Board 8 > Magic the Gathering bans racist cards

(+) Yeah! (+)

First read about this in a yahoo article, but here's the simplified version: https://twitter.com/Just_someNobody/status/1270906800766844929/photo/1

Most of the fervor has surrounded Invoke Prejudice, which is understandable. The card's name is oddly specific and has artwork featuring images that look like Klan members. The artist has even made some remarks decrying white privilege. But even this is pushed a little too far, with claims that its card number in the system, 1488, is somehow problematic because it's 14 + 88 and therefore contributing to the racist themes of the card.

However, the other cards? Sorry, I'm not buying it. If you're going to ban Crusade for giving white creatures +1/+1, when white is explicitly referring to a color and not a skintone, and there are similar cards for green, blue, red, and black, then you're making kneejerk reactions to lash out at something based on your own projections and not an understanding of the source material. Same goes for Cleanse. And if it's because of the name, the whole theme of white cards is that they're holy, religious fighters. Of course they'd have a card called Crusade. (Or Jihad, for that matter.) Of course they'll have cards about purity. "Cleanse" seems a little unfortunate in 2020, sure, but in a fight between divine creatures and nightmarish beasts in a fantasy setting, this hardly seems like an allegory for institutionalized racism. I feel like these are reactions from someone who doesn't understand the game or the context and just sees a bunch of knights holding swords over their heads, and thinks "oh, white creatures get bonuses? White creatures are better? Oh, and those knights are clearly raising a salute to white power!"

The other three, I don't get at all. Like, maybe the artwork for Imprison is a little iffy if you really want to push an agenda. But the fantasy image of a gypsy is no longer acceptable? They aren't bashing the gypsies. They aren't presenting them in a demeaning fashion. I know there's been racism toward gypsies, but I don't see it here. And I must be missing something, because I don't even understand why there's a problem with Stone-Throwing Devils.

I mean, great for WotC taking out Invoke Prejudice. It's a ridiculous name for a card that possesses no flavor or lore, and the artwork is equally outrageous. Given Magic's history, it's age, and how many cards are in its database, I'm surprised there aren't other cards like it that ought to be purged. But if you're going to start striking down old cards simply because they mention white or black creatures, you're going to have to ban the entire game. Why are the white creatures holy and pure and righteous, while the black creatures are hideous monsters that have to live in a swamp? And those red creatures, can you believe there's a spell that destroys all their lands! Think of how offensive that must be to the indigenous peoples of America! Sorry, no, this is all just a little too reactionary for me.

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That KKK one is OOOOOF.

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bad take

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i'm a lifelong/bigtime mtg player, and honestly, while some of these bans are dumb/unnecessary, it's hard to really care.

my identity isn't tied up with these

if these were competitive or famous for anything other than being stupid i might have different feelings, but banning some chaff from 1997 doesn't bother me. i guess crusade is used in commander sometimes

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azuarc posted...

But the fantasy image of a gypsy is no longer acceptable? They aren't bashing the gypsies. They aren't presenting them in a demeaning fashion. I know there's been racism toward gypsies, but I don't see it here.

I don't think they like being called "gypsies". That's the issue.

Invoke Prejudice is the only other one that looks bad to me. The rest are fine

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The word "gypsy" is considered a slur. Apparently same for "stone-throwing devils" but it seems pretty obscure given I can't find any evidence of this.

This was a pretty kneejerk response by WotC and honestly kinda lame. There were people complaining about the fact that Wizards barely ever hires black artists and has had 0 black designers in its entire history as a company, so Wizards' response was basically "here we banned these card for you guys"

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Yeah gypsie has always been an equivalent slur for the Roma people as the other slurs you can think of

VintageGin posted...

