Fantasy Ciphers Don't Make You Not Racist

A.K.A. if I hear the word wireback one more time I'll flip my lid

While what I'm here to complain about today is recent, it also isn't exactly new. It has roots in older issues, and is part of what I've seen people call “I'm not touching you” racism, and general insensitivity around race in comedy and nerd culture.

The first problem is one I've seen others talk about: the sudden “joke” usage of slurs for robots… many of which derive from real slurs. Wire back is referentially anti-Latino. Bolt muncher is lesbophobic. Tinskin doesn't have a direct parallel that I know, but by focusing on “skin”, it intentionally gestures at race. Clanker seems to come from Star Wars, but may be popular as an excuse to use the “hard ER”. “Rust monkey” references multiple racial slurs. “Jamal3000” and “George Droid” are blatant references to black people- the latter being a murder victim who was killed by a cop. This on its own wouldn't inspire me to write an article. White people like slurs. Who knew. It's not like I'm a Trekkie that gets an eye twitch whenever someone says “Cardie” to be funny- a word implied to be mainly used by Federation soldiers against Cardassians, and constructed similarly to the real slur P*ki.

No, what irritated me- in combination with something else I'll get into- was watching Stanzi, a white woman, cheerfully role play being a racist 50s waitress in a sundown town. Just, you know. Targeting robots. That's totally kosher, right guys?

I've already had issues with Stanzi's comedy before. It doesn't surprise me that she participated in this trend (also notably joined in by Samuel Jacob playing a racist cop from the 50s… but for robots). In 2024, she also made jokes about the libel claiming Haitian immigrants were eating cats. Now, I've seen people say that she was mocking the libel. But all she did was repeat it. She didn't subvert anything. This libel was serious enough that people printed up KKK posters to terrorize and threaten people in the area, specifically implying violence towards Haitians. While these posters might have been fake, the psychological impact they have on people is real. Her “comedy” about “tinskins” has the same issue. It's not subverted. She filmed herself saying statements based on real world racism for a few minutes and then the video ends.

And if someone really wants to continue to argue the point with me, ask yourself this. If someone who wasn't Jewish said “this baby is lucky I'm not a Jew preparing for Passover”, would you be defending it? If I (someone who has faced antisemitism) said “well, that's really fucked up”, would you be trying to explain to me how it's fine, actually? Even though that libel has been used dozens of times to justify the murder of random Jewish people? Even though it's still repeated today by antisemites?

It's not that you can't make media showing racism that is clearly criticizing and subverting it. You can even use racially offensive or insensitive language to do so. I'm no great fan of Mel Brooks- but in high-school my English teacher attributed a quote to him, which understands something very important. It's not funny to watch a lynching. And, as that teacher continued, “It's only funny if the victim gets away.” (The exact quote has the same message, but was said far more racistly.¹)

Now, some might undermine this by pointing out the same movie being referenced there actually uses the N word, full ER, as well as other racial slurs. I'd point out an important difference (though I still don't like the movie), which is that the townspeople are explicitly called morons and they are not the protagonist. In this way, Stanzi’s skit is less progressive than Blazing fucking Saddles, a movie that is still held up by whinging racists. Her waitress isn't portrayed as stupid (unless you want to argue a southern accent is a sign of intelligence, in which case I really can't help you) and doesn't get any comeuppance. She successfully threatens two people (standing in as a proxy for non-white people, and frankly probably specifically Black people) and runs them out of town. She doesn't even fail.

Of course, the point of “wireback” jokes isn't to parody racism or show its inane stupidity. It's to express a frustration with increased surveillance and the push of AI- by using racist language. The deep irony there is the people currently feeling the worst impact of AI and surveillance are Black and Indigenous peoples. In Tennessee, an entire Black neighborhood is being poisoned at a higher rate than what they'd already experienced from environmental racism, thanks to the building of a data center dedicated to AI. Surveillance is used to target and kill Palestinians- whether they are justified militants or young children. Stretching further, those suffering most under the current operation of our tech industries are the Congolese people, whose natural resources become fuel for child labor and armed conflict. As most of us in Western countries type on our phones, it is unlikely we are experiencing the true brunt of AI or “technofuedalism” or whatever other term you'd like to use.

The other side of this coin that really annoyed me was being really disappointed by a song.

