Pygmies, Stereotyping and all that.

[Zhu Bajie]

The issue for me is, if the argument that they are not 'racist' (for want of a better word) requires a lengthy (and for my money unconvincing) explanation, .

Erm. No, it just requires that the author says they were based on Jews, and take into consideration many of the anti-semetic big nosed, beardy cartoons often used as propaganda. I don't see how that is lengthy or unconvincing. Tolkien gave his dwarves Norse names, much in the way that European Jews adopted the names of European people, they are in their culture, language and behaviour very much based on ideas of Jewishness. I do think there might be a bit of a case of people being in denial about the facts in this case, it's an uncomfortable thought and just saying "nooo!" rather than considering it rationally is much easier.

Meanwhile there's also this, rather famous piece of propaganda:

Mushling or Snotroom?

I agree with Erny's statement about what is offensive to some people isn't to others. I played the Floating Gardens in school with a British African and he had no problems with it at all. But that's because we're all individuals, and just because someone is from a given ethnic background doesn't mean they are automatically offended by a given symbol. Same with the Jewish / Dwarf image, I think African Americans tend to be much more sensitive to the stereotyping than Jewish Europeans, who generally laugh off that stuff. Might be different on the West Bank.

 

[Aiteal]

The issue for me is, if the argument that they are not 'racist' (for want of a better word) requires a lengthy (and for my money unconvincing) explanation, .

Erm. No, it just requires that the author says they were based on Jews, and take into consideration many of the anti-semetic big nosed, beardy cartoons often used as propaganda. I don't see how that is lengthy or unconvincing. Tolkien gave his dwarves Norse names, much in the way that European Jews adopted the names of European people, they are in their culture, language and behaviour very much based on ideas of Jewishness. I do think there might be a bit of a case of people being in denial about the facts in this case, it's an uncomfortable thought and just saying "nooo!" rather than considering it rationally is much easier.

Erm, no.
You're quoting or perhaps misunderstanding the wrong bit.
The 'unconvincing lengthy explanation' is my thought on your article that's attempting to 'recontextualise' warhammer pygmies. I'll spell my thoughts out clearly, just in case anyone might think i'm in denial or being irrational.

Even if I read fluff about that range of sexy big titted impractically armoured female space assassin minis, all being academics when they are not out sexily assassinating semi willing men, they'll remain lazy adolescent representations to me.
Even after thousand scholarly articles on the similarities between dwarvish and semitic languages, dwarves remain dwarves, not jews.
Because even after reading your article, pygmies to me, unlike dwarves, remain lazily copy/pasted racist iconography.

 

[Erny]

I do plenty of historic gaming and have no problem with ss units on the table. They really existed and portraying reality is never a problem to me.

I've now read the paper in question but not the rebuttal. It is well argued but relies on assertions that are hard to back up. Firstly she has to redefine what antisemitism means and spends a paragraph doing just that. Additionally many of the problems the author has with the dwarves are equally attributed to Norse dwaves. The same mythological people that she kindly concedes were Tolkien's original inspiration for his creations. The beards, the love of gold, the enmity with elves, the otherness to humans all there in Norse Myth. As her argument then goes on to say that these are specific traits of European Jewishness that do not fit any other people she has already contradicted herself. The Dvergar existed long before Tolkien and they looked (with some exceptions such as occasional crows feet) like the dwarves we know today. Tolkien started the dwarves by his own admission as Norse dwarves and only later found himself retrofitting the Jewish cultural analogies over what he had already created. A brief search online came up with no accusations of Anti-Semitic except from the one source Zhu brought up. Indeed the Times of Israel celebrates the connection: http://www.timesofisrael.com/are-tolkiens-dwarves-an-allegory-for-the-jews/
I'm personally not offended by it and cannot find any substantive impression that other people including Jews are offended. If Zhu is offended this is the first he has mentioned about it after many pictures of Dwarven miniatures, including on his own Blog. But if offense is there I will have to respect it.


The idea of a fantasy race of pygmies isn't objectionable, the idea of using golliwog caricature miniatures is. Good luck finding any black person celebrating that caricature. Good luck finding any non-black archetype from mythology that fits the caricature. Did you use the pygmy miniatures in your game of the floating gardens Zhu? If you did use them did you ask your friend what he thought of the miniatures?