This was a pretty kneejerk response by WotC and honestly kinda lame. There were people complaining about the fact that Wizards barely ever hires black artists and has had 0 black designers in its entire history as a company, so Wizards' response was basically "here we banned these card for you guys"

this is the real issue. this is mostly performative garbage and the bare-ass minimum shit that should have been taken care of years ago

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Pretty much in agreement. Prejudice can go yeah, but the others seem like they're trying to reach for things to go "See look we're with you!" Which I mean, if they actually are, good for them, they could find better avenues but good on them for trying. I'm skeptical though.
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Gypsy is a slur? Okay, fine, but then what do we call those people?

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Its just infuriating because this shows theyve known about these problems for so long and just held it in the back pocket. They could have done it at any time, NASCAR, the whole lot, and its absolutely not gonna hurt any of these performative corporations but it still needed a riot to get even this pissant gesture done.

azuarc posted...

Gypsy is a slur? Okay, fine, but then what do we call those people?

Theyre called the Roma

azuarc posted...

Gypsy is a slur? Okay, fine, but then what do we call those people?

Romani

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The fact that you didn't even know gypsy was considered a slur, nor what they were actually called, is kind of the problem here!

Yes, the same can be said for MANY Americans, but the fact that that's true goes to show how rooted the issue is.

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Out of curiosity, do any of those see any play?

but I dunno, it feels like an empty gesture. Kinda like cancelling cops.

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LiquidOshawott posted...

Out of curiosity, do any of those see any play?

but I dunno, it feels like an empty gesture. Kinda like cancelling cops.

crusade is the only one that saw play, but it was mainly in casual formats

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As for the rest,

Crusade is really reaching. Jihad especially makes it so, since that one also specifically buffs white creatures even though of it was following a racist then that wouldn't be the case. Also Crusade is basically a synonym for Jihad, it's just the Christian world that thinks the latter is somehow worse for obvious reasons, so clearly they either gotta both stay or both go regardless.

Imprison is also reaching I thing.

Pradesh is explicitly racist, should have never been made in the first place. It's like making a card with black people and calling it "Steadfast Coloreds".

Cleanse being the one they use for "black" creatures has definitely gotta go. Just a bad combo there.

Stone-throwing Devils is both reaching but also technically offensive....thisbis probabky the toughest call because I think it was for sure never intentional. Way too obscure.

And again, the Prejudice card is HILARIOUS, WHAT THE HELL?

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I know the ID number came later, but there is no fucking way it being 1488 is coincidence. Whoever was putting the card index together arranged that shit that way on purpose

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Prejudice and Pradesh need to go, sure. The rest are reaching really badly and just open up a slippery slope to banning a whole ton of other cards or establishing a dumb double standard.

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The thing about Crusade/Jihad/Cleanse isn't JUST about buffing or destroying certain colors of creature, but that they're also alluding to real-world events of ethnic cleansing. Cleanse itself is a bit of a reach but the other two are obvious. That's a bad look in combination.

Like if Crusade ONLY had the art with Elspeth fighting Phyrexians, I think it's fine. And all of the other generic fantasy crusaders are going to be fine, as are other effects buffing white creatures like Honor of the Pure. But the original art on Crusade is pretty obviously depicting the Christian Crusades triumphantly.

Also for Imprison, the art seems to be referencing a common method of torture used on people during slavery. Look up iron bits.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The fact that you didn't even know gypsy was considered a slur, nor what they were actually called, is kind of the problem here!

Yes, the same can be said for MANY Americans, but the fact that that's true goes to show how rooted the issue is.

I'm not sure I've even heard the term Romani before. Gypsy was just their name.

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azuarc posted...

I'm not sure I've even heard the term Romani before. Gypsy was just their name.

Yes. This is very wrong. That's the problem.

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this all seems fair

any single one can "make sense in context" but no point in being associated with these out of context
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Every gypsy I've ever met has called themselves a gypsy and the only time I've ever heard roma was from white people so I have a hunch its not quite the slur it's hyped up to be.

Edit: in america* i imagine the situation is probably different in europe where they actually are racist against gypsys

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huh, somehow you managed to pull out an even shittier galaxy-brained take than "the paper mario trailer that showed partners in battle doesn't actually have partners"
well done

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people in Europe do play MTG, as it turns out

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I should make it clear my statement has no bearing on the original post, just clarifying why you might never have heard the term roma in america

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As a non-Mahic player this doesn't affect me, but banning Crusade seems particularly broken since my understanding is that white is referring to the color of the card and not the character, and other color cards have similar power-ups.