Presumably because I'd been listening to the Dungeon Meshi AMV for “Burn the Witch” over and over, YouTube recommended me a fun looking little song called “All Paladins are Bastards”. And I will admit- I enjoyed listening to it. I enjoy fun little nerd songs. I really enjoy them when they sound good. The problem was I enjoyed it so much that I clicked on the channel and got a better look at the profile picture (grey scale, side view of a white guy). That immediately took me aback. See, this song wasn't just a fun little nerd song mocking the way palandins are portrayed in most DND type fantasy (which is a particularly racialized form of fantasy); it was a rap song evoking the idea of anti-Black racism and hood culture, down to the lyrics including the word “wizza”, short for wizard.

Giving the benefit of the doubt, I found the playlist of all the songs in this genre (labeled “Evil Wizard Rap”) and found a video featuring footage of the singer. Sure enough, he wasn't using a random photo to represent himself: this is, as best as I can tell, a white guy.

I will reiterate. I simply don't think it's kosher to use a made up word that intentionally sounds like a real racial slur, used in the same way as that slur. White rappers don't get to say the n-word, and I don't think they should be using sneaky substitutes for it either. But beyond that, finding out the singer was white (and listening to/reading the lyrics of other songs in this genre by this artist) added a context to the song that made it, conceptually, a worse piece of art.

The actual structure of the song was still as enjoyable as it had been; the vocals, instruments, and rhymes still were clever. But beyond the problem of using a made up slur, with the context of whiteness, the song simply doesn't work as well. The usage of anti-Black racism here isn't just vaguely gestured at, either- in another song from the playlist, “This World Ain't Built For Us” more bluntly draws on that imagery as the singer- a wizard- talks about difficulty being hired for legitimate, legal work, being tempted by dark forces, and being oppressed in other ways. It also adds “necro” to its list of fantasy racial ciphers. Being a wizard- a class which one learns to become, with inherently dangerous magical powers like fireball- is being equated with race in a much more deliberate way. This simply does not work, as presented, as a racial allegory. Equating Paladins with cops works because Paladins are usually lawful, portrayed in ways clearly based off of cops in several ways, and being a cop is a choice one makes- just like one chooses to be a Paladin. Similarly, one chooses to be a wizard. However, you don't choose to be Black.

I will admit, if this had been a Black artist, I would view it differently. For one thing, I'd assume they understood all of that and were just making an aesthetic choice for verisimilitude (as is their right). They can do that- rap is their house, they wanna wear shoes inside, they can. Guests, however, should know better and should be held to higher scrutiny. The reason I don't trust a white artist like that besides, again, them being a guest, is that white artists in fantasy in particular have a very bad track record of not understanding race. The idea of “why are these people oppressed? Well you see, they followed the Dark Lord/have scary powers and must be controlled/fought in this War” is very common in fantasy media, and very annoying. In the first iteration, some settings for DnD go so far as to explain the Drow's skin color as being a Curse of Ham situation because they worship Lolth.

Now, these justifications are based on real world racism- but they're propaganda. The real “reason” for racism is that it's economically beneficial. Despots, religion, claims of power and a need to control it, and war are post hoc justifications to obscure class relations and provide a moralistic reason to perpetuate economic systems. Fantasy media (again, often made by white people) tends to take this propaganda at face value. Very rarely have I seen a piece of fantasy media both include “ah, they followed the Dark Lord and fought in this war” and a deconstruction of that idea as propaganda. The closest is maybe Dungeon Meshi, which in having an orc and an elf argue about history does the comparatively progressive step of presenting racial conflict as a “both sides have a point” situation- at least conceding that orcs aren't oppressed for fantastical reasons, and making it out as a conflict about resources.

Something else I'd note is if this had been a Black musician, I would have assumed the use of “wizard” and not say, “orc” or “Drow” as a stand in for Blackness was a subtle reference to an actual piece of anti-Black racism. African religions have, for centuries, been characterized as sorcery and devil worship. This isn't unique to them; for example, the same accusations were leveled at Jews, which in Brazil led to some degree of allyship and identification among Black people and Jews who had fled to the safety of quilombos. Further, it's something that I personally deal with. Egyptians and, more specifically, Copts in various social situations have been associated with sorcery and magic. It's certainly not our main stereotype, but it comedy up often- whether it's lazy “pharaoh’s curse” jokes, people who only really know what Copts are because they study magical papyri or Gnosticism, the perception of Egyptians as magicians by Greeks and Jews in antiquity, or Muslim women in Cairo saying that Copts are best at “black magic” that uses demons and involves sexually immoral acts,² magic comes up over and over. All of these instances range somewhere from “annoying” to “genuinely quite offensive” for me. If I was dictator of the world for a day, I'd make Pharaoh's curse jokes illegal due to how casually racist and irritating they are.

