Your Burden is My Burden

Introduction: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender

I will get to my point right away. There was, at no point in USAmerican History, a substantial white slavery. No Irish, Italian or German slaves, no job trafficking of poor whites from the states into Beijing or Dubai, no hand and knee subserviance to the British Empire. There was never any need for any of this because the USAmerican state has never been in need of slaves. The country is flush with them. Another hundred thousand enter the workforce every year. The USAmerican author has never been under threat of slavery, has never been a slave and has no idea of how painful and dehumanizing the conditions are and continue to be. Completely surrounded in a bubble of ignorance that whiteness has afforded them. These beliefs work their way into fiction, magnified by hyperbole, metaphor and allegory until it becomes a total subsumption of reality; a hyperreality. In the space of roleplaying games, these beliefs are yet worse still. In the space of a computer game or novel, while the reader may project onto a narrative, they have little control over the workings of the world and therefore are not asked to become active participants in the erasure. When roleplaying, taking on the persona of the white slave, they are sent home with these feelings of victimization.

Political appropriation is a demographic wide assumption of victimhood. When opressors claim they receive no benefits as opressors and that they are equally victimized under the same systems, they remove the ability for the actual victims to argue they are being harmed. Because surely the victims aren't being harmed by the oppressors; they're both equally victimized. This particular mode of DARVO is epidemic to the general USAmerican left. White communists say that everyone is equally harmed by capitalism, your real enemy are only the wealthiest as they're the only people who really benefit. Imperial core communists say that everyone is equally harmed by the USA, your real enemy is only the government as they're the only people who really benefit. The same act is performed by abled people against disabled people, tme people against tma people, men against women, nonblack ethnicities against black ethnicities and so on. What is happening in TTRPGS is not unique to them. It's a symptom of a wider disorder of consciousness.

Because this issue exists in nearly all forms of speculative fiction, especially in independent games which are often not criticized because of feelings of camaderie between white people of the same class, nonblack reaaders may be surprised by some of the appropriative themes. A fish doesn't know when it's wet. In order to better illuminate my point, and to give would-be designers narratives to avoid, I've compiled some generic scenarios.

Catgirls Sold at the Open Air Slave Market

Scenario 1: A species of demihumans (sub in beastmen, elves, demons or so on here) are discriminated against and used as forced labor. The narrative may imply or outright state that the demihumans are slaves. Some settings for the player party to perform heroic rescues are slave markets and auctions and some backgrounds for player characters might be that they are former slaves themselves. This this scenario, demihumans function as a coherent racial block that operate on "genetics" and "parentage". Some variants may use racial segregation similar to Jim Crow era "policies" or even modern redlining instead of slavery. These are more common in games that try to have a more overtly leftist feeling to them.

Scenario 2: A type of supernatural person (sub in mage, wizard, vampire or so on here) is discriminated against and used as forced labor. The narrative may imply or outright state that supernatural persons are slaves. Similar to Scenario 1, this may involve heroic rescues and may not involve defacto slavery but instead, more modern forces of racial discrimination. Unlike Scenario 1, these occur at the invidual level as supernatural persons are not necessarily born this way. They can become supernatural through other means. So while the characters function as racialized subjects in the narrative, they do not possess a fictional race.

Scenario 3: A species or groups of inviduals sharing common characteristics perform modern wage labor. The narrative may imply or outright state that they are slaves. However, in actuality, these characters are not slaves. They are peasants, indentured servants or employees. Unlike Scenarios 1 and 2, there are no artifices of actual slavery and therefore the appropriation is happening entirely within the author's mental map of what chattel slavery was like. This particular scenario can cut in the reverse direction. A narrative may imply or outright state that a species or group of individuals who are forced into chattel slavery are actually peasants, indentured servants or employees.

In Scenario 1, a number of racist assumptions and ideals are being formed and codified well before we reach the termination of desire. First, and core to fantasy racism, is that race is a real and measurable trait. Characters are born as species, not as ethnic groups, and they are species whether or not they can "crossbreed" with other species. Second, If species are racist to one another, it is often because of immutable traits rather than a system of material benefits and detriments. In the real world, where games are played and books are written, racism does not work this way. Race is a construct, created by slavery and colonization as a posthoc justification for them. People with dark skin and wide noses are considered "black" because it was convenient for oppressors to do so. Those constructs did not exist until that point. There are thousands of different ethnic groups in Africa, the largest continent in the world, many of which have varying skin shades and facial features. To validate that race is "real" in this manner and that everyone is "really" grouped together that way is to validate the oppressive system which created these concepts.

