The Cosmos: Is Star Wars Chaos Racist?!

[Dredge]

This blog is inspired by
http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=rNS6D4hSQdA

Okay so before we do this we need to set down a few ground rules. The last blog I posted feelings might of been hurt a bit and words got heated between some folks. So let's all just be civil here and basque in the good vibes of the new year. Arguing is fine but keep it at a mild discussion, no one start up with ABOLISH THE LKE SYSTEM!! EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL WRITERS!! AND FLIP FLOP FRIDAYS MANDATORY!! Actually that last part sounds pleasant. Every character must wear flip flops on Friday, @[member="Tefka"] make it happen please. But let's get to the meat and controversy surrounding the hook that got all of you to click on this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=kgLdYFNZySA
IS STAR WARS CHAOS RACIST?!

There's no hiding it, the Star Wars films are pretty racist no matter how unintentional
http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=9jmF900DHKk
Or intentional they may be, with everything ranging from black stereotypes in certain alien species such as the gungans. To the two existing characters that we all know in the films. Lando being Judas who redeemed himself and Mace being a boring and plain character with no struggle or even personality until he died. Showing that in the George Lucas Star Wars if you are a black man you can only be a traitor or a emotionless Jedi with no personality until you die. And I don't even want to get into all the sexist things about the films itself. Now of course I'm talking about the films and not the expanded universe, so don't come at me with that! The films are extraordinarily filled to the brim with white male dominance and it has been that way from the beginning until now. I just hope that the new Star Wars movie will have more diverse casting and less of the whole white people thing.

However let's move on to why we are here. Has that mindset of white male dominance moved on here to Star Wars Chaos? In some ways yes it has. There is a fair amount of diverse and colored characters on the site, and I mean that. There are damn good characters from @[member="Ashin Varanin"] to @[member="Isley Verd"] even @[member="Akio Kahoshi"] and the Terrek brothers. But those characters are lost in a literal sea of straight white men. Now there is nothing wrong with being heterosexual and white. Nothing wrong at all, but when I look around I see them everywhere. Even in my own characters I see a lot of white people that make up a majority of the characters on the site. Hell I can name by heart more Caucasian characters than I can colored characters. And I think I might know why that is


As kids we all wanted to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, we wanted to be Darth Vader or the fair Princess. And all of those characters were Caucasian, the films as a whole were just drenched in white people and as stated earlier White Male Dominance. No one really wanted to be the pervy traitor lando that drooled every time a woman walked by, it got a little better when we got mace but even then he really didn't have much of a character or depth to him like a lot of these other white characters got. And I personally think that mindset has travelled with us into writing what we want in the Star Wars universe. Here on chaos we have tons of aliens and what not but as for the population of human characters the majority leads with white men and women.

Do I think this is a problem? Not really, I don't think it's really but it's certainly making Ashin look like our Obama. Jk jk jk. It shows that we might be unintentionally carrying on the big problem that was in the films by a lack of diversity in Star Wars. There are great positive colored characters and strong ones with real struggle and depth to them on this site and I personally see it as a good step in the right direction. I would love to see more colored characters and more people not being afraid to write them. I think that people like to stick in their comfort zones as well, I know a lot of the writers through Skype and the majority of which are Caucasian. So I can completely understand wanting to stay in that the familiar area. However I am going to recommend something

Don't worry about writing a colored character, this is the 21st century and we are all like minded open people who won't accuse you of various things. At least I won't. Write those Atrisians write those whatever planet black people are from, write Latinos, Arabs, Indians, anything that you think would make an interesting character. We have an entire galaxy to work with so just have fun with it. I want to see these races come out more here on this site, I think it would be awesome and it would certainly cut down on the abundance of white male dominance that we have going on. So let's answer the question

Is Star Wars Chaos racist? No it's not racist, maybe a little unintentionally white washed in a few aspects but certainly not racist. There are wonderful people who write here and yes I have seen some unsavory language on Skype chats in the past by people. but as a whole I love you guys and it's a lot of fun being here. So once again this is your democratically elected funky fresh Supreme Overlord Aaron saying Happy New Years and have fun out there

Note: I am still planning the factory blog. This subject just felt a bit more important to me as an African American in the way I perceive Star Wars to be. Thank you all for reading and or commenting

 

[Arrbi Betna]

Three words that prove that a black man can make an iconic character last for time immemorial:

James Earl Jones.

