In an announcement this evening, Wizards of the Coast has announced that 7 cards have been banned from tournament play. They have been banned due to depictions of racism.
In addition to these bans, which we'll get to in a moment, Wizards has stated they are going through a review of all cards that have been printed and will be taking action on similar cards in the future. The cards have been replaced on the official gatherer site with text stating why the images have been removed.
These are the cards that have been removed.
- Invoke Prejudice
- Cleanse
- Stone-Throwing Devils
- Pradesh Gypsies
- Jihad
- Imprison
- Crusade
Here are the cards for historical sake as we know there are likely many people not in the loop and will be unaware of what they look like.
I realize this doesn't have an effect on Arena, at least currently, but it is a very important piece of news to highlight. All I ask is that you have nothing good to say, you leave it out of the comments.
Wizard's Statement on Racism in Magic
Quote From Wizards Today, we will be changing the multiverse ID and removing the Gatherer card image for the card Invoke Prejudice, originally printed in 1994. The card is racist and made even worse by the multiverse ID it was unfortunately codified with years ago. There's no place for racism in our game, nor anywhere else.
But to that point, it should never have been published nor placed in the Gatherer. And for that we are sorry. The events of the past weeks and the ongoing conversation about how we can better support people of color have caused us to examine ourselves, our actions, and our inactions. We appreciate everyone helping us to recognize when we fall short. We should have been better, we can be better, and we will be better.
To that end, we will be removing a number of images from our database that are racist or culturally offensive, including:
- Invoke Prejudice
- Cleanse
- Stone-Throwing Devils
- Pradesh Gypsies
- Jihad
- Imprison
- Crusade
Replacing those card images will be the following statement:
"We have removed this card image from our database due to its racist depiction, text, or combination thereof. Racism in any form is unacceptable and has no place in our games, nor anywhere else."
Additionally, these cards will be banned in all sanctioned tournament play.
There's much more work to be done as we continue to make our games, communities, and company more inclusive. Know that we work every day to be better and that we hear you. We look forward to sharing more of our plans with you as our games and organization evolve.
Comments
Internal racism within a game is fine. Take Warcraft: no one has a problem with the copious racism there because it is using story points entirely within the Warcraft universe.
The issues arise when a fantasy world stupidly brings in racist elements from the real world, like the crusades, Jihads or the KKK. They don't need to be there and they only drag real world racism in, which is obviously going to cause real offense.
The whole trope/concept of white representing good and life versus black representing evil and death is becoming problematic in many games.
I think this is grossly oversimplifying the symbolism going on in many games and just culture in general.
White and black symbolism isn't always referring to race. In fact, through most of history it actually referred to other meanings before different ethnicity of people. For example, many ancient cultures actually referred to black as being dangerous or scary not because it referred to skin tone, but because things like disease often lead to death and decay, which resulted in the flesh of living things eventually turning all sorts of colors, including black. That symbolism has existed in ancient cultures much longer in the world than attaching the color to race.
Another example, many ancient cultures valued the color white positively, not because of race, but because they had some form of commodity in the culture that was of economic or spiritual value. One great Asianic example of this were ancient trading/farming cultures that frequented white rice (although other colors of rice were just as common, if not more, than white rice depending on the time period, economic status, & specific people. However, for the wealthy factions of people that did depend on white rice the whiteness being the 'good' color had more to do with the white food bringing bounteous wealth. That has nothing to do with skin tones.
Another example of ancient cultures assigning 'bad' feelings to the color black because black was sometimes associated with night time/darkness, which in some time periods and cultures placed people at greater fear of warding off invasions, pillaging, and injury/death from said invaders in the night.
However, there are also many examples of the 'goodness' and 'badness' associated with white or black being flip flopped as well, such as wealth and prosperity for a minority few being found in the "black gold" of coal, or various black/darker toned ores. You also see black being the 'good' color during times when pepper and other dark spices were extremely sought after and lucrative spices. White has also been the 'bad' color for many cultures and time periods when the white of frost, or impending snowy weather/storms brought about rampant death of both individual people, communities, and crops if they were caught unprepared.
This general list could go on and on, but I think it is grossly misleading and oversimplifying historic and ancient symbolism to say video games often use white as 'good' and black as 'bad' is just because of race/skin tone.
Im more persuaded by the argument that the actual colors in this world should in no way depict, equate, or be associated with any race, religion or gender.
It's easy to say when you're skin tone isn't the color constantly associated with evil.
I tend to agree. My confusion with the bans is regarding "white" and "black" creatures being analogous to white and black people?
IMHO, "Destroy all black creatures" in no way means 'destroy all black people' (or, in the context of MtG, destroy all black Humans)? Right?
The black and white is part of the Magic 'color pie,' NOT representing the color of the creatures' skin color.
edit: If this is the case, then ALL cards that say destroy 'white' and/or 'black' creatures should be banned.
BTW, I am not confusing this with some of the names/words used on these cards or the artwork. My contention is just in regards to colors in the Magic color pie and how that relates (it doesn't in my opinion) to Human (MtG term) skin color.
but that's not what this is doing. The ban is targeting specific instances of cards that have, either intentionally or unintentionally, incorporated real-life prejudices into them, which is a shitty thing to do to a playerbase that has people who might be subjected to those same prejudices.
