Now I'm not sure how accurate this is but one of my co-workers just told me that they're supposed to be based off of the flying monkeys from The wizard of Oz.
I hope not, because if so then OOOOOOOOOOOOOF!!!
Care to elaborate because wizard of Oz makes more sense than planet of the apes after all wizard of Oz has flying monkeys enslaved by a witch and freed upon the witch's death there's a lot more parallels there than with planet of the apes.
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Care to elaborate because wizard of Oz makes more sense than planet of the apes after all wizard of Oz has flying monkeys enslaved by a witch and freed upon the witch's death there's a lot more parallels there than with planet of the apes.
Because Frank L Baum wrote articles openly calling for the mass extermination of native peoples in the US, of which there is strong literary evidence to suggest the flying monkeys were an allegory for...
Care to elaborate because wizard of Oz makes more sense than planet of the apes after all wizard of Oz has flying monkeys enslaved by a witch and freed upon the witch's death there's a lot more parallels there than with planet of the apes.
Because Frank L Baum wrote articles openly calling for the mass extermination of native peoples in the US, of which there is strong literary evidence to suggest the flying monkeys were an allegory for...
So because the author was racist we can't honor(can't think of a better word) the book for at least in this case part of the book.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Considering the portion in question is itself an allegory for a group of people the author wanted exterminated, and considering I myself would most likely end up lumped in with said people...I'd say it's pretty dicey proposition, yeah.
Note, that I'm not saying to get rid of the hadozee; I'm just saying that if it was an Oz reference: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF!!!
Considering the portion in question is itself an allegory for a group of people the author wanted exterminated, and considering I myself would most likely end up lumped in with said people...I'd say it's pretty dicey proposition, yeah.
Note, that I'm not saying to get rid of the hadozee; I'm just saying that if it was an Oz reference: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF!!!
I'm just of the opinion that people need to learn how to separate an author's views from their work cuz an author could be a truly piece of shit human being that doesn't change the fact that their works can be really good and referencing or honoring the monkeys in wizard of Oz does not mean supporting the authors racist and xenophobic views.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I wish that I could agree, and in other instances there can be a case for invoking death of the author, but when a particular piece of media has racist intention behind it then it becomes a lot harder to separate that from the beliefs that directly inspired it.
Once again, I note that I'm not saying anyone (except Frank L Baum) is a horrible person. I'm just saying, that if the flying monkeys are the inspiration behind it (which let's be real, is a dodgy proposition in and of itself), then: OOOOOOOOOOOF!!!
That reddit article is terrible, it is just pulling at straws. There is nothing even slightly racist about the hadozee, and suggesting that they are comparable to the old minstrels is a huge reach. It’s just another example of pc gone bonkers.
Everyone agreeing the change is good "Because slavery and racism are bad, and slapping that onto a literal monkey race is tone deaf" (seemingly obvious, right?). Do not be That Guy, who U turns to start screaming "If you don't like it go play 4th edition or Warcraft!" if your players express confusion why you are still making them fight DnD Slaver Culture 9,000 trying to enslave their Hadozee, after you spent ten minutes shouting at them how horrible their old lore was.
On a lighter note, I expect a lot of people will be real excited that Hadozee can now have baked in feather fall while wearing Real Armor. For all the talk about 'exploiting the flight', a million world weary heavy armor tanks breathed a sigh of relief at a ready access feather fall option for playing a suspiciously pit trap fall prone fighter or paladin.
The Hadozee lore cannot, in isolation, be racist. It either espouses racism, or it is written to be racist. Otherwise it's just a collection of ideas, the association of which evokes feelings or impressions of racism due to unfortunate coincidence.
The distinction is important. For one, by calling it racist, you're calling the writers racist. I'm not WotC's biggest fan, but I'm hesitant to call them racism - or at least, I don't think they're particularly racist, we have our biases etc. It's also a really nasty insult and, like the word Nazi, gets thrown around far too lightly. It's also deeply hurtful - especially if there was no racist intent.
The other part is, if it's that it invokes impressions of racism...then making an issue of it is part of the problem. The greater problem is the association of blacks with monkeys. This only gets reinforced when things like this get pushed into the public consciousness.