 

[Padre]

I do plenty of historic gaming and have no problem with ss units on the table. They really existed and portraying reality is never a problem to me.

There's the thing. Hardly any of our fantasy world races existed - well, basically none but humans (plus horses, wolves). They're all nonsense. And many of the humans are too! Including pygmies. Citadel exaggerate human features, that's why GW figs look odd next to historical ranges (well, mostly vica versa 'cos we're all so used to GW proportions). I still see where you're coming from with the racism argument, I just think that the lines are so hazy that many people just don't or won't see it, and can't be offended by fantasy wargaming figures. Nothing much in outside of the Warhammer World equivalent of the Old World is realistic. The further away you go, the weirder.

There are, in my experience, loads of people who would be offended by people wargaming with or reenacting SS units. My WW1 veteran grandad (died aged 93 in 1983) wouldn't even let us watch war films (he even turned off War of the Worlds one Saturday morning). He wouldn't let us play with any sort of toy gun, and he never, ever talked about his 4 years in the trenches. So there are (were) people offended simply by people playing war. And yet I know I am not in any way glorifyig of promoting war when I play fantasy wargames. Similarly I am not glorifying or promoting racism when I use pygmies, or slavery when I have slave soldiers. It's just a silly, fantasy world.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

The issue for me is, if the argument that they are not 'racist' (for want of a better word) requires a lengthy (and for my money unconvincing) explanation, .

Erm. No, it just requires that the author says they were based on Jews, and take into consideration many of the anti-semetic big nosed, beardy cartoons often used as propaganda. I don't see how that is lengthy or unconvincing. Tolkien gave his dwarves Norse names, much in the way that European Jews adopted the names of European people, they are in their culture, language and behaviour very much based on ideas of Jewishness. I do think there might be a bit of a case of people being in denial about the facts in this case, it's an uncomfortable thought and just saying "nooo!" rather than considering it rationally is much easier.

Erm, no.
You're quoting or perhaps misunderstanding the wrong bit.
The 'unconvincing lengthy explanation' is my thought on your article that's attempting to 'recontextualise' warhammer pygmies. I'll spell my thoughts out clearly, just in case anyone might think i'm in denial or being irrational.

Even if I read fluff about that range of sexy big titted impractically armoured female space assassin minis, all being academics when they are not out sexily assassinating semi willing men, they'll remain lazy adolescent representations to me.
Even after thousand scholarly articles on the similarities between dwarvish and semitic languages, dwarves remain dwarves, not jews.
Because even after reading your article, pygmies to me, unlike dwarves, remain lazily copy/pasted racist iconography.

Oh. Sorry, I didn't realise you were talking about my blogpost. Did you watch Space is the Place? It's a great film. Whether you dig Afrofuturism or not, well that's up to you, and similarly whether you can see Afrofutrism applicability to Warhammer Pygmies. I wholeheartedly agree there is a disconnect between the literary text and visual text of the figures. But I'm also attempting to make a point about the fact we choose to let symbols have power over us and that Sun Ra shows us a way of turning that on it's head. The fact he uses a fantasy/sci-fi metaphor to do that is just the icing on the cake.

The same mythological people that she kindly concedes were Tolkien's original inspiration for his creations.

We shouldn't give the "origin" precedence over the developed version. The main 'debate' is whether his use of these symbols is anti-semetic or not, and matter of how and when the dwarves were constructed. It's clear that by the time of The Hobbit, the Dwarves were intended to be Jewish. Tolkiens dwarves apart from in the very early stories are entirely sympathetic, noble creatures and I don't find them ant-semetic at all. Also current historical reading on the Dvergr has them as human-sized, and nothing like the contemporary Fantasy dwarf, so certainly there is influence from fairy story and folk tale. Nontheless, we have the authors word on the matter of influence, and no reason to doubt him. Am I offended? No. I am not, but nor am I going to deny that the stereotype is there.

Did you use the pygmy miniatures in your game of the floating gardens Zhu? If you did use them did you ask your friend what he thought of the miniatures?

No we didn't use miniatures, but did look at the illustrations, several of which are "golliwogs". He was never teased or bullied in school for his skin colour, or facial features, we had a wide but small ethnic mix and racism wasn't even casually part of our school culture. The chap in question was tall, top of the class in maths, and didn't relate to the Pygmies any more than we related to the public-school boys in Lord of the Flies.

