Racism with humans?

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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Hello! This is my first time making a post on the forums and it’s moreso asking me about your perception/opinion on this because so far I’ve gotten mixed opinions from my friends. I play on a private server dedicated to RP (Some of you will know what that is, I imagine.) so my experience with this may be new to a lot of you or something all too familiar.

Basically, I roleplay a dark-skinned woman on my private server. As soon as I created her and roleplayed her, I noticed that my character gets a lot of IC comments about her skin tone. A good example I can think of is being called ‘coal-skin.’ Another one is people asking her if she is from Stranglethorn because of how dark she is, or if she is from Tanaris because she has a certain ‘accent’ even though I do not type as if she has some sort of accent. She’s actually born and raised in Stormwind (Maybe it’s because I use words like ‘ain’t’ and subtle southern slang because I’m from the south inrl.) Now these situations happen so often but it’s often asked by people who are truly curious about my character and they don’t mean malicious and my character (And me OOC) always responds light-hearted because none of that really bothers me.

However it starts to bother my character a bit more when there are people who bring up her skin tone in malicious ways ICLY. One example is of her and their friends entering a pub and a Pandaren comes in and immediately speaks about her skin tone as if her skin tone should be something to be concerned about. He implied heavily on her being diseased, needing some sort of lotion, some sort of remedy potion, so forth. It wasn’t just him, it has been multiple cases of people trying to make my character feel ashamed of her skin tone and it never works and it never will. As I said, it doesn’t bother me but I wanted to RP out her getting a bit annoyed by it because this happened nearly every single day and I’ve rped her for two-three months at this point.

My friend IC and OOC character and my character had a talk, and my character basically explained how frustrating it was that her skin tone, where she is from, and where her family is from is always brought up by strangers in the form of insults. IC wise, the friend did not understand because OOC-wise, the friend believed my character bringing up ‘racial discrimination’ was stupid and that does not exist in WoW (I assume between humans.) I retorted by saying there is no way my character should not be allowed to bring up these comments when this happens so often, and that applies to every other person who roleplays a darker-tone character because I’ve seen it happen even more to them. His rebuttal was basically saying they were all ‘memeing’ IC, but as I said they can’t just be allowed to say whatever they want IC and my character expected to just deal with it. Especially when they don’t even say ‘just kidding!’

So my question basically to you on Retail or even on roleplaying private servers is that:

  1. Do you face racism with your dark toned characters? Is it often?
  2. Do you believe that your or someone else character has a right to bring up this constant racial issue or do you want to ‘stick to the lore’ and believe racial discrimination doesn’t exist between humans, gnomes, dwarves, elves (Honestly, every race that has darker tones now because ever since the skin tones got released, this has been an issue I never realized until I made my own.), etc?
  3. Tell me your own stories and opinions, I’d love to hear any feedback.
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I play primarily Horde which has its own sort of experiences when it comes to these things. The most obvious, we don’t have humans and Blood Elves did not get the options to have darker skin tones until recently. So the racism based upon skin color IC, and even OOC due to your character, is not as obvious as it is with a black or brown human avatar. Instead, we typically see it played out from Blood Elves, occastionally Forsaken, against Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren who are based in RL non-white cultures. Having to be ‘careful’ around orcs and trolls, mocking their intellect or assuming they have none, was/is relatively common within certain communities and circles. I’ve most certainly got it on my trolls.

In the time I have played Alliance, I have been fortunate not to have seen or experienced any dog whistles or blatant discrimination or comments based upon a human characters skin tone, let a lone have it brought up in conversation in general. Though that could be my time spent primarily on a draenei character and around more Kalimdor based stories and experiences.

Absolutely. There is using the world to ground characters in some of their negative outlooks and prejudices, particularly among other peoples (Bronzebeads with Dark Irons, Blood Elves and Trolls, Humans and Forsaken, Blood Elves and Forsaken, Night Elves and Orcs) as something wrong and part of their history to overcome and there is using these excuses, and others, to play out your actual discrimination.

It would be unrealistic for a character, just as a person in real life, to not bring up persistence discrimination, real or imagined, based upon how they look. There is no ‘sticking to the lore’ in this. The lore has been created by almost exclusively white males who didn’t consider putting black and darker skinned characters into the game, especially in high profile places, leading to this pervasive player driven idea that if you have a non-white character that you have to be some desert nomad, from some secret society in Stranglethorn, or a sailor/visitor from Tel’Abim.