In Scenario 2, the issue is more subtle. In constructing a system of racial discrimination with no race, particularly in modern settings, it sublimates into a background radiation of bigotry. Anyone can face it or become the kind of person who faces it. This is simply not true in the real world. Although race is a construct, it is enforced from the top down, using violence and law. It is not something that we are able to simply opt out of it. So too neither can a white person opt into it. In this case, it's a failure of imagination as much as appropriation. There are many structures of violence and enforcement that are to some degree, something you can become or discover later in life. Religious discrimination (although that is often also tied into caste and race), transphobia, homophobia, ableism, sanism. So relying upon narratives focused predominately on antiblack discrimination when the characters belong to no particular race at all, even a fictional one, is all the more jarring.

In Scenario 3, the issue is not simply who is being included as a "slave" but also the definition of "slavery". It is one thing to erase race from discussions of slavery but it is quite another to claim that anything that white workers face slavery now. And without needing to say that, TTRPGs with this narrative are making that claim. Neither peasants nor servants nor employees are slaves. It is unpleasant, it is a sin, it's a great ill of humanity that people need to work dehumanizing and painful jobs to eat. It is not slavery and to say so is to completely disavow that racism exists at all. I say it again. Employees are not slaves, slaves are not employees. This particular misdirection act has lasted as long as slavery has lasted and it should be given absolutely no quarter if you want to consider yourself an "inclusive" designer.

In all three scenarios, the issue stems from the same place. The desire to erase race from racism. Fantasy species, when shown in a positive light, often share facial features or cultural traits that signify to readers that these characters are supposed to be white USAmericans with a European veneer. From light skin to button noses, blond hair and blue eyes, to Roman architecture and Greek dress. Vampires and wizards, as they currently exist, are the products of white cultural norms. Rather than shallow graves and fear of eternal entrapment, these figures are cast into Baroque houses and excessive luxury. While some works may try to mitigate this by depicting a few members of these fictional races as black, it does not remove that they are the result of white cultural identities. They are something that any white player can slot themselves into. In making these archetypes slaves, so too can white players slot into that.

Reclaiming the Black Body

Scenario 4: A species of demihumans commonly depicting stereotypes (or features) of black people is created. Later authors iterate on it, trying to rehabilitate the image of the creatures. In doing so, they genericize it. While the creatures still share these stereotypes, these stereotypes are now referred to as societal wide or global commentary. The narrative may imply or outright state these origins but still addresses them as something everyone faces.

Scenario 5: A species of demihumans, a group of supernatural beings or a particular job (sub in knight, cowboy, centurion, priest) associated with white supremacist narratives in fiction is reclaimed. White people deny the cultural heritage of these by rewriting the narratives so that they are more inclusive without addressing the real life (and current) associations with whiteness. The narrative generally omits any mentions of racial oppression.

In Scenario 4, this is an example of inappropriate reclaimation with a degree of abstraction. It is now fairly common knowledge among leftist TTRPG circles that monsters such are orcs, goblins and dark elves are often depictions of black people. Narratives within these same circles trend towards the reclaimation and rehabilitation of characters and ideas that are considered aberrant. However, it is not the place for white people to reclaim these particular archetypes. Whether they are bigoted or not, these are still depictions of black features and culture in a scene that all too often forgets us entirely. Within this space, there is at least an acknowledgement that we exist. Changing it so that these stereotypes are actually metaphors for capitalism or being queer in middle USAmerica is denying the agency to do even that. Everything is melted down entirely in a patina of white suburbia.

In Scenario 5, this issue is repeated on the other side. While the centurions and knights of actual history were working off political systems that we no longer have, the images of these archetypes have been wholly devoured by white supremacy well before most people reclaiming them were born. Most TTRPGs do not use the historical archetypes anyway. They instead use these to as supernatural police officers or as frontier guarding cowboys clad in white armor. In these cases, it is absolutely well within the ability of white people to reclaim them. Indeed, the reclaimation has already happened. By accepting these as figures of supremacy, whiteness has already done just that. To venerate these archetypes is to participate in that. What would be a true reclaimation would be for white authors and players to really engage with what these figures represent in USAmerica; to actually create conversations about power and privilege instead of pretending it's not real.