 

[Dredge]

@[member="Arrbi Betna"]

Darth Vader was white, he was just voiced by James since the original actor just sounded silly. He has such a commanding and powerful voice, but that's all it is. Just his voice while the character himself remains Caucasian

 

[Antoir Setrrin]

I just realized I've never written a character that wasn't white or just lightly tanned 0_0
...
Well, not in RP at least. The books I've been working on have a variety of people. But I've yet to RP anything but white people or weird-ass aliens...
At least they aren't all straight?... Okay, I think I've written 1 straight character. For like five minutes. The rest are bi, pan, a, or homosexual...
but I'm a fluffy white queer nerf herder myself, so, i have a excuse on the sexuality part. just easier for me to write.
so
yeah
i'm lazy.
I'm going to go change that.
Right now.

 

[Ellie Mors]

@[member="Dredge"]
Just from the first paragraph I've read I can already see that this is a prejudice remark on why most characters are portrayed as one particular skin color over the other (which isn't race, by the way). Beyond Caucasian and Black (I was going to say African-American, but then half the board is from Europe and Asia, so that would probably be stereotypical) there is West Asian (I have seen a vast amount of characters using Asiatic playbys, or anime-style ones at the very least) and East/Central Asian styles. Beyond this, some people just choose a person who resembles themselves with something different about them. I'm Cuban-Puerto Rican (America calls me "hispanic", even though I'm not technically from Spain) and I chose Jennifer Lawrence because she reminds me of how awkward I can be some times at social events, just with blonde hair (although I'm sure I could find a better representation). Others just pick a random image and stick with that. The majority of people don't go to google images and search "White+Teen+Celebrity+Blonde+Blue-Eyes". I'm sure if I wasn't trying to portray an exaggerated star warsy version of myself, I wouldn't have picked a white human, or maybe even a woman.

I understand what you're saying, by that we're not as diverse as some other places, but we certainly are not racist by any means. There is no such thing as unintentional racism. It is impossible. Racism has a very defined definition that came about because of one people believing their people were superior to another's. Now sure, this is an interesting thing to bring up, but it was a bit uneccessary to try to spark controversy about it - especially because being dark skinned or white are not the only two races and by stating your thesis of the discussion you made it made it appear that you either believe that or assume it to be true (whether you do or not, it is not the case). Skin tone and color is not race, which is actually more defined by the region of origin to your original ancestors. It goes all the way back to your family's roots from originating in Mesopotamia, North or South Africa, East, South, West, and North West Asia (India-Pakistan, China, and Mongolia-Siberia), as well as the Americas. The way racism has been implied to mean as of late (being post 1995, as I've read school textbooks that my grandmother, who is a teacher, used to teach from prior to that) is a situational issue, and not a factual precedence. It has been taught to be about skin color in the US because that was how America was for roughly one hundred and thirty years from pre-extreme racism to post-1960's.

I am not going to take away from those issues, because the way we are taught is to reflect on how America was so focused on that one race in relation to a single other race was to teach each generation the signs of what was wrong and how it was overcame. The issue I have with this post is that it is drawing on this teaching to point fingers at others for the sake of calling them racist, and it is a very, very, severe accusation. I'm not going to pretend I'm offended, I am more frustrated about the way things have been explained to most people and the context of situations drawn on than that. You can say we're not very diverse, come up with any reasoning at all, but do not say we are racist, especially "unintentionally" simply because we do not go out of our way to try and make things diverse.

Trying to be diverse for the sake of being diverse is just as bad as trying to be exclusive for the sake of being exclusive.

Also, I am not a male, nor am I caucasian.

I'll keep my personal preferences regarding relationships to myself, though.

 

[Dredge]

@[member="Silara Vantai"]

I am not saying that the site is unintentionally racist nor am I calling anyone a racist. My words were maybe a little unintentionally white washed. The title is kind of click baity and in retrospect probably could have been worded better lol. However I'm not going to discuss and go over the history of unintentional or intentional racism through history and the Star Wars universe. And I'm not offended at all really, you have a very great opinion and I respect that but I stand by mine and I hope you can understand that

 

[Ellie Mors]

@[member="Dredge"]
I understand your opinion and can agree that we seem a bit mashed together as far as a diversity of characters go, but the way you made it appear both by the title and your opening sentence were a bit confrontational and lent to the opposite of what your following statements explained.

 

[Antoir Setrrin]

@[member="Silara Vantai"]

Is Star Wars Chaos racist? No it's not racist, maybe a little unintentionally white washed in a few aspects but certainly not racist. There are wonderful people who write here and yes I have seen some unsavory language on Skype chats in the past by people. but as a whole I love you guys and it's a lot of fun being here. So once again this is your democratically elected funky fresh Supreme Overlord Aaron saying Happy New Years and have fun out there

I might be missing something here. He's not calling us racist, nor is he trying to spark controversy.
Just encouraging people to write more than heterosexal white men.