A lot of the things brought up in the criticisms...are very American-centric. In Britain, flying monkeys just aren't associated with blacks or native Americans or whatever the accusation is. They're just evil critters that are sent by the evil queen to attack Dorothy. Big deal, no different to Tolkien's Uruk-Hai that are sent to capture the Hobbits.
By crying out that "monkeys that were enslaved! Must be a reference to blacks! Look, they can reduce damage, it must be a reference to the blacks being viewed as being able to be strong and resilient!", people aren't just reinforcing those tropes in American society, but also introducing it and spreading it in other countries too. That's the opposite of what needs to be done - what needs to be done is breaking the association of blacks with monkeys. You don't do that by proclaiming that a depiction of monkeys is actually a depiction of blacks.
I don't really know the answer to this, but associating monkeys with blacks isn't the way forward.
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What I think is funny is even if they were caricatures or references to actual black people and slavery it's actually uplifting because you have a race of people who were granted sentience only to be enslaved they then fought and killed their enslaver and then went back home to raise up their fellow people. And to me that's a tale of overcoming adversity and coming out better for it.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
What I think is funny is even if they were caricatures or references to actual black people and slavery it's actually uplifting because you have a race of people who were granted sentience only to be enslaved they then fought and killed their enslaver and then went back home to raise up their fellow people. And to me that's a tale of overcoming adversity and coming out better for it.
It is about perspective. I saw a lot of Planet of the Apes trilogy (with Andy Serkis), or at least Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in it. I also saw redemption of the apprentices, as they turned on the evil Wizard to do the right thing. When you have a culture of seeing things through the lense though, that the Hadozee didn't do it themselves is seen as a millstone. How you approach it, with your own preconceptions and biases, affectshow you interpret it. [REDACTED]
Notes: Please be careful and considerate with the language you use
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The Hadozee lore cannot, in isolation, be racist. It either espouses racism, or it is written to be racist. Otherwise it's just a collection of ideas, the association of which evokes feelings or impressions of racism due to unfortunate coincidence.
The distinction is important. For one, by calling it racist, you're calling the writers racist. I'm not WotC's biggest fan, but I'm hesitant to call them racism - or at least, I don't think they're particularly racist, we have our biases etc. It's also a really nasty insult and, like the word Nazi, gets thrown around far too lightly. It's also deeply hurtful - especially if there was no racist intent.
Nonsense. Absolutely, complete nonsense.
An idea can be racist. Lore can be racist. It can be racist in isolation. And someone can have racial biases without being outwardly racist and can write something based on those biases (or that is a combination of multiple different ideas/concepts that accidentally overlap into appearing racist) without calling the authors of that content racist.
I don't think anyone on the WotC staff said "Hey, let's echo real world racist propaganda by having a formerly-enslaved race of monkey people that became civilized because of their enslavement and also add a piece of art that looks strangely similar to those old blackface Minstrel Shows!" I don't think that happened, and to say that something like that happened or was intended is really stretching it.
However, I do think that one of the writers at WotC apparently had some in-world racial biases where they decided to make their one formerly-enslaved race be Monkey-people and connected their enslavement to their newfound "civility". I think they either accidentally showed internal biases or accidentally stumbled into something that was too close to real world racist speaking-points. And that is a problem, even if WotC didn't intend it.
The other part is, if it's that it invokes impressions of racism...then making an issue of it is part of the problem. The greater problem is the association of blacks with monkeys. This only gets reinforced when things like this get pushed into the public consciousness.
A lot of the things brought up in the criticisms...are very American-centric. In Britain, flying monkeys just aren't associated with blacks or native Americans or whatever the accusation is. They're just evil critters that are sent by the evil queen to attack Dorothy. Big deal, no different to Tolkien's Uruk-Hai that are sent to capture the Hobbits.
By crying out that "monkeys that were enslaved! Must be a reference to blacks! Look, they can reduce damage, it must be a reference to the blacks being viewed as being able to be strong and resilient!", people aren't just reinforcing those tropes in American society, but also introducing it and spreading it in other countries too. That's the opposite of what needs to be done - what needs to be done is breaking the association of blacks with monkeys. You don't do that by proclaiming that a depiction of monkeys is actually a depiction of blacks.