These two scenarios take a step further than our last three. Rather than simply erasing race (and thereby obscuring the dynamics of it), they declare that race shouldn't be discussed in fiction at all. Everything racist should have the metal boots shined and the spurs sharpened. Black players are denied the opportunity to create conversation of race within the realm of fiction. Either by a true and sincere reclaimation of black stereotypes or by the catharsis of treating fascist ideals as fascist.

A Colorblind Burden

Scenario 6: A species of demihumans or a supernatural individual that is depicted as white or with white cultural coding is discriminated against by another group. The other group is multiethnic or depicts another race that did not participate in this kind of discrimination historically. In some cases, the two ethnic groups may both be depicted as white but the offending group has dark hair and skin coloration than the victimized group.

Scenario 7: An aristocratic society, a hate group or an oppressive company is depicted as multiethnic or depicts another race that did not participate in this kind of discrimination historically. The make up of the group is inconsistent with the narrative's time period and setting. In these cases, both the oppressor and victimized group will usually be depicted as multiethnic.

Fundamentally, Scenario 6 and Scenario 7 are the same. Six is simply more blatant (and often more intentional) than seven. In these scenarios, race is being directly acknowledged. It is not reversed like in the first three scenarios and it is not obscured like the second two. It is front and center. The statement that these games are making is that racism is something that all real life ethnic groups, and it may make this statement through art or cultural coding, participate in against one another. That there is no particular hierarchy of oppression. Or if there is, it doesn't matter. Regardless of whether or not that was intended, this is what this colorblindness tells us about the world of the game and the beliefs it was made with.

And this extends farther than diverse hate groups and slavers. In the real world, yes it is true that there are oppressive religious institutions and companies and structures that incorporate racialized minorities into them. And if you live in a suitable multiethnic area, it is possible that a black police officer can use police brutality against a white officer. But that doesn't change that a disproprotionate amount of victims are black and that policing enforces an antiblack institution and norms. Intersectional analysis happens in aggregate. To compare the most disenfranchised white person to the the wealthiest and most powerful black person ignores that many more black people are suffering under white supremacy than white people in the USA. This is not about history. This is about today. Realistic works should deal with realism and the reality is that racism exists and the world is absolutely lousy with it. Everywhere.

Conclusion: Watson is Dead

Fannish types tend to respond to external criticism with such phrases as "if you take the full context of the work, of course vampires are enslaved, there are only a few of them and their blood is valuable" or "it's based on fantasy Europe, of course white people would be slaves because that's how it was in Europe". This is both a failure to the work and a failure to one's self. Fiction exists as a conversation between the creator and the readers, with reality as a mediator. No amount of internal justification can change this relationship. When a white USAmerican writes slavery for the whites USAmerican audience, to create games mastered by white USAmericans and played by white USAmericans, they are creating a conversation about race in absence of racialization. At best, this is an act of ignorance, which further pushes black people to the margins. After all, black people do not exist simply as theoretical concepts. We might want to participate in the creation and viewership of art and to be treated as equal in this conversation. But at worst, these instances of erasure come from the author's real politics. Many a creator has defended their works by insisting that they were a victim of slavery, whether historically or now, through the act of wage labor. Others take a more simple route and simply say that blacks read too far into fiction. In and of itself, a racist act. Altogether, regardless of intent, this fiction defangs reality.

By taking real, black tragedies and radical movements and repackaging them into the realm of fantasy, these deeds and histories are hidden inside a toybox. Free from the guilt of acting as an oppressor or the anger that other people are treated this way, players can play out their own catharsis. People play horror games for this same sense of release. To maintain and understand horrifying situations, to enjoy being on the margin, to do things that they would not do in their waking lives. When black history is made into a fiction for consumption, it's done so with similar intent, to similar effect. The radical is feared, the radical is condemned. The history is bleak, the history is dark. White players can work out this sense of guilt, their feelings of longing for a better era, a sense of victimization and tie it nicely with a bow. Never having to truly confront what happened and what responsibility they hold to others.

Authors who are sincere in trying to make racially inclusive games must understand these and they also must stop this. Political games must involve the actual subjects at hand. Few gamers would find it appropriate were there to be a story that straight love is condemned by coveniently all too queer appearing antagonist. Yet, the inversion and reversal of slavery are so common in speculative fiction games. In order to speak to power, you must understand what power is and where you stand within that hierarchy. Black people are not responsible for this hierarchy but since we are forced to live beneath it, we must also dismantle it. However, this particular burden seems to be the only one that white authors don't wish to take.