When flooding in Aswan happened several years ago, resulting in many scorpion stings as the creatures were driven to seek dry land, almost no one extended sympathy or shared fundraising. Instead it was just those damn jokes. Aswan, to anyone who knows more about Egypt than mummies, is well known for being a seat of Nubian culture- i.e. Black Egyptians, and notably one of our Indigenous groups. The one fundraiser I found and shared for victims was in fact, organized by Nubians. Nubians face discrimination in Egypt and were displaced en-masse from their ancestral land so the Aswan High Dam could be built. They still struggle to get compensated for their land and were never consulted in the first place about the building of the dam. No one knew that or gave a shit to learn.

It isn't just Copts that deal with this in Sahelo-Saharan Africa. In majority non-Black countries of the region,³ and in communities with significant Arab influence creating internal Black hierarchies, Black people are also stereotyped and associated with magic. This can be negative- Sudanese people view South Sudanese people as “sorcerers” and may associate this with violent and animalistic behavior. It can also be positive (though still sometimes fetishizing), with Black people in Tunisia having historically been viewed as good luck at celebrations (up to people making likenesses of Black people out of cardboard, wood, or stone and having it present as decoration if they could not invite a living Black person) and being seen as especially adept at spirit work.⁴ These are very relevant to adorcism and how it is practiced in Sahelo-Saharan Africa, and as someone who has studied adorcism as practiced regionally, I know just how incredibly unlikely it is a white person will know about this, much less address it with care.

The words “black magic” and “Dark Lord” invoked in these tropes- fantastical and real- also carry racial baggage. By using “dark/black” to mean evil, they associate those whose skin are those colors with evil. This is a very old problem. For example, some early midrashim about Ham's skin color describe his “darkness” coming about because he did something immoral⁵- though not always, with other midrash calling his dark skin a blessing. It also was not associated with the curse of slavery until many centuries later, after some Christians and Muslims had decided to combine the two.⁶ Unsurprisingly, both “black magic” and “Dark Lord” show up in “Evil Wizard Rap”. The Dark Lord is a spirit or god, portrayed as implicitly evil and in need of sacrifices. Rather than examining why pragmatic religions appeal to the marginalized (especially when they come from their ancestors in contrast to an imposed religion), or fighting back against the notion that African spirits and gods are demonic, this “Dark Lord” functionally is stand in for the draw of gangs and more or less religiously maps on to the Devil (More souls to feed the black shadow that's calling me/Wizard, I can give you what you want, quit stalling me). Like before, the music does not successfully commentate or satirize.

Putting bigotry into a fantastic setting does not, on its own, work as commentary. In the case of the former trend of jokes, the fantastical setting is simply a smokescreen for people to act racist. In the latter case of the music, its fantastic setting both acts as a smokescreen and evokes real world racist tropes that the musician was probably unaware of. As such the attempt at heightened reality fails. If you are aware of the ways in which Black religious traditions are demonized, “wizza” and “young necro” as references to Blackness aren't novel jokes. They aren't engaged thoughtfully enough to produce a decent commentary, either. It only reproduces.

1. “But I would never have thought of the idea of showing how a black was lynched. It’’s only funny when he escapes getting sent to the gallows.”

2. Gerda Senger, “Women and Demons.”

3. These countries are also often called “North Africa”, in contrast to “Sub-Saharan Africa”. I try not to use these terms because they are racist and do not reflect the cultural continuity and dimensions of Sahelo-Saharan Africa. They imagine the Sahara as a magical wall that prevented travel, trade, and cultural exchange in service of the modern racial nationalist lie that all Black people are “foreign” and have nothing in common with the Maghreb or Egypt- despite every single one of those countries having a Black Indigenous group or having taken part in trade and travel networks that stretched all the way from them to Nigeria and Mali.

4. Richard C. Jankowsky, “Stambeli: music, trance, and alterity in Tunisia.”

5. David M. Goldenberg, “The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” The midrashic work in question is Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer.

6. Jack Salzman and Cornel West, “Struggles in the Promised Land: Towards a History of Black-Jewish Relations.”