I don't really know the answer to this, but associating monkeys with blacks isn't the way forward.
That's been a part of white supremacist speaking points for centuries. Ignoring it won't make it go away, and the presence of it in this book is a bad look.
This isn't a "whoever smelt it dealt it" situation. This is a "hey, you might not know this, but this association has been made in the past in the real world to real groups of people, and it's really unflattering to have something that close to home in a D&D book, especially with this minstrel monkeyman art on the same page".
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If this was a reference it could have been to any of a dozen different things; Mesoamerican conflict between Aztec/mayans and other tribes, first nations conflicts, Russian expansionism, The rise and fall of the roman empire, planet of the apes, various conflicts between china and it's neighbors, Egypt, the Israelites, battlefield earth...
This isn't a trope that is unique to the atlantic triangle.
Engineered monkeys, bred for specific tasks, have been a staple of science fiction and fantasy for years. In addition to Planet of the Apes, you also have things like Rendezvous with Rama, which had monkeys genetically modified to carry out simple tasks aboard a starship. Like with much they do, they tried to draw certain elements from all manner of different lore together and create something new - the genetically engineered ship crew of Clarke, the rebellion against creator of Planet of the Apes, the idea of pirates having pet monkeys for entertainment, etc.
Lots of different elements that, in a vacuum, might be fine… but combined together and you get “superior race went to savage lands, took lesser apes, made them better (the “more resilient when harmed” language is word for word something slaveholders said about why Africans made better slaves) by raising them out of their savagery and making them our slaves, who were trained to do minstrel shows, who could not save themselves and had to be saved by the superior race, and then who went back to their savage lands to bring them civilisation and raise them up as well (literally an argument made for why freed slaves should go back to Africa—getting them to civilise their ancestral lands).”
That’s… really bad. Entirely possible to inadvertently come up with by just taking a kitchen sink approach to race lore, but really bad—and hurtful—nonetheless. At best, Wizards was quite negligent in creating this race, and, at worst, someone slipped some actual racism in there which went undetected by the editors (the line about “they don’t feel as much pain” gives me huge pause—that rather specific stereotype is still leading to measurably worse racial outcomes in medical care).
Neither of those is great—and even the most deferential possibility of “Wizards was negligent” still ascribes a level of culpability for their failure to catch something fairly obviously problematic. And that is part of what systemic racism is—racism built into a system not intentionally, but because the system itself does not catch these kinds of aggressions as it does not do a good job looking for them.
It is racist because it includes racist tropes and images, not because it associates Africans with monkeys.
Believe it or not, all humans are in fact apes.
It's the fact that tropes like the "white savior" and the "happy slave" and the"minstrel" aren't just included, but are the very core of the lore.
So my original response was removed so here's another response. I just went and checked the hadozee description in the mobile app since it has yet to have the errata applied to it, and no where did it state that they were happy with being enslaved, so you get get rid of the happy slave trope. No where does it say the race or color of either the wizard enslaver or his apprentices so the literal white savior debunked but I'm going to assume you meant a figurative white savior, in which case I'm going to have to point to real life history which shows that almost all slave rebellion's that did not have outside help(white savior) ended in failure and the death of most slaves involved. And then we have the minstrel for this one all I have to say is, you do remember that bards are a class right or are hadozee not allowed to play instruments or enjoy music.
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Care to elaborate because wizard of Oz makes more sense than planet of the apes after all wizard of Oz has flying monkeys enslaved by a witch and freed upon the witch's death there's a lot more parallels there than with planet of the apes.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Because Frank L Baum wrote articles openly calling for the mass extermination of native peoples in the US, of which there is strong literary evidence to suggest the flying monkeys were an allegory for...
I know, I know, that got super awkward super quick, and I'm sorry to be a downer, but this is why we can't have nice things...😞
So because the author was racist we can't honor(can't think of a better word) the book for at least in this case part of the book.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Considering the portion in question is itself an allegory for a group of people the author wanted exterminated, and considering I myself would most likely end up lumped in with said people...I'd say it's pretty dicey proposition, yeah.
Note, that I'm not saying to get rid of the hadozee; I'm just saying that if it was an Oz reference: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF!!!