Writing diverse characters just to be diverse is, however, not the best idea. But writing the same kinds of characters can get boring. Of course, someone's skin color doesn't affect the character much. Especially not in a Star Wars setting. Sure, there's bound to be racism IC, along with whatever the version for species is. That doesn't mean it's portrayed actively or anything like that. I know we have xenophobic characters. I haven't seen any racist human characters though.

As a secondary note... we obviously do have more than heterosexal white men. Ven's a good example. Circe is a good example. Dredge is a good example.

I guess what I'm saying is that in a sci-fi universe... the skin tone of a character doesn't really mean anything unless it's an old school sci-fi thing. For example, if we were doing an ALIEN universe RP, there might still be some racist people. But here in Star Wars it's more about getting to use some of the amazing species we have out there. Writing as people of color or fabulously queer characters is a secondary objective.
Diversity is important... as long as it's done right.
Changing a character's skin color doesn't do anything. Ven could have been black and the only change would be how hard it is to find a playby for her. Finding epic art of white elves is easy. Finding epic art of non-whites?... Not as easy. But that's a whole other, non-writing related issue.

I'm not sure what my point is or where any of my thoughts went.

EDIT: Oops. Starting writing this before the above posts.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

Are we actually having this conversation guys....

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Fishing for controversy, are we, Dedger me old son?

I don't think this site is racist. People on the whole write what either attracts or interests them, and since the majority of this board's members are Caucasian, that means that a majority of people write white humans.

That's not racist, that's just a preference.

What would be racist is if we said that only a certain group could be RPed.

So no, it's not racist, it's representative of the member base.

I disagree with your straight white male thing too. I've not done a recent poll on it, but the gender of writers seems to split pretty evenly 50/50, with even a slight majority of female writers.

 

[Antoir Setrrin]

I disagree with your straight white male thing too. I've not done a recent poll on it, but the gender of writers seems to split pretty evenly 50/50, with even a slight majority of female writers.

0_0
Really?... I swear almost everyone on here who's gender I know is male.
I've started assuming people are male until I hear otherwise.
Still trying to stop assuming that everyone automatically looks like their playbys... not sure where that habit came from, really.
If only though... if only.

As a secondary note, I thought that the straight white male thing was coming from the types of characters. We have a lot of straight white males (and a lot of straight white females).
Just a lot of straight white people.
I just want more girls who like girls so Ire can date again ;_;

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

@[member="Ven'Rain Sekairo"]
I'll run a gender survey, but it's pretty even, all things considered.

 

[Dulk Vormic]

@[member="Dredge"]

To me it feels like you are trying to say that Caucasian males are somehow bad, and should stop being role played. I believe people have the right to choose what skin color, or race they want to role play without being accused as racist.

 

[Carliah Dakrone]

Does this mean we only get to kill white characters now?

 

[Boethiah]

I thought this was a joke at first until I read the comments.

But seriously this is such a cookie-cutter issue that pops up in just about anything. I'm not going to start at the basics; everyone is (or should be) well aware of racism, sexism, or prejudice in general. Humans aren't perfect, that's a given and some are less enjoyable than others.

But... THIS IS STAR WARS. It's a very fictional universe that enjoys many races. I don't think there is a simple boundary between colour here either. From Twi'lek to Wookies the diversity is quite colourful (pun slightly intended) and that leaves the begging question....

Why is this relevant to anything? No one's fun is getting spoiled because I decided to have a Caucasian character. You may also be surprised of what's behind the mask so-to-speak. I came from a feudal RP community where the co-owner played a very white set of characters yet OOCly he was actually a Black Rasta from the Bahamas. No one should have to care enough to look that deep.

Maybe I'm too new still but I'd like to think we all come here to have fun, not to let our own views on social justice seep into our characters.

Just my two cents.

 

[Antoir Setrrin]

@[member="Dulk Vormic"]
White (I say white because Caucasian refers to European descent and we ain't got no space Europe) males aren't bad. That's not the point.
The point is that there could be more not-white characters, male, female, or other.
And he's not calling anyone racist...

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

@[member="Dredge"]

-Clears Throat- Please Excuse me while i now name every non white char i can think of.

A: EVERY NON HUMAN SPECIES
B: Every Atrisian
C: Every Epicanthix
D: Isley Verd and much of his family
E: A Ton of the MAndalorians
F: @SeannaVel, @[member="Djonas Vile"],

 

[Dredge]

@[member="Dulk Vormic"]

If that's how you read it then that's how you read it. And that's all good in Mister Rodger's hood

 

[Dulk Vormic]

@[member="Ven'Rain Sekairo"]

But why do those numbers really matter? It should be based on preference, and not for diversity sake.

 

[Tempest]

Hmm....