Population and location

[Elterio Delgard]

Mmmm.... Interesting... Racism and xenophobia...

Well, I have two continents, or two major ones. The first is populated by orcs, humans and goblins, whereas the other one by humans, elves, mages and dwarves. Therefore not all races live alongside each other till much later on and even there! On the first continent many natural barriers prevent contacts till the proper time.

Also, humans are the first race to be created, but thats a complexe story in itself and I won't explain it here.

[acrosome]

An orc isn't human.

Actually if they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring then, yes, I'd say that they are human. That's the (most common) definition of species. The separation of some inter-breedable species here on Earth (e.g. wolves and coyotes) are historical legacies that are officially listed as exceptions by the ICZN, etc. You'd have to specify that all half-orcs are mules to claim they are similar but separate species. I guess then that it makes sense that we usually refer to these as races rather than species.

Granted, there is weirdness like hybridization and ring species. Actually, making all of these fantasy races a ring might be interesting...

My understanding was that primitive hominins co-existed for so long because for most of their existence they were essentially pre-technological, or at least minimally-technological, such that they existed in niches, more like animals than like modern humans. Heck, it took genus Homo a million years just to leave Africa. But once behaviorally modern humans developed (about 50,000 years ago IIRC) they eventually wiped out or assimilated all the others. Not necessarily directly, mind you, but probably by out-competing them. An intelligent and highly social-cooperative sophont is just too damned good of a generalist.

So, one interesting idea would be to have the orcs, elves, humans, etc., all be either created or "uplifted" from niche primitivism relatively recently (i.e. somewhat <50k years ago) if you want a realistic explanation. In such a case, right now they could still be in the process of competing with one another, but there has not yet been enough time passed for a clear winner to emerge. This would be a good explanation for the fantasy trope of elves and dwarves as "dying races," and also that they still favor their niche somewhat. In fantasy such "uplift" is easily explained by the intervention of gods, as of course is creation. "Lo, before you is the likeness of Quanlominil, the Elven Lord of Fire and Bronze! And there is the statue of Llorafendim, she who taught our people to preserve words as art rather than lose them upon speaking!"

Perhaps the pantheons of the different races have a Great Wager going regarding whose chosen people will prove victorious. I could imagine a large host of primeval gods breaking out into "teams" (i.e. pantheons) who then shape the first "clay men" into humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, etc. for the Wager. And perhaps some who aren't doing well are sore losers...

Regarding skin color, the wikipedia page on human variability has a map that provides some small insight. But one has to wonder why elephants aren't black if the human model is universal? So, clearly skin colors other than the human melanism spectrum are possible.

[Elterio Delgard]

Interesting... Racism might be more complexe than we think.

I believe that geography has much to do with ''races'' of humans as we once said before in anthropology. Don't get me wrong I hate using that word when talking of humanity because we are all one race. For example, I have a good friend who is black, but his skin is not that dark. Why is he a black when we know people in India and Central America can have really dark skins? Is it not because ''black'' refers to a certain point to an old way of dividing the world based on vast regional units? ( By vast regional units I mean large areas where many nations tend to interact mostly between themselves than with those outside the large area because of natural borders and so on, like Europe, or Mesoamerica). Racism as I see it is quite representative of how one seperates the world in vast regional units. For a long time, Asian where seen as inferior to Europeans, but still smarter than africans, but technically speaking, Asia is linked to Europe through land, so we cannot simply say different continents, there is a notion of a human division of geography. My point is how we seperate ourselves from those away from use and how we identify to those geographically close to us may explain much. With that in mind, I wish to avoid in my book to have a classical racism between black and white unless it is coherrent with geography. I believe that in cartography, one can see regions as possible units for racism.

Therefore, if geography can play alot on how we see the ''other'' and maybe even more than the ''other'' 's appearance (if me who is white go to England, its not because of my skin colour that I will be easily accepted socialy, and maybe a black english canadian will feel quicker at home in England than I), then I do not see co-existing with another race for long as an impossibility.

Truth be told, I agree that diversity tends to diminish as some will try to gain dominance, and I agree humans and orcs cannot just live side by side for centuries as if their differences meant nothing. HOWEVER! If a human nation despises strongly another human nation from another vast regional unit, if its really a deep hatred then I don't think it would be incoherent for that nation to live alongside orcs for many centuries without any problem. The question is: is the racism based on geography stronger than the racism against your neighbour simply because he is not human?

