Combine race, history, an upcoming PC game and one of the worst subreddits on Reddit and you’ve got a recipe for disappointment in your fellow man.
The Daily Dot has a nice summary of what happened when a curious onlooker asked a niche but awesome internet historian – MedievalPOC (People of Colour), who highlights the presence and contributions of non-whites to medieval European society – whether it would be accurate for the upcoming RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance to feature characters who weren’t white.
It’s an honest and interesting question! One that probably has you Googling “non-white medieval Europeans” right now. But things got nasty when subreddit Death_to_SJWs (or Death to Social Justice Warriors) got hold of it. Getting angry like only angry internet men can – and making the leap that this innocent, academic question somehow posed a threat to the racial hegemony of a game that’s not even out yet – we get comments like this.
You’re right dude. It does.
Where this gets shitty is that instead of festering on their own subreddit, these folks went and got abusive with MedievalPOC.
I call these folks idiots not for their “arguments” – the game takes place in a small area of medieval Bohemia, so there are good odds everyone would have been white anyway – but because of their hair-trigger hostility, and the extent with which they feel entitled to lash out and threaten others.
Nobody told the developers to change the game. Nobody officially complained. All that happened was that somebody, somewhere asked an interesting question, one that happened to involve non-whites in a very white setting.
Video games and race, folks. Video games and race.
If the subject has you interested – and it should, because the pre-industrial era movement of peoples across the planet is a fascinating tale – MedievalPOC’s tumblr is a good place to make a cup of tea and settle down in front of.
Is a medieval video game historically accurate without people of colour? [The Daily Dot]
Comments
34 responses to “Idiots Fight To Keep A Medieval Game White”
Er, isn’t writing a whole article about this pretty much the same thing – taking something trivial and easily ignored (“there are psychos on the internet!”) and elevating it to the level of being newsworthy?
I’d have been more interested in an article detailing how non-white folks were involved with medieval society. Writing about trolls only serves to validate their existence.
Indeed, that would have been much more interesting.
I imagine that in much of medieval society seeing someone from outside your local village/town was a novelty, let alone seeing someone with different coloured skin. As late as the 1800s black people were brought back to Europe and put on show as novelties because they were so radically different to what people are used to.
On the other hand, there were plenty of wars and pilgrimages which took white Europeans through regions full of non-white people.
It’s Kotaku’s mission statement. Destroy the legitimacy of very real issues by pandering research and overexposure.
I’m not one to over-react with things like this, but I propose collecting all of the offenders, wrapping them up in carpets and throwing them into a pit of angry bees, and then torching the entire pit. The death of the bee’s will be a tragic, yet acceptable loss and their sacrifice will not be forgotten.
Can we at least make it one of those jerk-bee species? Like the African Honey Bees?
If we can somehow subject each bee to an individual bee-personality test to determine which bees are truly the “jerk-bees” then I will gladly fill the pit with nothing but “jerk-bees”. Untill then, all bees will be presumed jerks until proven otherwise and therefore, must be sacrificed for the greater good.
or use hornets… because hornets are definitely jerks… and also psychopaths
Not the bees!
Spain is part of Europe right? Spanish people aren’t white right? Their argument is invalid, people who don’t use common sense just to have an internet argument amaze me.
Um… maybe you should try going to Spain instead of assuming that “Spanish” and “hispanic” mean the same thing…
And maybe instead of being amazed by the ignorance of others you should brush up on your own general knowledge.
Lmao are you serious? Why do you think Hispanic people exist? The Spanish colonialists in South America perhaps?
Or did you think Hispanic people speaking Spanish was just coincidence?
Oh god, please stop.
Congratulations on downvoting me for pointing out your rank ignorance, by the way.
To help you out, as you are evidently incapable of using Google or Wikipedia, Spain is predominantly caucasian, although like most European countries it has many citizens with different ethnic backgrounds.