I'm just of the opinion that people need to learn how to separate an author's views from their work cuz an author could be a truly piece of shit human being that doesn't change the fact that their works can be really good and referencing or honoring the monkeys in wizard of Oz does not mean supporting the authors racist and xenophobic views.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I wish that I could agree, and in other instances there can be a case for invoking death of the author, but when a particular piece of media has racist intention behind it then it becomes a lot harder to separate that from the beliefs that directly inspired it.
Once again, I note that I'm not saying anyone (except Frank L Baum) is a horrible person. I'm just saying, that if the flying monkeys are the inspiration behind it (which let's be real, is a dodgy proposition in and of itself), then: OOOOOOOOOOOF!!!
In any event, this isn't a Frank L Baum thread, so we should probably move on...
That reddit article is terrible, it is just pulling at straws. There is nothing even slightly racist about the hadozee, and suggesting that they are comparable to the old minstrels is a huge reach. It’s just another example of pc gone bonkers.
Everyone agreeing the change is good "Because slavery and racism are bad, and slapping that onto a literal monkey race is tone deaf" (seemingly obvious, right?). Do not be That Guy, who U turns to start screaming "If you don't like it go play 4th edition or Warcraft!" if your players express confusion why you are still making them fight DnD Slaver Culture 9,000 trying to enslave their Hadozee, after you spent ten minutes shouting at them how horrible their old lore was.
On a lighter note, I expect a lot of people will be real excited that Hadozee can now have baked in feather fall while wearing Real Armor. For all the talk about 'exploiting the flight', a million world weary heavy armor tanks breathed a sigh of relief at a ready access feather fall option for playing a suspiciously pit trap fall prone fighter or paladin.
The Hadozee lore cannot, in isolation, be racist. It either espouses racism, or it is written to be racist. Otherwise it's just a collection of ideas, the association of which evokes feelings or impressions of racism due to unfortunate coincidence.
The distinction is important. For one, by calling it racist, you're calling the writers racist. I'm not WotC's biggest fan, but I'm hesitant to call them racism - or at least, I don't think they're particularly racist, we have our biases etc. It's also a really nasty insult and, like the word Nazi, gets thrown around far too lightly. It's also deeply hurtful - especially if there was no racist intent.
The other part is, if it's that it invokes impressions of racism...then making an issue of it is part of the problem. The greater problem is the association of blacks with monkeys. This only gets reinforced when things like this get pushed into the public consciousness.
A lot of the things brought up in the criticisms...are very American-centric. In Britain, flying monkeys just aren't associated with blacks or native Americans or whatever the accusation is. They're just evil critters that are sent by the evil queen to attack Dorothy. Big deal, no different to Tolkien's Uruk-Hai that are sent to capture the Hobbits.
By crying out that "monkeys that were enslaved! Must be a reference to blacks! Look, they can reduce damage, it must be a reference to the blacks being viewed as being able to be strong and resilient!", people aren't just reinforcing those tropes in American society, but also introducing it and spreading it in other countries too. That's the opposite of what needs to be done - what needs to be done is breaking the association of blacks with monkeys. You don't do that by proclaiming that a depiction of monkeys is actually a depiction of blacks.
I don't really know the answer to this, but associating monkeys with blacks isn't the way forward.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
What I think is funny is even if they were caricatures or references to actual black people and slavery it's actually uplifting because you have a race of people who were granted sentience only to be enslaved they then fought and killed their enslaver and then went back home to raise up their fellow people. And to me that's a tale of overcoming adversity and coming out better for it.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
It is about perspective. I saw a lot of Planet of the Apes trilogy (with Andy Serkis), or at least Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in it. I also saw redemption of the apprentices, as they turned on the evil Wizard to do the right thing. When you have a culture of seeing things through the lense though, that the Hadozee didn't do it themselves is seen as a millstone. How you approach it, with your own preconceptions and biases, affectshow you interpret it. [REDACTED]
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Nonsense. Absolutely, complete nonsense.
An idea can be racist. Lore can be racist. It can be racist in isolation. And someone can have racial biases without being outwardly racist and can write something based on those biases (or that is a combination of multiple different ideas/concepts that accidentally overlap into appearing racist) without calling the authors of that content racist.