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i think the context of it being titled "crusade" is pretty important there

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https://i.imgur.com/4ZOV8y1.jpg

Don't worry everyone, there is a solution
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When a core element of the game is white and black stuff, it must be pretty hard to avoid racist implications.

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I think it's silly to ban things that could be considered racist but only out of context.

Some of those cards are definitely the product of ignorance, but the others are just typical overreactive company stuff.

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I don't have a problem with this move, some of these have been embarrassments for decades. I've always thought Stone-Throwing Devils smacks of some weird colonial 'the natives are restless' nonsense anyway, so good riddance.

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Of all of them, the one that made me go "yikes" when looking through them was Imprison

But yeah these aren't great

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XIII_rocks posted...

Of all of them, the one that made me go "yikes" when looking through them was Imprison

Sceptilesolar posted...

I've always thought Stone-Throwing Devils smacks of some weird colonial 'the natives are restless' nonsense anyway, so good riddance.

That's funny these were the two I didn't understand! Like I don't feel anything from imprison. It's a guy imprisoned. Maybe missing some iconic imagery about this though. Something to do with american slavery I suppose.

But what does the heck does throwing rocks have to do with colonialism!

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given that they've gone through tens of thousands of unique magic cards and pulled out exactly seven, i'd say this is really not "overreactive" in any capacity

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Naye745 posted...

given that they've gone through tens of thousands of unique magic cards and pulled out exactly seven, i'd say this is really not "overreactive" in any capacity

Depends on if this is only the beginning.

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Yawn.

What's next?

azuarc posted...

Depends on if this is only the beginning.

please don't make slippery slope arguments
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It literally is probably only the beginning. They did say it was only the first pass.

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given that magic the gathering exhaustively works to make sure its current game is up to standard through bans and errata, the idea that applying even a modicum of that thoroughness to potentially racist cards is a slippery slope is goddamn hilarious

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All this just sets up the ultimate metagame- if there's a deck archetype you can't beat, add an entry to Urban Dictionary defining the name of one of its key cards as a racial slur, then get Wizards to ban it.
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this is dumb and performative but whatever

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The fact that you didn't even know gypsy was considered a slur, nor what they were actually called, is kind of the problem here!

Yes, the same can be said for MANY Americans, but the fact that that's true goes to show how rooted the issue is.

I *am* Romani and didn't know gypsy was a slur until a few years ago. I just always assumed gypsy was the English word for Romani. There's a ton of people that hate my culture and are definitely assholes to us and you can generally tell by how they say the word, sure. But there has been a bigger movement recently to get more people to recognize that we're are Romani and not gypsy

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Out of curiosity, where are you from, Fastbreak?

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Yo real question, does it bother you when people refer to you or your culture as gypsy to the extent that I should stop using the term?

This is coming out of a place of genuine concern and not weird alt-right weird questioning to prove my earlier point.

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Gypsy is a slur? That's a shame. It sounds exotic, whereas Romani just sounds like discount Roman.

Regarding mtg...eh. Pretty sure these were all older cards that aren't legal in any modern format, certainly nothing competitive. If you're playing casually around the table with some friends, it should also be a minor issue at worst. "Check out this card, haha white power" cue a moment or two of banter, then play resumes as usual.

It seems to me like it is only an issue by the type of people who like to make issues out of things.

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California. And it doesn't bother me personally, its more about context.

Like there was a news woman who gave some report and called a situation involving "a pack of gypsies" and the tone of that sounded really offensive and shit like that bothers me. Tone carries a lot.

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On the flip side of that though if there's some type of media and they mention gypsy, I am pretty sure to just tune out because its highly unlikely to be positive. Its almost always going to be a negative thing in most forms of media. I'd rather just not hear it

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