While “hispanic” technically does not refer to race, the non-white hispanics in the US you are thinking of are people from countries in central and south america which were colonized by Spain or Portugal. Their racial background is from those countries, often with some intermingling of (white) Spanish ancestry and local (non-white) ancestry.
Spain was conquered by the Moors around the 8th century until they were driven out around the 15th century. They originated in Morocco. So yes, while Piat has the wrong end of the stick regarding South Americas link to Spain, the inter-continental mingling over 700 years makes his first point broadly right.
No, it really doesn’t. Spanish people are (a) observably “white” when you go to Spain, and (b) statistically about 90% comprised of a caucasian Nordic/Mediterranean ethnic mix, with a number of sub-groups within that spread throughout Spain.
The influence of the Moors and Spain’s interaction with North Africa generally obviously have some influence, but that does not make the Spanish any less “white” than Italy, southern France etc.
Saying “Spanish people aren’t white” is simply wrong.
Spanish are considered Caucasian. That said, they are a real melting pot of physiology. From mixing with Vikings, Romans, Moors and Carthaginians (who were likely very dark middle easterners).
No.
As clearly illustrated in this short documentary – they are Caucasian.
Actually that is perhaps the most ironic statement ever made on Kotaku! In recognition please except this Luke Plunkett memorial foot in mouth award crafted in Mexico by a Spanish Catholic Rabbi of indeterminate heritage.
The Internet: Telling you to kill yourself for having a different opinion.
Look, this is a serious issue with the internet culture we have today. One: it’s full of little kids, and two: it’s full of adults who act like little kids,
“You should go kill yourself” -Really?
If you think that’s an issue, I’d suggest the issue is that you think there’s a risk anyone will follow the directions of random idiots on the internet. It’s the equivalent of thinking people will read graffiti and do what it says.
So you’re saying internet bullying is not a thing?
I’m saying grown adults should be capable of ignoring anonymous strangers on the internet, particularly where said anonymous strangers are clearly hateful morons.
I think internet bullying where children are exposed to this stuff without the psychological tools to ignore it is an issue, and especially when it’s coming from people they know. But I have little sympathy for grown ups who can’t just walk away/ignore.
I was with you in this article up to this comment. I think you really underestimate the eroding effect constant bullying can have on anyone, adults included.
Well the first guy did kind of seem a tad douchy. Like these guys were wrong in the first place for not having races in the game that would have been completely ignorant to realism. Racism and unbridled hatred suck and should be called out for the garbage that they are but my guess is the judgmental tone is what set the Aryan nation off, moreso than the cause.
To take the original question seriously you have to work out what is meant by “white”, which is a nonsense term anyway.
The people in medieval Bohemia would have been mostly Slavs native to the area, with a significant proportion of immigrants; Jews and darker complexioned Romney. Are they all “white”? To some yes, to others no.
There’d be very small smatterings of other peoples, traders of all nationalities from the Caucasus and central Asia, like Tartars etc, as well as all over Europe. There would be extremely rare occasional appearances of diplomats from places like China, the Arab world, even Africa (but usually as “exotic” slaves).
It goes to show how naive and inexperienced a lot of medieval Europeans were in terms of experience with the wider world when you consider that Moorish people were considered by them to be amazingly dark skinned.
Romney would definitely not approve of you implying he is less than perfectly, bleachingly white. The Romany would definitely disapprove of you implying they have anything to do with anyone in the US Republican/Tea Party. 😉
1. Racism isnt real because there is only the human race but dont let ignorance get in the way an argument.
2. If this involves the crusades, then skin colour should be diverse but lets see them include the historically accurate racism of medieval Europe so your African character gets mistreated by European village bigots screaming ‘kill the black devil’.
3. If this is involves medieval fantasy and has no bearing on reality, who cares?
While those guys acted like children, the issue is a relevant one. Distorting history is not a good thing in any shape or form. It cheapens the achievements of European’s and the cheapens the struggles and adversity of minorities.
Human history is/wasn’t pleasant for the most part. If we forget that we are bound to repeat it.