 

[Erny]

Padre:

To me that is the thing. Historical miniatures represent something that was real, real things can be hurtful or bring back bad even traumatic memories but is not down to the individual to police reality. My grandfather fought in the 2nd world war, he was SM and latterly war substantiated acting RSM with the Pioneers. So whilst not specifically a combat soldier he was often on the front line including the assualt at Salerno and lost many friends and men he was responsible for. His war stories never mentioned this side of things only on reading his diaries that he gave me shortly before he died did I get that side. Point being he didn't like violence, war or fascism. But he used to comment on my toy soldiers asking where the Germans were when I was playing with orcs and elves or how good they were if I was building an airfix panzer. He knew that wargaming and painting toy tanks does not glorify war.

Representing black people as rubber lipped comedy characters really is just that there is no other spin to put on it. Made up things can be hurtful and then it is down to the individual to consider their fiction in the light of reality.

Zhu, perhaps because there was no racism in your school (reading between the lines I'm guessing this was because you went to a selective or even private school) you don't see the problem. I went to School in a very mixed community in the 80's (I'm 37) and the British South Asian, British African-Caribbean, British Italian and Irish kids, even one Scott had to put up with a lot. Comments on large lips was a thing and it was always racist.

 

[Padre]

I went to a catholic comprehensive and there was no racism that I was ever aware of. We had black and white kids at school. I think that my (lucky) lack of experiencing racism means I didn't initially see it in a fantasy race of pygmies. The pygmies are not representatives of 'black people' (not in the all-encompassing way your comment could be taken to suggest), but rather are representations of a fantasy tribe of southern world halflings. In this sense, Halflings are not representations of white people, but a fantasy folk populating certain regions, deriving from hobbits who derive from (I presume) some species of faery. Different origins, but still arising out of old stories and myths and legends etc.

But you must not see this as arguing against what you believe, feel and know, nor in any way telling you not to think what you think. I am merely trying to explain why I myself never really thought of them as racist caricatures. I just saw them as another kind of fantasy figure. Yes, ignorance was part of my lack of awareness, but also I was not looking for racism, and more importantly, what with all sorts of other fantasy races in existence, they simply seemed to be one of several many different, exaggerated fantasy races.

I have LOTS of armies (14 or so different painted fantasy armies) so if I don't use the pygmies again I'll not miss them. My current campaign is set in Tilea, so not many elves and no pygmies, but lots of invading orcs and goblins, mercenary and arabyan ogres, scheming skaven, mountain and city dwelling dwarves, Undead, etc etc. I think I'll just carry on with that campaign.

 

[Erny]

If it means anything Padre (and it may not) not only did I know without doubt that your pygmies were as you say, black haflings and that there was not racist intent in them, I also love the army you created. Its well painted with love and thematic. Which just goes to show what a complicated mess the world can be. My problem I guess is with the original sculpts which if anything your painting plays down.

It is striking that all the other posts about your army, posts that I and others have commented on didn't raise this issue. It was only when the original, unpainted citadel sculpts were show, with reference to their rubber lips that the subject was brought up.

 

[Padre]

Thanks Erny. I was starting to get a bit self-conscious and worried that people thought I was a racist.

It may be of interest to you how I ended up with the pygmy army. It took a route that has happened several times in my figure collection. First I was GMing a roleplaying campaign (WFRP) and my PCs were Marienburger seafarers traveling the Warhammer World. I began by painting pirates to be their shipmates and rivals. They went to the Southlands (for which I bought several arabyan figures, and used old skeletons) then went to the northern western continent (I used the chaos warriors with bows who looked a bit like native americans in their styling). They encountered a few mercenary ogres (so I bought a box of them). They then went to Lustria, and I wanted something cheap, avaliable, easy to paint (deadlines for RP sessions) and with a precedent in the warhammer world literature. I saw Kallistra's pygmies and thought they would do for a one off scenario. I bought plastic dinosaurs for the monsters, and some Spaniards (Estalians) to be rival treasure hunters. I began painting undead pirates because of the White Dwarf Luthor Harkon background.