Sometimes I wonder if racism against black people in the past would have been weaker if we had on our planet orcs and the such. Lets do some mental work... Imagine you have two kingdom, one made of white people and one made of black people. Then add close to them an orc tribe. I believe in such a case, humans wouldn't care much about your skin colour because you remain human and not an orc.

[Mouse]

You could always have it that a Supreme Being (God, Alien, re-genesis AI, whatever) of some kind steered evolution along predestined paths to deliberately create several different hominid races/different sentient beings who's God-given task is to: a) learn to live with one another, b) fight each other to death for dominance, c) cooperate to combine their forces and skills against a much greater evil, or d) something else entirely.

I've done that in my own unpublished novel. That's why I have five approximately equal sentient races on Ethran. (The Merles and Blucrans - who are most like us give or take a bit of blue skin decoration in the case of the Blucrans, the Sorowans - who are tall slender, scaled, green and photosynthesise, Akatavians - who are more ape-like but just as intelligent, and the Zoraani - who are symmetrically piebald shape-shifting were-hawks... not the same as an aarakockra but similar.... sort of. The Zoraani can be either men or giant hawks at will, but not both at the same time).

They are all capable of throwing up the occasional sterile hybrid, so they are about as related as horses, zebras and donkeys.

EDIT: I've also been severely told off just recently by another white person for quite innocently referring to someone as 'black' (how odd, since its just a colour like white, and I am called 'white' though I am kind of pinky-fawnish-blueish-grey if I want to mix a range of colours to do an accurate self portrait)

What is ok and not ok seems to change fashion every now and then as different racial elements suddenly decide for no apparent reason that what was ok last year is no longer cool.

[acrosome]

Interesting... Racism might be more complexe than we think.

I believe that geography has much to do with ''races'' of humans as we once said before in anthropology. Don't get me wrong I hate using that word when talking of humanity because we are all one race. For example, I have a good friend who is black, but his skin is not that dark. Why is he a black when we know people in India and Central America can have really dark skins? Is it not because ''black'' refers to a certain point to an old way of dividing the world based on vast regional units? ( By vast regional units I mean large areas where many nations tend to interact mostly between themselves than with those outside the large area because of natural borders and so on, like Europe, or Mesoamerica). Racism as I see it is quite representative of how one seperates the world in vast regional units.

I don't think you can really just say it's about regions rather than "race"- whatever the hell that is. But, yes, it clearly isn't just about skin tone any more. In North American English "black" has come to be a descriptor meaning "a person with negroid features, as opposed to caucasoid or mongoloid." That's just simple language drift, caused by North America having very few dark-skinned Asians in it's population during our liguistically formative years. Historically, the US in particular was very binary about this- you were either black or white, and there was no middle ground. See the one drop rule. If you had any obvious negroid features you were considered "black." (This contrasts with my understanding of how Britain and other Commonwealth nations have historically used the terms "black," "brown," and "coloured.") This is changing, though, and describing someone as "mixed-race" is now much more common, in the US at least.

EDIT: I've also been severely told off just recently by another white person for quite innocently referring to someone as 'black'

My first inclination is to call that political correctness run amok and to advise you to tell them to **** off. But OTOH don't you folks in the UK use "black" as a particularly insulting pejorative for Asian Indians and Pakistanis? Maybe that was the context they were assuming or something. And of course tone matters, too. Frex, calling someone a "black bastard" has obvious racist undertones and is not a simple descriptor of skin tone. (Not that I suspect such a thing of you, of course.) Hell, I'm an American and here in the US we have some pretty obvious racial tensions- to put it mildly- yet describing someone as "black" is generally as well tolerated as calling someone "white". (Of course, historically we did so in the messed up binary way that I described above, but that's another issue...) I have never lived in the Deep South, though, so perhaps my experience is not generalizable.