Like your ‘friend’ there. There is no ‘memeing’ this IC or OOC. He’s just excusing bigotry at this point. Not only does racial discrimination exist in game, we see it pretty clear as day in Silvermoon with the Troll ambassador to the Blood Elves, shown as something wrong and to be corrected. The Blood Elf ambassador even stating that residents’ distrust and scornful appearance comes from their history with the Amani and that in the future they may see the Darkspear for the allies they are rather than the potential adversaries they assume.

As far as opinion goes, at this point in the game anyone who is attempting to RP discrimination, especially among friendly factions or making a comment about being diseased or needing of a cure is just blatant racism and discrimination veiled as weak RP and would not surprise me one bit that the person behind the screen is “really into World War II” but only one particular belligerent of the war.

There can be distrust and mild prejudice within the game - a troll character having trouble trusting orcs again after Garrosh, and maybe again after the Mag’har sided with Sylvanas, Worgen feeling uneasy around Kul’Tirans/people from Drustvar due to their connections with Witchhunters/Inquisitors, the unease among the three Dwarven Clans and particularly towards Dark Irons, any Alliance member interacting with Horde members and vice versa, but these are based in the material reality and recent histories of these peoples who have gone from adversaries to friends. However if it is to the point of point out skin color and saying they’re diseased, naaa fam. Thats just RL racism being pushed into the game because they’ll get shot down if they said that anywhere else.

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To give my honest opinion, players role playing that a darker skinned human be from strangle thorn or Tanaris or something sort of ticks me off. To me, it seems like they are inserting their real world beliefs into a game that has no indication of such a thing. Allow me to elaborate.

In Azeroth, there has been absolutely no indication of different skin colors in humans being related to certain regions. While some might argue (accurately) that this is large part due to such variations in skin color not being available previously, we also know that humans have only been in Kalimdor for about 20 years. Not even a generation. Definitely not long enough to differentiate from others. Stranglethorn, similarly, has been dominated by trolls, so much so that, in the second war, when the orcs tried to expand into their territory, they suffered such heavy losses, that the idea was abandoned, and they simply focused on their human campaign. Any human settlement in Stranglethorn would have been decimated.

Can someone comment on the color of your character’s skin? Sure, but there is nothing in-game that would suggest it relates to your character’s heritage or where they are from.

Dwarves, on the other hand, if you see a dark skinned dwarf, might indicate Dark Iron ancestry. Troll skin color is differentiated overall type, and to a lesser extent tribe (more hair color for some)

If you want a sort of racist/bigotry plot in your character’s back story, Azeroth has real, actually different, often warring -races- with plenty of history to back it up! (Trolls against elves/humans, anyone? Orcs vs Draenei? Orcs and humans? Gilneans vs Lordaeranians, how about all three Dwarven Clans against each other?) There’s no need to go looking for things, or worse, dragging outdated, ignorant bull from our world into this one.

Doing so, in my opinion, shows (a) a severe lack in knowledge of lore, and worse, your own racism/fetishism.

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I’ll keep it brief and simply answer the questions. For context i play on WrA during the late hours.

  1. I kade a dark toned B.elf when the option became available and specifically wrote in their backstory that they did not fit into the Sin’dorei culture already due to personal beliefs and made no mention of it coming from their appearance.
    What i found was that comments about their skin colorationwas about it being “rare” or exotic but not discriminated against, almost more fetishized as a making them mysterious.

  2. Of course there is a point in bringing up racial tensions, in Warcraft lore their is distinct differences between the races as literal different species that range from other planets, creatures reanimated from death and been biologically altered by magical influences. Far more biologocal differences than minor biological optimizations depending on the region your heritage comes from found in the “real world”
    Even in the modern storytelling that is far more aware about how it handles itself and at least seeming to try and show more than a White Man’s view of fantasy world, issues about race and heritage still arise.

  3. For my own experience I’ll go with my far more inheriently “problamatic” character a Revantusk Deathknight. As a Forest Troll and an Undead he’s got a few things that draw bigotry and prejudice his way, and that come from him. One of the things i decided was that I did not want to play another troll who rabidly hates elves but it would be worst taste for him to ignore the still recent history of the High Elves colonizing sacred land. Instead i thought about how the real world has changed about colonized people now allying with their colonizers and figured that while he is resentful and constantly brings up that the B.elves should return the land or at least learn to live alongside the Revantusk tribe especially after they failed to protect the land from the Scourge, he is willing to work alongside them and cooperate. Of course the moment he sees disrespect coming his way he is quick to reapond himself because he isn’t perfect but he is just trying to be better.