But you may know how campaigns are. I bought more arabs, more pirates, more pygmies as the PCs revisited or stayed around looking to enrich themselves, or just to survive. THEN, and this has happened a lot, I thought "You know, I have enough figures here to form a couple of units and some leaders, I might as well make them into an army." Thus, one by one, my arabyan , ogre, pirate, undead pirate and lastly pygmy armies were born.

 

[Padre]

Not wanting to labour the point too much, but I will add ....

You might ask: Why pygmies in particular? Why not chaos or dark elves, the two official armies I don't have?

First, there's the birth from RP figure collections mentioned above (small tribe/band/crew/company becomes army with some additions). If you've already paid for and painted a good chunk of an army, why not for cheapness sake, complete it?
Second, load of my mates had chaos and Dark Elves - I wanted different armies, and never liked chaos power gaming stuff. My only chaos army is horse marauders (converted historicals) representing a recently corrupted tribe with only a few overtly chaos elements.
Third - The challenges - Can I win battles with an Empire army without horse soldiers or armour (pirates)? Can I win battles with an Undead pirate army of Zombies that cannot be resurrected (Luthor Harkon's bizarrely anti-magical WD list)? Can I use a lizardmen army with mostly skink equivalents (javelins and blowpipes) and the beasts they drive into battle (pygmies)?
4th - Surprise and originality - I wanted my opposition to think "Never played an army like that before"

All these motives were there to various degrees with the various armies I have made over the years. I never thought to question the morality of painting fantasy figures of any kind.

 

[Asslessman]

Thanks Erny. I was starting to get a bit self-conscious and worried that people thought I was a racist.

I haven't read anything you wrote here which could lead me to finding you racist. In fact most people make a point even though I don't necessarily agree with everyone. I am glad we handled this one differently from the PW precedent though

 

[mbh]

Same here. I don't think anyone has come off as racist on this board.

I went to a catholic comprehensive and there was no racism that I was ever aware of. We had black and white kids at school. I think that my (lucky) lack of experiencing racism means I didn't initially see it in a fantasy race of pygmies. The pygmies are not representatives of 'black people' (not in the all-encompassing way your comment could be taken to suggest), but rather are representations of a fantasy tribe of southern world halflings. In this sense, Halflings are not representations of white people, but a fantasy folk populating certain regions, deriving from hobbits who derive from (I presume) some species of faery. Different origins, but still arising out of old stories and myths and legends etc.

But you must not see this as arguing against what you believe, feel and know, nor in any way telling you not to think what you think. I am merely trying to explain why I myself never really thought of them as racist caricatures. I just saw them as another kind of fantasy figure. Yes, ignorance was part of my lack of awareness, but also I was not looking for racism, and more importantly, what with all sorts of other fantasy races in existence, they simply seemed to be one of several many different, exaggerated fantasy races.

I have LOTS of armies (14 or so different painted fantasy armies) so if I don't use the pygmies again I'll not miss them. My current campaign is set in Tilea, so not many elves and no pygmies, but lots of invading orcs and goblins, mercenary and arabyan ogres, scheming skaven, mountain and city dwelling dwarves, Undead, etc etc. I think I'll just carry on with that campaign.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this.

Reactions to these models are dependent on our own personal experiences. That's kinda why I'm surprised at some of the posts urging everyone to move on and that these are just silly toy soldiers. I definitely want to make it clear that I'm not trying to push an agenda or judge anyone or wage some crusade against offensive lead. I think it's an interesting discussion and I have trouble keeping my big dumb mouth shut when I see those specific models.

Because of where and who I grew up with, these models cross a line for me. But I'm 100% sure that there many things from different parts of the world that can be seen as offensive that I wouldn't see the same way.

 

[theottovonbismark]

Thanks Erny. I was starting to get a bit self-conscious and worried that people thought I was a racist.

I haven't read anything you wrote here which could lead me to finding you racist. In fact most people make a point even though I don't necessarily agree with everyone. I am glad we handled this one differently from the PW precedent though

Definately you don't come off that way Padre.


