Racism in SR, color based hatred Options

[Daddy's Litt...]

When SR came out color racism was ignored-who cares what color someone's skin is when that thing can plam your face was thel ogic but would it be re-emerging?

The GGW and treatment of pinkskins would certainly cause ire against 'indians' and the Japanese occupation of parts of CFS, Aztech conquest of partso f Texas could all cause a real simmer to kick in. not against the states but against the innocent ethnic peoples in the area.

for example could the Aztech invasion cause a back lash against hispanics living in Dallas? The Japanese megacrops are not as dominant as they once were making up the bulk of the AAA's when SR first started but there should still be some resentment and maybe a desire to pay back? am i off the beam here?

[Sendaz]

I would like to think that people would stop and look more along corp/affiliation lines if they want someone to square off with, but metahumanity being what it is it can go either way.


The baseline campaign setting does not really play up this angle, sticking more to hostilities between shades of metahumanity/corp/national lines.

This allows for the interaction/aggression between groups without having to dance into the gray area of flat out racism, because ultimately it is a game and they want to be able to cater to all players.

Ultimately if you want to introduce this into your campaign, well it is your table, but if you are looking for a corroborating section in a book saying this is okay/normal , not so much though one can read between the lines in some parts....

[Happy Trees]

Well, the Japanese occupation pretty much is over. There are still a lot of residual troops in SF, but everything I've read about CalFree says it hasn't been a legitimate issue outside of certain areas with SF since about '65. I could see a real race issue against Latinos though, if for no other reason than the animosity toward Aztlan. Even in CFS it would be an issue because the Anasazi are thought to be Latino, and the major concentration of Latinos are in LA, which is now under PCC control, and there is definitive, overt animosity against the NANs because of their treatment of "Anglos"of all color after the Ghost Dance War ended. So yeah, I could see it, as far as brown peoples are concerned, but not so much white on black racism, as we think of it in the real world today.

[Happy Trees]

One other thing to consider, the way everything is mad ea bit more PC in the game. Racism still exists, but it's treated along metahumanity lines, the war on drugs still exists, but now focuses more on BTL than actual drugs. This, I think, is to keep real issues that cause animosity contained in a fantasy setting. Players know it isn't real, so you can keep the reality of racism and drug addiction, without alienating your black friend, or that guy whose dad robbed a pharmacy for oxycontins. For frag's sake, they even nerfed swearing, if you'd believe that dreck.

[hermit]

Of course there still is color-based hatred in Shadowrun, it's just mixing with meta-hate. and sexism, too, though that's, by establishing statement, much more subdued than today.

The original Shadowrun book stated, quote: "Race is not a problem anymore." I took this to refer specifically to America and it's 'Race' problematic - namely, the assymetrical relationship between WASPs and everyone else. It was never meant to say there is no old-school racism anymore. After all, there still is Whites (and Blacks, and Asians, as per Ghost-Who-Walks-Inside) against Indians, with Pinkskins and Rez Whites between a rock and a hard place in this. There's also religious hate-mongering - Humanis developed from a Southern Baptist church (mentioned in one of the early SR4 books), there's the religious component to Aztlan's Imperialism. In older books, Humanis is also decidedly anti-Indian, the way one would expect conservative America to react on Indians winnig against them. Texan rage against Latinos in general and Aztlaners in particular is empathised in books as new as SoNA, and even Dirty Tricks makes a point of mentioning it (not mention of Operation Wetback or something like it but I'd be very surprised it it didn't exist).

Outside North America, color or culture-based racism even still is the Norm, as in Russia (Russian troll > Arab norm, though internally, trolls are still scum), Nippon-Uber-Alles-Japan (also tiering culture over metahumanity, but still considering metahumans lesser beings), or in Europe, where everybody hates everybody else, and there's no EU in Shadowrun to try and smoothe it out.

In more current (English) publications, racism has been handled horribly. Either it's the "color-blind", ignorant approach, or it's more or less blatantly racist texts, unreflectedly so, strongly hinting at authorial views spilling over into writing (see War, Stormfront for some of the most obvious examples). There, as in other things, Shadowrun is very much influenced by current (White, conservative) American mainstream, not least, I suppose, because the writers are, to my best knowledge, all white and, with the exception of Kat Hardy, male.

In my personal games, it very much mixes. Being Non-American, I often just take the facepalm of the day off Huffington Post Black Voices if I need a starkly racist scene, sometimes adapt it to metaracism, sometimes not (currently running a long-term campaign in Japan, where I throw out examples of microracism every other game just to remind everyone in what kind of a situation they are). To each their own, I guess, but I'm personally a bit uncomfortable with how the topic has been handled by the current writers.

[Makoto]

In a future fantasy based on the real world (yet not too realistic) aimed to an adult audience, topics about prejudice and conflict between groups of people are themes in Shadowrun. Is there a concept of world government similar to the EU? Futurists in our reality long debated on humanity's urge to unify with larger groups of others. I wonder this is true on SR.

The US is a free country, but we allowed the horrible actions of racism to go unabated in our history. Whether there's a "revenge" mentality of minorities in SR, or a form of "Balkanization", SR became more interesting when they include fictitious conflict. Other forms of fiction, like the Harry Potter series, mentioned "mudbloods" and "halfbloods" denoting these groups have limited privileges as social castes exist in that universe.

Today's America preaches multicultural diversity instead of a "melting pot" ideology like in the early 20th century when a "WASP" majority wanted to blend in newcomers from other European countries at the time. I consider America more like an alphabet soup of individual cultures floating in the same sea of broth uniting them.