So in short, “internal racism” amongst 99% of races is dumb, especially when it comes from something as mundane as skin/hair/fur tone when you have far bigger threats of literal aliens and magical entities to worry about. If someone is trying to equate real world racism about dark skinned humans to Azeroth humans just remind them that it is accesible knowledge by this point that humans are literally a created race and skintone is just dictated by how the curse of flesh affected your ancestor. The Human kingdoms my be expys for the cultures of real world countries and nations, but they have their own prejudices to play with.

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American rpers should stop trying to force their racist bias into rp.

I live in an ethnically diverse country, nobody ask you for your ethnicity or place of origin unless your accent is too different, and aside from certain special people, racism is not as big as in the US. Azeroth is so freaking diverse, that nobody will care if your human has purple skin.

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Bigots in real life are no less bigots online.

Do the worst possible thing you can to do them.

Deprive them of an audience by putting them on /ignore.

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I just played through the instance (I forget the specific name) where you have to help Thrall escape and free his female human friend. One of the bosses in the encounter is described as hating “green-skinned Orcs,” which is about the only mention of racism I’ve ever seen in WoW (and it’s arguably speciesism, not racism).

I’m also fairly convinced any racism between, say, Orcs and Humans would be the result of their conflict. That is, they would make racist comments against one another because they’re at war, not go to war because they hate how one another looks.

At any rate, there’s no real racism ever presented in the game, and I wouldn’t tolerate it well from players. Speciesism, sure, but racism? Anyone who brings that into a roleplay is trying to force issues from the real world where they don’t belong, and I would ignore it, as others have suggested.

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I think one has to develop an instinct for RP motive, encourage those playing innocently, and discourage (by refusing to engage with) those operating under the old “but it’s what my character would do” to excuse behavior that would otherwise be described with colorful metaphors likening the perpetrator to a butthole.

It’s a jerk thing that jerk players do, to be edgy, by roleplaying bigotry that would, player to player, fall outside the ToU and good manners policy.

Walk away. If they pursue it, ask them not to. If they do anyway - even in roleplay - then it is in fact harassment, under the ToU, and reportable as such.

Open an actual ticket, if you want it to be seen by actual eyeballs.

Usually not replying to problematic interactions is sufficient.

If you do feel like engaging, your character can conspicuously ignore it and, should the person she is otherwise conversing with draw attention with “Did you hear what he said?” can reply, “I’m pretending I didn’t.”

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Even for orcs, green skin isn’t normal but the result of the corruption of Fel Energy. (originally all orcs looked like Mag’har).

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True, but at that time, the humans didn’t know that (nor would they have probably cared). The aforementioned exclamation is blatant racism/speciesism that would actually exist in the game, given the history between the two peoples, especially at that time.

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The color of their skin was pretty much irrelevant. They invaded and started making sorties quickly establishing themselves as alien beligerents. What did you expect as a reaction/description, compliments on their tattoos?

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pretty sure the lore never mentions discrimination against skin color besides orcs. it seems the people you are encountering are projecting real life biases towards your dark-skinned character. discrimination in WoW honestly happens way more often than in other MMOs, probably because of how internationally popular the game is in south america, asia, europe, etc.

i suppose i would let it slide if people find your character’s appearance unusual from the norm, since many stormwind characters are always light skinned for some reason. but it’s another thing entirely to call your character’s skin a disease or assume she is from a barbaric place, which just seems like poorly disguised prejudice against dark-skinned people.

i’d personally put them on ignore.

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I am going to say something that I know a lot of people have wanted to say but don’t for one reason or another.
This server is horrible for RP.
Like, actually the worst.

Nothing made me come back to retail faster than trying this place out and this post only confirms that this terrible community is on a downward spiral getting much MUCH worse. The experiences I had here were actually some of the most nonsensical, drama induced and downright weird that I have ever had the misfortune of having in relation to WoW and its RP.

And I just don’t know why…

Its just so odd that its like this over there but yeah, to answer your questions:

  1. Literally never and if I seen this ever I would just ignore them. I believe Blizzard even made a statement before that this was not canon whatsoever.
  2. Lore does have examples of course of racism but its between other actual races, not skin tones.
  3. Unfortanly it would seem that private server has attracted the worst of the worst. I could write a book about the things I seen over that way and my honest recommendation is to leave it and try WrA or even MG.
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what server are you talking about? thought at first you meant classic RPing is toxic lol

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Saying the name is against ToS but if you look it up its the first thing you will find. Starts with a E