The reaction to the models is at the heart of the issue. Are any of you familiar with the traditional Polish Jew figurines? I only came across them myself on a trip to Poland a couple of years ago. There are many similarities with the use of stereotypes in figure design. The arguments for and against are pretty similar to those for gaming miniatures:

http://jewishfigs.pl

http://www.krakowpost.com/article/7017

http://www.ibtimes.com/lucky-jew-st...anti-semitism-or-just-bad-taste-photo-1320991

http://www.cjnews.com/node/108861

 

[Zhu Bajie]

Erny. I went to a bog-standard comprehensive with a reputation for low grades and casual thuggery. The lack of racism is perhaps suprising all things considered. I don't see how that really matters tho' I'm not trying to say my experience, or that of my friends, is universal, actually it was probably quite unusual.

Padre,Tolkien invented Hobbits,they don't stem from folklore or myth, though I think the Greek -> Medieval Pygmies certainly had an influence, are generally considered to be representative of his view of the Edwardian English (and the soldiery of WW1, Sam explicitly of the stoic working class military batman type that Tolkien admired). I think trying to distance fantasy from its historical origins is problematic - even such things as the fairy-tale Ogres are seen to stem from the atrocities committed by Christians during the Crusades, you only need to scratch the surface a little and most fantasy tropes comes from some form of commentary about the real-world, and some of those are racial stereotypes.

Your comment "southern world hobbits" is spot on in my estimation, and should more than adequately answer anyone who challenges your use of them. I really don't see any problem with the models themselves, it only becomes a problem in so far as they are the only representation of black people in Warhammer, so it is kind of like saying "all blacks are like this", without providing a contrasting positive image. I certainly don't think of anyone who plays with these as automatically racist.

 

[mbh]

That would not be adequate for all people.

There are some people who would not want to play a game against those models because of their personal experiences or beliefs. This is hypocritical but I would probably play against that army if I knew the owner did not have any ill will attached to the choice of those models.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

That would not be adequate for all people.

In what way does "these are Congolese Hobbits" (or words to that effect) not answer anyone's challenge to the use of the figures?

 

[mbh]

I guess it's an answer but I was assuming you meant justification. IMO that does not provide an answer to why that sculpt is not offensive. But everyone is free to think or use any miniatures they want.

 

[Erny]

OK Zhu so I read too much into you identifying or not with the Lord of the flies comment. What a highly enlightened if thuggish comp you went to. My point I guess was in the absence of seeing racism in action sometime it can be hard to see the more subtle kinds. However I just don't see these sculpts as that subtle. They are exact miniature copies of racist imagery of the first half of the 20th C, not surprising given the obvious pulp origin of the WH pygmies.

There is certainly room in the world for tribes of black halflings (or Congolese Hobbits if you will), even comic ones, they just don't have to look like the big lipped caricatures of yesteryear.

There is a reason Disney don't show the following cartoons/publications anymore (note I'm linking to the pictures rather than showing them so people can make their own mind up about viewing them):

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/thursracist1.jpg

http://animationreview.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/cannibal-capers-c2a9-walt-disney.jpg

Or why Tintin in the Congo isn't the easiest Tintin book to buy and I love Tintin:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/11/03/article-2057090-0EA62A5B00000578-844_468x462.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/Angry_King_in_Tintin.JPG
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02030/tin_2030258b.jpg

If anyone can honestly say that the Pygmy miniatures are not part of this imagery I would be surprised.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

IMO that does not provide an answer to why that sculpt is not offensive.

You can't be responsible for what other people take offence to. What I'm saying is that "Congolese Hobbitry" provides an adequate answer for someone who challenges you for using them because of their offence. That's what I'm trying to understand, why doesn't it provide an answer? I mean, sure they might need to have it explained to them that Hobbits are wholly admirable little fellas, but once they get that I can't see how they can reasonably protest against them.

 

[mbh]

IMO that does not provide an answer to why that sculpt is not offensive.

You can't be responsible for what other people take offence to. What I'm saying is that "Congolese Hobbitry" provides an adequate answer for someone who challenges you for using them because of their offence. That's what I'm trying to understand, why doesn't it provide an answer? I mean, sure they might need to have it explained to them that Hobbits are wholly admirable little fellas, but once they get that I can't see how they can reasonably protest against them.

Yeah

I get that. I should have expanded my post to acknowledge that you were providing and explanation and not a justification.

But can you really not see how a person from a different background than yourself could be offended by the image this model depicts, despite a fluff explanation? You don't have to agree with it but it seems pretty reasonable to not be a fan of those images/models depending on personal circumstances.