Cleanse is singled out because a combination of the name and the effect makes the language on the card dangerously close to the idea of "ethnic cleansing", which is actual terminology commonly used by white supremacists. This sets the card apart from something like, say, Mass Calcify
Same thing applies to Crusade, which as a word can absolutely be a neutral term, but when the card it's used on features a bunch of Knights Hospitaller front and center in its art well, that neutrality is lost because it's now a specific reference to the historical event.
Fair enough, but if 'Black' cards in Magic have NO bearing on 'Black' people (in the real world), then the name Cleanse shouldn't matter.
I do agree with your assertion regarding "...the idea of ethnic cleansing," but if the card was still named Cleanse and it destroyed all red creatures, for example, I don't think it would be addressed by WotC. Once again, 'Black' cards are NOT 'Black' people, just like 'White' cards are NOT 'White' People.
I guess we can agree to disagree however. I can also understand that if any card offends (or may offend) people, then maybe WotC should err on the side of caution. I just wonder where we, as a society, stop with banning and suppression.
I commented on cards specifically in response to Alfi below, but I also want to make a wider point about this kind of act by WotC or any other company/government/etc.
To everyone who was never offended by these cards and never became racist because of them, these moves can seem unnecessary and almost like hopping on the band-wagon just to improve reputation. But while that cynical viewpoint has a shred of validity to it, it also completely misses the point.
The statue of a slave trader
I grew up in Bristol, UK, where a week ago protesters tore down a statue of a prominent slave trader who left much of his wealth to the city when he died, hence why there was a statue of him. People had been kindly asking for its removal for decades, but while the city council was publicly sympathetic it was never removed. The council would say things to the effect of "it's important to not censor the past when it is not actively hurting anyone today", which is basically the same argument as you might have for not banning the cards in MtG.
In the end the simple presence of the statue told people the city is not ashamed enough of its involvement in slave trading to do something as trivial as take down the image of a slave trader. When it finally came to the public tearing it down themselves the police chose not to stop them and the mayor even said he wasn't at all upset about it. So if no one had a problem with it, why did it not happen beforehand?
Diversity and museums
It is clear to me there are 3 types of people:
Importantly all 3 types of people still exist, and racist imagery is only harmless to those in category 2. Thankfully there are places racist imagery belongs without being censored: museums and history books. People should absolutely learn about the crusades, the slave trade and the Nazis, but only in a way that rightly puts it in the past. What we shouldn't be doing is keeping this imagery in public life in a way that suggests it is still part of modern society, because if you do that it will be part of modern society.
The better question
Does this all mean these MtG cards should be banned? I'd answer that with another question: what do we lose if the cards are removed or replaced with something mechanically the same but without racist connotations? Given the historical background is still readily available in places like museums and Wikipedia: nothing but a risk of a few people finding false justification for racist beliefs.
This.
Couldn't have put it better. I find your point about keeping certain imagery / ideas public, whether or not it was intended, does memorialise, glorify and preserve their message for generations that may no longer feel connected to those same ideas.
I was always a fan of the arabian nights set.
The word 'Jihad' being considered offensive is a strange lean into recognising american anti-islamism and preventing offense by not taking a stance. The art is actually very nice for it's attention to detail in the armour and headdressing on the horses.
White started out as the colour of fantasy crypto-abrahamists, which were standard for fantasy of the time. King solomon is also in the arabian nights set, and plenty of cards have quotes from the Qur'an for flavour text.
Not sure about the crusade ban, but it's probably a run-off of the general desire to steer clear of the 'deus vult'-posting crowd.
Harold McNiell's art is obviously suggestive of the klan, and I understand why that would be removed.
Why is cleanse racist? Or undead things now is a race?
Historic connotation of cleansing in the South. The 'Redemption' movement in the American South was a Reconstruction era ideal to remove Black voices and rights so that the white people could take their 'rightful and ordained place' on the top. There was a large push to 'cleanse' the politics and policies, IE remove all Black representation and eliminate (Lynching) Black leaders. Although many have forgotten this movement (note taught it schools like it should be) it's effects remain throughout America and the Black community still knows and shares the stories of being 'Cleansed' and the South being 'Redeemed'.
It would be the wording of the effect, along with the name, "Cleanse".
I amazed some of those cards even got released.. sure some cards are not that bad, but cleanse is just outright the most racist I ever saw a card be.
I thought to be mad about those cards being "unjustly censored" but actually wtf.. those cards are too much really.. it's not like the blood censorship in HS that had little reason to be censored (Cause of SOME religions feel offended about blood ... really? IDK even which is that religion), why the card game even has cards with those names.. crusade? jihad? why? guess the creativity dies at some point while making cards for 20 years.
doesn't cleanse make sense? white color in MTG is all about priests and being holly and knights, while black is all about evil demonic etc because of its connotation with the darkness of the night. so you are cleaning, cleansing, purifying the darkness. wheres the link to racial stuff? theres none. its about light and dark, evil and good, its a classic age old battle.
And yet you didn't notice that both of those cards use the really old borders that they haven't used since 2003.
Don't play M:TG, but censorship is something I wanted to address guess that's where the -13 downvotes came from XD yeah I guess those were times companies were less afraid to use some terms or some art..
So they had a card idea and just gone up with it without thinking "wait this isn't politically correct, is it?"
What I am saying is that probably at some point during the 30+ years M:TG is around they had a shortage of creativity in card names or had not defined their universe well enough (Again I am quite puzzled what is the universe(?) is there any lore behind M:TG?).
Sorry for my ignorance..
ya Cleanse is a big Yikes 😬
Actually Crusade was part of the first release of the game as a card and Jihad of first expansion (both released 1993).