multive...
An interesting thing to note is that these cards are from before Wizards decided to stop referencing our world in the game and focus entirely on building their own fictional one. One of these cards is from 1999, the rest are from 1993-1994.
The article does hint that they're still investigating whether to remove more.
I'm glad they're taking a stand on the former, but the latter seems rather silly. I'm no Magic expert, but black and white in the context of the game have literally nothing to do with the skin colour of humans, but are just a label representing the classic fantasy tropes of light and darkness.
That is, assuming I'm not missing something racist in the tiny thumbnails, which is very possible.
Btw, if Pradesh Gypsies is racist, we better start torching a ton of Marvel comics - Dr. Doom is a gypsy and all the (often excellent) stories around his background use the exact same imagery, all the way to the cyberpunk Doom 2099.
I can't figure out why Stone-Throwing Devils was banned. They look like garden-variety devils: https://img.scryfall.com/cards/normal/front/d/1/d1c387dd-134...
I don't know, I still think people burning effigies and destroying art tend to be the bad guys. The road to hell is clearly going to be well-paved for the foreseeable future.
But symbolic/performative change in lieu of meaningful change is a way to dodge lessons.
This seems like both.
This seems to point at a bigger issue where the black creatures are considered foul?
Demons and vampires and zombies and things like that.
The use of "Black" as a stand-in for nefarious things is its own problem, but it does not refer the the color of skin in any way in MTG.
This is basically a book-burning.
How is this happening in a society based on free speech? Why do most of the people in this thread seem to be okay with it?
2020 liberals: "Magic is Racist"
I guess "protection from black" is the next /s https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=oracle%3A%2...
Meanwhile, what are the same busybody zealots doing about grotesque socioeconomic apartheid (including criminal justice, disproportionately incarcerating precious minority brothers and sisters for a little weed), neocolonial pan-militarism, inverted totalitarian klepto-plutocracy corruption of democracies by rent-seeking, feudal billionaires, or the origins and prevalence of all types of mass shootings in the US? No, the Redskins need to change their name right now because reasons. [0]
People need to take a stand to reinforce that the social contract is implicit and doesn't need someone else's arbitrary Code of Conduct pseudo-legalese foisted onto every group or else you're somehow signaling that you're a terrible bigot because you don't do what others demand immediately. Oh, and apologize now, tomorrow, and the day after.. and defenestrate your worthless self properly or else!
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins_name_contr...
But it could be seen as tone deaf right now.
Likely in part due to J.R.R. Tolkien's influence on Western fantasy archetypes. Almost invariably, his books equate light skin with purity, civilization and goodness, and dark skin with corruption, barbarism and evil. Not to say that he was racist in the same way as H.P. Lovecraft was when writing about fish-men from Innsmouth as a thinly veiled metaphor for race-mixing, but rather that given Tolkien's Colonial British upbringing, he may have been blind to his own cultural prejudice.
Over the decades this has sort of become a trope that has seeped into a lot of fantasy and even science fiction.
While white is described as representing "morality, order, community, civilization, ..."
Are they the same, of course not, but we also can't say it has no significance either, as it does to always have those associations.
It is an exonyme, so shouldn't be preferred but is not a racist term in itself. It wasn't coined as a slur and isn't in itself derogatory. It is built in the same way Roma is from a time people thought the ethnic group came from Egyptia (well most likely what was then called small Egyptia so Epirus in Greece). It also often tends to be used as a synonym for nomads with people referring to the Irish Travellers as gispies.
The card effect however seems to refer to the stereotype attached to Romani which is very much racist.
As an aside, it is a lot less clear to me as a foreigner why crusade and jihad are seen as racist cards. They refer to historical conflicts which were motivated by religion not ethnicity. It might be because my native language hasn't stretched the definition of the word racism as much as American English did. The world now seems to encompass any form of prejudice in America but confusingly to me sometimes strangely not things which would be considered extremely racist in my native language like applying the world race to humans. Sometimes I feel like a cultural gulf is opening between both sides of the Atlantic regarding what is and isn't appropriate.
The cards mentioned above are NOT good in play, they are only notable for their content.
Personally, I think the art for Imprison is gorgeous, but depicting violence against people of color is dehumanizing and problematic, so I understand and support the decision.
That modifier might as well come from outwitting or befuddling, particularly with a text that evokes mystery.
Sounds to me like this choice says more about the actual prejudices of whoever made it, rather than objective parameters.
If you replaced it with "Wanderers" nothing of value is lost.
Using a real group name is thr only reason your comment (and this one) exists.
It literally creates tension where none should be by its very existence. That's problematic.
Are there any great substitute terms which focus on the lifestyle commonly associated with the Romani? "Nomadic" (or "nomads") is associated more with peoples who live away from civilization; "travelers" is a little weak, as it can imply a temporary activity.