[psychophipps]

Aztech conquest of parts of Texas could all cause a real simmer to kick in. not against the states but against the innocent ethnic peoples in the area.

In the game I'm firing up, my own revision of the local scenery is that the Texans (in the finest of Texas tradition) just got done making all of historical Texas north of the Rio Grande too expensive for Aztlan to bother trying to hold anymore. I have all sorts of fun to have here. Catholic refugees, a good port in an area with over 500 years of history, brujeria, cartels, megacorps moving into the new Free Trade Zone, smugglers, CAS/UCAS and the NANs all looking for new political angles... *drywashes hands*

As for the discussion at hand, people have always been very good at "us vs them" comparisons. Be it tribal, national, sports fans, tastes great or less filling, or the color of their skin. To be honest, racism is a relatively recent invention as we have only recently had nations big enough and ease of travel to allow such separations to be relevant. I have heard that there is a pretty good evidence that a Roman emperor was African in decent, as an example.
Metahumanity would be polarizing but also allow for solidarity between the "normal folk" as shown by the Humanis Polyclub. Look at how horribly Tir handled things, "Yes, we're different and we'll kick all you people that aren't the same different out."

[Happy Trees]

In mine, I'm heavily applying the racism, but only in the meta sense. My kids are playing twin orks, but one never goblinized, so they are an ork and a human, but with identical DNA and auras. Also, they were both registered as infants, so the human is registered as an ork and treated as a human poser when his SIN is ran. He sincerely hates teh fact that orks call him "pink", a California version of "squishy".

[hermit]

Is there a concept of world government similar to the EU?

Not in Shadowrun, which has gone the opposite way, towards balkanization and division.

Today's America preaches multicultural diversity instead of a "melting pot" ideology like in the early 20th century when a "WASP" majority wanted to blend in newcomers from other European countries at the time. I consider America more like an alphabet soup of individual cultures floating in the same sea of broth uniting them.

Let's just say it looks a lot different from the outside. If you're interested in more, let's take this to PM. Terms and services and such.

In the game I'm firing up, my own revision of the local scenery is that the Texans (in the finest of Texas tradition) just got done making all of historical Texas north of the Rio Grande too expensive for Aztlan to bother trying to hold anymore. I have all sorts of fun to have here. Catholic refugees, a good port in an area with over 500 years of history, brujeria, cartels, megacorps moving into the new Free Trade Zone, smugglers, CAS/UCAS and the NANs all looking for new political angles... *drywashes hands*

I used that too, but, given the ineptitude levels present in all CAS writeups, more from an impotent Arab-rage-against-Israel perspective. Lots of brooding racism and wounded pride and policlubs and terrorist activity. Oppression with the roles reversed and no redemption for the Whites for once. Makes for an interesting background, certainly. The players I had in a campaign in that setting still haven't quite forgiven me the bad things that happened there.

Metahumanity would be polarizing but also allow for solidarity between the "normal folk" as shown by the Humanis Polyclub. Look at how horribly Tir handled things, "Yes, we're different and we'll kick all you people that aren't the same different out."

It certainly makes racism more multifaceted, though another facet, sexism, is all but gone in official Shadowrun writings, with soem remainders in Arabia and Central Asia (and presumably, Africa, though the writeup of Africa in the Almanac is extremely shameful).

[Shortstraw]

Apparently in SR Australians just hate foreigners so... KEEP OUT.

[hermit]

And the environment is even deadlier than it already is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[kzt]

When SR came out color racism was ignored-who cares what color someone's skin is when that thing can plam your face was the logic but would it be re-emerging?

That simply isn't the case. The whole NAN plotline/history in SR1 was totally race/color based. It also was written by people who couldn't do arithmetic, but that's beside the point.

[Rubic]

Apparently in SR Australians just hate foreigners so... KEEP OUT.

And the environment is even deadlier than it already is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

MORE dangerous than DROP BEARS!? RUN!

[hermit]

MORE dangerous than DROP BEARS!? RUN!

Yes, unfortunatly. Those bloody worms ...

[Sendaz]

Hmmm... E-ghosts overwriting brains, Drop Bears little combat monsters...

Install infected cyberware into a Drop Bear, could the E-ghosts adjust and overcome a foreign mind?

It's like the Reese Peanut Butter Cup of Doom ^_^

[hermit]

Aren't Drop Bears HMHVV positive critters with regeneration?

[Happy Trees]

According to the Shadowrun Wiki, they're awakened koalas, not infected by the HMHVV, but are carriers of the Jarka-Criscione strain and can therefore turn you into a Loup-Garou with a bite.

[Sengir]

Remember how the NAN came into being? Sounds kinda racist to me...

Classic racism took a backseat after the Awakening, but that when conflicts arise where the two sides just happen to have different melanin concentrations, I'm quite confident in mankind's ability to suddenly declare the local trolls superior to any norm from "over there" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[shonen_mask]

When SR came out color racism was ignored-who cares what color someone's skin is when that thing can plam your face was thel ogic but would it be re-emerging?

The GGW and treatment of pinkskins would certainly cause ire against 'indians' and the Japanese occupation of parts of CFS, Aztech conquest of partso f Texas could all cause a real simmer to kick in. not against the states but against the innocent ethnic peoples in the area.

for example could the Aztech invasion cause a back lash against hispanics living in Dallas? The Japanese megacrops are not as dominant as they once were making up the bulk of the AAA's when SR first started but there should still be some resentment and maybe a desire to pay back? am i off the beam here?

It's definitely a plot to roleplay, the racism....

Be the hero...