But, yes, as someone who doesn't have a bigoted or ideological bone in my body, getting lectured by some cretinous politically correct zealot about daring to describe someone's skin tone would annoy me, too. But then pedantry always annoys me. One example is claiming that humans are all the same "race." We are not. Well, I guess that really depends upon which definition you are using. We are all the same species (and subspecies, for that matter) but "race" is a valid (though not universal) biological term. While I certainly understand the urge to seek human solidarity rather than discord, when we talk about human races we are not doing so in the context of "the human race"- rather, we are doing so in the context of "an informal taxonomic stratum below subspecies and above population." The issue, of course, is that "race" as more commonly used in the modern sense is a social construct, and a problematic and indefensible one that has become far better known. This meaning- the proposition that there exist significant and innate biological difference in races that justify a hierarchical spectrum of superiority- is indeed invalid.

Of course, one could easily accuse me of the pedantry, there. I guess my point is that effective communication is more important than fine accuracy in daily conversation, and "race" is a useful term to facilitate communication. After all, who can honestly say that they see no significant physical variability between Maasai and Inuit? And race is important to me professionally. The prevalence of many diseases differs by race, and for instance the effectiveness of various antihypertensives differ enough that the recommended first choice among them also differs by race. Race is not a meaningless construct.

Oh, wow, actually I'm pretty sure that you just started a race-based flame-war, Mouse...

[Azélor]

Fun fact, Chinese have a few words that sound just like the N word used in English.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-co...-American-ears

I recall there was one ending with an R but I can't find it.
Someone called another person a N as he was practising.

[Mouse]

I think the N word was more of an American thing, since I don't remember my father using it once, and he was as racist as hell - as were many of his generation. Indeed it was deeply embarrassing for me to witness they way he verbally abused all those carers and nurses who were other than white, even though they were the ones who made him so comfortable in his last 4 years. I think I apologised on his behalf more in that time than I have for everything else put together in my entire life otherwise.

As for me?

I don't care what shape, sex or colour anyone is. I just enjoy enjoying all the different forms of beauty they present - as from an artists point of view all are beautiful in one way or another. Colours are wonderful and beautiful. That is why all my fictitious races are different colours, and two are several different colours at once.

As for the person who ticked me off for saying that several of my friends were "black" - I no longer discuss anything about race or colour with him, as I must admit to being confused in the matter.

What is the right term of reference for coloured people these days? And please accept my apologies if even that term is no longer acceptable.

[acrosome]

My first point, as I mentioned, would be that Commonwealth folk use the term "coloured" differently than Americans. And as an American I'm simply not certain what you mean by it. It is definitely verboten here, though, despite the existence of the NAACP. So is "negro", despite both of those terms being considered to be respectful alternatives to the N-word throughout the 19th century. Heck, for that matter there was one setting- the early 1800s western fur trade- in which whites referred to one another with the N-word in a non-pejorative way, basically as a synonym for "dude." But today it is so incredibly offensive that even the mountain-man re-enaction enthusiasts won't use it, despite their willingness to adopt all the other historical lingo. Times change.

But anyway, what do you mean by "coloured"?

And my caveat is that I can only give you one American Generation X opinion on the matter.

[Elterio Delgard]

Mmmm... This thread is growing livelier!
hum
Another question! Actually this one has been bugging me for a while... If racism is hatred of another human ethnic group, then would it be proper to use it when its between two races such as human and goblins for example? Surely racism would be different and maybe in need of another term. Can a man who has a racist mentality treat with the same disrespect another human and a goblin?

It intrigues me because the Kastosians have that flaw of being so full of themselves that they regards other human nations as inferior, but for them goblins are despised and hated for what they are more than what form of goblinity they have. Their racism is therefore on a whole different scale.

[Mouse]

LOL!

I just don't know what term should be used at all because they are all just people to me, but to avoid an oversight like the one I described where I used an out of date term and was ticked off for it (because I'm sure 'black' was ok 10 years ago now), I should perhaps show enough respect for other people's sensitivities to learn what they currently like to be called

EDIT: ninja'd by the thread owner

@ Elterio - I think racism and the degree of it is far more individual. In a way, to say that Kastonsians are racist is a pretty racist thing to say, since it accuses all of them without exception of being racist, when it may only be a rather loud-mouthed proportion of them that are giving the rest of them a bad reputation.

I also think that racism is something a person learns from their peer group as they grow up, as I have never once seen a young child refuse to smile or play with another child because they had different coloured skins.