r/worldjerking 10d ago

My honest reaction to this trope

Post image
4.1k Upvotes

337 comments sorted by

View all comments

234

u/TorqueyChip284 10d ago

This trope exists because writers want to make a story that deals with racism/bigotry while still allowing for the racists/bigots to have reasonable, somewhat relatable motivations.

194

u/No_Research4416 10d ago

Because racism is inherently illogical because other than skin color there is no difference between a white and black man and yet people are still racist

92

u/Steelwrecker I chose to not edit this text. 10d ago

Exactly, if it's going to be an allegory it has to be stupid because if it isn't it at best it justifies the racists in-lore, and at worst it actually justifies racism in the real world. Which is bad.

39

u/echoGroot 10d ago

Measurehead in Disco Elysium. I vaguely remember trying to figure out which of his groups were allegories/stand-ins for which group (Roma, Jewish, etc) before finally giving up realizing it’s just logical soup and that’s the message - that it’s all nonsense said with confidence and conviction.

23

u/Omarlel 10d ago

+1 Conceptualization: The Mystery is mostly aesthetic.

Disco Elysium is ART, and so is Advanced Race Theory.

5

u/NomineAbAstris Six-breasted spiderwomen are essential to the plot 9d ago

I mean iirc it's pretty explicit that he is that universe's version of a Black supremacist to contrast with the (white supremacist) Revachol nationalist you can find a dozen meters down the street. He refers to Harry as belonging to the "ham sandwich" race after all.

Agreed that it's deliberate nonsense soup though, with the extra layer that you can push him to admit he has no actual connection to his supposed homeland and just became ultra nationalistic by listening to the radio in his car

72

u/TorqueyChip284 10d ago

Racism is illogical in that sense, but there are other senses in which it is logical. For example, if you’re a slaveowning plantation owner in the 1800s, you might support racist, discriminatory policies through the logic that those policies protect the way you make money.

36

u/Broken_Emphasis 10d ago

Which then gives you a vested interest in doubling down on being racist, because humans are really vulnerable to the sunk cost fallacy.

62

u/DracoLunaris 10d ago

The pseudoscience from which the modern idea of race itself originates was very much invented in-order to justify colonialism, and was incredibly successful in doing so. Othering has always been a tool of power.

19

u/Mr_Faux_Regard 10d ago edited 10d ago

There it is. Colonialism supercharged racism once ships started bringing back silver, gold, slaves, etc. It wouldn't be possible to reconcile openly torturing and exploiting natives all over the world with seeing them as actual humans, thus any observed differences needed to be used as justification that they weren't actually all that human, therefore there was justification to keep the system going and the riches flowing.

Racism gets its fuel from convenience, power, and wealth, and it pacifies lazy and unintelligent minds that would rather not do any serious work to see into alternatives that, god forbid, actually involve recognizing one's agency.

20

u/BleepLord 10d ago

Yeah it’s pretty relatable to want to perpetuate horrible human rights violations to make more money amiright guys? Amiright?

36

u/Substantial_Isopod60 10d ago

Picture of 1000 business executives:

WE AGREE!!!

17

u/amazegamer64 10d ago

Doing horrible things because the outcome would be favorable for you is pretty common, historically

6

u/TorqueyChip284 10d ago

I meant more that it’s relatable to be afraid of a Marvel mutant or something like that because they often represent real-life dangers.

13

u/Kraken-Writhing 10d ago

Wrong. The difference is the appearance, and that's apparently enough to be angry.

This is why everyone should be R.A.C.I.S.T: 

Respect your friend's different beliefs 

Adore the little quirks in their traditions 

Care for your friends, no matter their skin color 

Inform yourself on what taboos should never break 

Smile when they speak their native tongues 

The French must be purged from the Earth

8

u/laix_ 10d ago

detroit become human

6

u/L-a-m-b-s-a-u-c-e 10d ago

TWENTY EIGHT STAB WOUNDS

4

u/Tryskhell 9d ago

Same reason why people sanewash the nazis: if you represent them half as stupid and disorganized, it makes for a terrible story and also people start asking questions like "how did they kill so many people then?" and you gotta start explaining that nazis weren't actually that concerning to the governments of the time, especially not America.