I don't think anyone on the WotC staff said "Hey, let's echo real world racist propaganda by having a formerly-enslaved race of monkey people that became civilized because of their enslavement and also add a piece of art that looks strangely similar to those old blackface Minstrel Shows!" I don't think that happened, and to say that something like that happened or was intended is really stretching it.
However, I do think that one of the writers at WotC apparently had some in-world racial biases where they decided to make their one formerly-enslaved race be Monkey-people and connected their enslavement to their newfound "civility". I think they either accidentally showed internal biases or accidentally stumbled into something that was too close to real world racist speaking-points. And that is a problem, even if WotC didn't intend it.
That's been a part of white supremacist speaking points for centuries. Ignoring it won't make it go away, and the presence of it in this book is a bad look.
This isn't a "whoever smelt it dealt it" situation. This is a "hey, you might not know this, but this association has been made in the past in the real world to real groups of people, and it's really unflattering to have something that close to home in a D&D book, especially with this minstrel monkeyman art on the same page".
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Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The internet thinks it's racist too, because it is racist.
It is full of racist tropes like "the happy slave" and "the white savior".
It also includes images that evoke a "minstrel show". It's very hard to believe that that wasn't removed as well.
The fact that these changes were made without addressing the issue publicly is extremely problematic.
Oh yes because everything on the internet is true
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
It is racist because it includes racist tropes and images, not because it associates Africans with monkeys.
Believe it or not, all humans are in fact apes.
It's the fact that tropes like the "white savior" and the "happy slave" and the"minstrel" aren't just included, but are the very core of the lore.
Re: the lore
If this was a reference it could have been to any of a dozen different things; Mesoamerican conflict between Aztec/mayans and other tribes, first nations conflicts, Russian expansionism, The rise and fall of the roman empire, planet of the apes, various conflicts between china and it's neighbors, Egypt, the Israelites, battlefield earth...
This isn't a trope that is unique to the atlantic triangle.
Engineered monkeys, bred for specific tasks, have been a staple of science fiction and fantasy for years. In addition to Planet of the Apes, you also have things like Rendezvous with Rama, which had monkeys genetically modified to carry out simple tasks aboard a starship. Like with much they do, they tried to draw certain elements from all manner of different lore together and create something new - the genetically engineered ship crew of Clarke, the rebellion against creator of Planet of the Apes, the idea of pirates having pet monkeys for entertainment, etc.
Lots of different elements that, in a vacuum, might be fine… but combined together and you get “superior race went to savage lands, took lesser apes, made them better (the “more resilient when harmed” language is word for word something slaveholders said about why Africans made better slaves) by raising them out of their savagery and making them our slaves, who were trained to do minstrel shows, who could not save themselves and had to be saved by the superior race, and then who went back to their savage lands to bring them civilisation and raise them up as well (literally an argument made for why freed slaves should go back to Africa—getting them to civilise their ancestral lands).”
That’s… really bad. Entirely possible to inadvertently come up with by just taking a kitchen sink approach to race lore, but really bad—and hurtful—nonetheless. At best, Wizards was quite negligent in creating this race, and, at worst, someone slipped some actual racism in there which went undetected by the editors (the line about “they don’t feel as much pain” gives me huge pause—that rather specific stereotype is still leading to measurably worse racial outcomes in medical care).
Neither of those is great—and even the most deferential possibility of “Wizards was negligent” still ascribes a level of culpability for their failure to catch something fairly obviously problematic. And that is part of what systemic racism is—racism built into a system not intentionally, but because the system itself does not catch these kinds of aggressions as it does not do a good job looking for them.
So my original response was removed so here's another response. I just went and checked the hadozee description in the mobile app since it has yet to have the errata applied to it, and no where did it state that they were happy with being enslaved, so you get get rid of the happy slave trope. No where does it say the race or color of either the wizard enslaver or his apprentices so the literal white savior debunked but I'm going to assume you meant a figurative white savior, in which case I'm going to have to point to real life history which shows that almost all slave rebellion's that did not have outside help(white savior) ended in failure and the death of most slaves involved. And then we have the minstrel for this one all I have to say is, you do remember that bards are a class right or are hadozee not allowed to play instruments or enjoy music.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.