I feel like there needs to be a new website added into the Allure Media family. I call it ‘Trolltaku’. Rather than posting every hate mongering comment on the internet as an article on a website about video games (Not a site about ‘Hey look, this guy is a douche and this guy is a douche, and hey look, jeff over there is being a douche on a video I like’), we have a site dedicated to that sort of thing. This way I can read articles about video games and game related material such as reviews or a new console, hell even a new type of wire that is going to improve my consoles efficiency by 0.01%.
I think we all understand there are areseholes on the internet. But I don’t think Kotaku understands that we come here for news and information about games that are a bit more factual.
Seriously, stop posting bitch fights that you see on the internet, if I wanted that, I’d go to a womens rights video on Youtube.
these people rant and rave making themselves look like idiots. The really sad thing is that they have a point black people did come and go from Europe in that time period but there just wasn’t that many of them also the fact that they probably would have been Islamic means that if they got into Europe they wouldn’t have lasted long, thus most people would never have seen a black person in their entire life and a well traveled noble may have seen one or two (unless he was in the crusades).
now i see where they’re coming from seeing unrealistic racial diversity in a period piece kinda bugs me (I’m stickler for realism in historical fiction) but in fantasy settings like idris elba in thor and such it’s not an issue because fantasy land, but my point is this isn’t an issue worth getting so worked up over what to me at least is a minor annoyance
Never really seen the point in blogs, blog posts or articles that only serve as a “look how wrong this group of people on the internet are”.
It just seems masturbatory. Your article is masturbatory, Luke.
Reddit. Subreddit, in fact. Nuff said. Don’t give these arguments any oxygen.
When some people (whose reactions were later used as generalization of all critics) used insults and threats, true is that MedievalPOC argumentation in this particular case was very flawed.
1) As proof of black skinned people in Bohemia area she only used pictures of biblical characters who lived in Middle East and Africa (f.e. Queen of Saab) painted in this region.
2) As proof of Asians in Bohemia she used two historical articles which were simply wrong.
a) Mongol invasion in 13th century – in this case is mistake understandable. Middle Europe was invaded by Mongols but Bohemia was in fact ONLY kingdom in area which was spared of it. Literally days before Mongols planned attack on Bohemia started message about death of Genghis Chan arrived and all Mongolian warlords returned to Central Asia ASAP because of fight during vote of new Chan. They never entered Bohemia territory or settled nearby.
b) Second example was much worse and it is hard to believe that she even tried to check basic historical and geographical facts. Because all nations MedievalPOC situated in Bohemia and its neighborhood lived hundreds kilometers far away in Ukraine, southern Hungary and Balkan. From perspective of the beginning of 15th century it was same like claim that Florida lies next to Oregon.
I don’t deny that in southern Europe + England and France lived thousands of POCs but in tiny village in central rural Bohemia? No.
Population genetics has shown that Czechs have both Sub-Saharan and East Asian admixture. Sorry, you aren’t white. No offense. :/
Sure, that there are these genes.
Sub-Saharan are relic from first migration from Africa to Europe.
And Asian genes are heritage from Avars, raiders tribes controlling Bohemia territory from 6th to 9th century. And they were driven to complete extinction, first by Franks, then Slavic tribes and last villages were destroyed by Hungarian.
Oh and I know I’m not white. I’m quarter Vietnamese just not descendant of secret Czech Asians who were avoiding all historical record but descendant of Vietnamese immigrants from sixties. This is also reason why I’m interested in history of ethnic minorities in this territory for more then ten years, but what are my opinions against American armed with inaccurate few hours long research from Google and blog full of nice pictures?
[Citation Needed]
So is this gonna be White Knights … The Video Game?
uh oh
That isn’t the name of the subreddit. Regardless of whether they were right or not (it sounds like not), why are you spreading misinformation in your article? That is extremely irresponsible.
Right. Hannibal was black and so was Cleopatra and Jesus.
Hint hint, there were “POC” in the medieval period. They were called Arabs, Moors (aka Berbers) and Turks.
Good night white future.