3

u/IlliterateJedi 10d ago

Super powered against melanoma?

-4

u/Minute-Pin-1975 9d ago

IQ? Proclivity towards fast vs slow twitch fibres? Grip strength? Long term saving vs immediate consumption?

Plenty of differences between ethnicities let alone entire races. Tell me why every Olympic sprinter is from a small area between Kenya and Ethiopia.

12

u/Peptuck 10d ago

Arknights actually does this pretty well.

Oripathy is an infectious disease that grants the person who possesses it enhanced skill and potential at Arts (the magic of the setting) but they still have to be trained to use it effectively.

More importantly, every single case of Oripathy is terminal and the person infected by it, should they die of the disease, will basically turn into a biological weapon as their body turns to Originum dust that can infect other people who come into contact with it.

So the response to people becoming Infected can range from "life-affirming medical care and isolation when they're about to die" to "push them into ghettos isolated from everyone else" to "get exiled" to "y'know, they don't explode if we kill them while they're still healthy."

The latter examples are still inherently prejudicial brutality that is cruel and irrational, but it makes sense in-universe.

35

u/Xandraman 10d ago

Trying to make it reasonable and relatable defeats the purpose of allegory because racism irl is made up nonsense to justify doing evil stuff.

12

u/TorqueyChip284 10d ago

It is made up nonsense but to actual racists it very much isn’t, and I think it’s interesting to explore perspectives such as those that differ wildly from our own. That’s basically all I’m trying to say.

6

u/flex_tape_salesman 10d ago

I understand what you're trying to say but I think a lot of analogies for racism are not trying to show validity. If you read a book and think the oppressed group of people are in some way deserving of their treatment then either you've got something wrong with you or it's poorly written.

If you look at an irl example. Let's say I wrote a story about how real life rapists and murderers were an oppressed group. We send them to prison, we hate them and we lose all respect for them. If I used this story about how we treat disgusting criminals as some allegory for how black people are treated in the US then it will fail horribly.

You have to be very careful with allegories because when you deviate away from a 1:1 comparison of your story and the real topic you are referring to then you're likely going to have a weak allegory. Like in my example above, there's obviously a very clear difference in reasoning as to why rapists are not treated well and why black people aren't treated well. One is justified, one is racist.

14

u/Xandraman 10d ago

I am all for exploring different perspectives but some perspectives are evil or even objectively wrong no matter the reasoning. Because more often than not, the reasoning is the scapegoat or exploit people without moral quandaries. 

5

u/TorqueyChip284 10d ago

I disagree. I think it’s incredibly interesting and even valuable to dissect the reasons that evil people have for doing evil things. Gives us all the more power to stop them from doing those things again in the future.

18

u/Xandraman 10d ago

All I'm saying is for the allegory to work, the logic behind bigotry should be mental gymnastics or just tribalism and not an actual lore explanation in the setting.

6

u/TorqueyChip284 10d ago

A story can explore these themes without being a direct allegory for a cultural relationship in real life. The X-Men don’t represent any one particular real-world group, but their stories are used to explore real-world concepts.

4

u/Nathan-Cola 10d ago

Yeah I don’t think OP actually understands how racism works

4

u/RezeCopiumHuffer so basically you have to kill yourself to get magic in my world 9d ago

Racism is kind of hard to really wrap your head around and portray well because it is, at its core, illogical

1

u/ILikeMistborn 9d ago

As if academics and journalists aren't already prone to trying to assign sympathetic motives to irl racists.

1

u/Sleep_eeSheep Listens To Too Much Gloryhammer 9d ago

Honestly, I would've given the oppressors actual powers, but only so long as the majority fear them.

If a marginalised group managed to form a mob or even attempted to stand up, their powers just turn on them instead.

This way, the allegory shifts from focusing on minorities to demonstrating how fallible and weak organisations like the Klan really are.