In what way am I mincing words? Please enlighten me, what do you think people are saying when they say "I'd like to see more representation in games"?

@planetfunksquad: And how pray tell would you say that would be achieved in Witcher 3? Only one form of representation being increased would please them. And that is having a certain amount of people with different skin colors in the game.

Again, I think racial diversity is good and I'm certainly not against it, but I just don't think the Witcher 3 is really the game to come down hard on.

@chaser324 said:

"And some fans want to lay on a sword over this. And whether its intentional or not, when those fans say “Why should they include a person of color?” it ends up sounding a lot like “I’m glad they didn’t include people of color. It was right of them not to. The game would be ruined otherwise."

By calling every one who disagrees with his opinion a racists thats real nuance in handling this complex issues right?

People who say it wouldn't add anything to the game it sounds like a backhanded comment. When people say the aforementioned, it makes it seem like it's not a big deal. If it's not a big deal then it also shouldn't be a big deal to have diverse representation in games, right?

I don't think the last paragraph in Austin's post is a stretch. On point.

@johntunoku: I'd like to see non-white races explored outside their fantasy stand ins. Thats it. I'm not forcing anything. I'm not demanding. I'm stating what I'd like to see. And I'm not even stating it so that the Witcher 3 can be changed somehow. I'm stating in the hope that CDPR and other developers will take that on board in the future. Theres nothing wrong with the Witcher 3 as is. If we had more games with non-white protags and stories being told that weren't american and european centric I wouldn't care bout the Witcher 3. The discussion is bigger than that and has been going on since before the Witcher 3 even existed. If you want to believe that asking for those things is synonymous with calling you and CDPR racist then, hey, fine. But I'm not and I don't believe anyone else is either.

I just think games will continue to lack diversity until there is a more diverse industry. I don't think it's intentional but something that is an after thought. Being black in America you have a different perspective in general, the things you notice just in everyday life. In games as a black male when I notice any poc I'm like that's cool an even more so surprised when it's more then a npc. I love the witcher and I've never held lack of poc against the game or any fir that matter. It's just the way things are, at least in The Midwest where I was raised. Perhaps my perspective is slanted but just like most things in life a lot of work is required.

I think all of these arguments being laid out from either side are just bananas. Historical accuracy and fiction as far as I'm concerned are just fluff arguments on both sides of the spectrum. There are some very basic questions that could be asked here which are also easily answered. For the purpose of the questions I will use the absent race from within the fiction Zerrikanians.

Would the addition of Zerrikanian characters to The Witcher 3 actively hurt the game? No.

Is the abscence of Zerrikanians puzzling considering they're apart of the fiction and have shown up in prior games? Yes.

Would adding Zerrikanians races as generic NPC's hurt the game? No.

Would adding Zerrikanians as generic NPC's that do nothing significantly improve the game? I honestly don't think so (this one is contentious.)

Would adding a Zerrikanian questline that deals with Zerrikanians being stuck within the northern realms during wartime significantly improve the game? You bet your ass it would.

Did CDPR actively go out of their way to exclude Zerrikanians? I highly doubt it.

Does every video game have to adhere to a certain racial diversity checklist? No.

But then again maybe I'm missing the point of this entire debacle. I've never felt the desire to self insert or relate to video game characters. I'm more interested in well written and multi-layered characters no matter what their race or cultural background is. In this regard The Witcher 3 has that in spades.

I'm sad this hasn't been responded to because I'm actually very curious about this myself. Is all this handwringing and consternation really over the fact that there aren't four or five obscure merchant NPCs "of color" in Novigrad? For people making the historicity argument in the other direction - that there should exist a small population of ethnic traders of some fashion wandering through the land or in the major trade hub - I find it hard to believe that this entire debate would've been sidestepped had there merely been "historically accurate" portrayals of wandering dark-skinned merchants or workers; but I suppose I could be wrong.

The answer to the "Would it really ruin the game or break immersion for NPCs of color to just exist?" question is obviously no. Despite the strawman being built that this is what most people who criticize these arguments are saying, I've seen tiny numbers of people actually saying this. But is this really all that's wanted? Would a slum filled with brown people in The Witcher 3 do much to quell the social critique here? There's no way of knowing, but it's highly unlikely, given past examples of this kind of "criticism." The argument would shift to "Why is the only minority representation in the Witcher 3 so stereotypically negative?" Past examples of context-appropriate representations of NPCs in media haven't pleased other critics like FemFreq so why should anyone believe they would here?

I am happy to be corrected about all of this, I'm just curious what the win condition is here beyond "this is problematic."

@planetfunksquad: We largely don't disagree then. I'd like to believe that everyone is being very clam and collected and no one in fact actually thinks CDPR is racist, but I just don't think the reaction to this has really shown that.

Also, plenty of not white protagonists in games developed in Asia. Although those games typically are racially insular in the same sense the Witcher games are.

That's the thing, I don't care. Everyone seems to always be getting up in arms about race, gender, and all that touchy fun stuff. When the simple matter is, Poland had 99.9% white folk back then, the game is based off that period in Polands history, who gives a shit, why is this even a issue.

Plus these topics never ever go anywhere, it's always just one big shit show and if Giantbomb turns into another Polygon or Kotaku, well, fucking shoot me because this is my last bastion of any gaming journalism/media that I actually pay attention to.

@johntunoku: Like I said, this is bigger than the Witcher. The reason the game is getting this kind of attention is because it is a big and rightly well received game. But it's about more than that. It's about wanting more out of games in general. Honestly I can see how things can be misconstrued. If all that I can do in this thread is ensure people that they aren't being labeled racist for liking a game then cool, because that moves the discussion forward. If when the next time this happens (and it will, believe me) you engage with the argument from a place of good faith instead of making assumptions about peoples intentions (and I was guilty of this at the start of this whole mess too) then that has to be a good thing, right?

well if you dont care whats the point of going into a thread like this knowing whats its gonna be?

its one thread of hundreds here.

people do care about this stuff.

also the game isnt set in poland. its a fictional place made up by the creators. in addition many people (who are more educated on it then me) have either corrected or countered the "99% of people in poland are white so thats why everyone in the witcher is white" multiple times. feel free to read through the posts for details.

or dont. no one is forcing you to care. or to post here if you dont.

hey I can discuss race in games and then enjoy dan trying to cook hundred of chicken fries. both are possible.

@bucketdeth said:

You act like it's a bad thing having diversity on the site. There's a reason why the guys chose Austin to join the team, he brings something else that's missing to the site. The addition of Dan was the same thing.

It's nice to have diversity on the site.

@planetfunksquad: I really don't care too much about it being considered racist or not, it's more about putting a burden on developers to make games that are for everyone. I think something is lost when every game is post-race and post-gender, they seem to become devoid of all forms of culture in their efforts to appeal to every culture. If the developer is world-wise and capable of displaying multiple races and cultures well that is awesome, but I don't think every game needs that (Mass Effect and most other Bioware games are the only ones I can think of that consistently do this well).

I think it's ok for a game to be monocultural, I think it's ok to enjoy a different culture other then your own. If someone created a game based on African mythology or Asian mythology I'd be just as fascinated as I am by what the Witcher people are doing.

I can't believe I missed this on my first read-through.

"And whether its intentional or not, when those fans say “Why should they include a person of color?” it ends up sounding a lot like “I’m glad they didn’t include people of color. It was right of them not to. The game would be ruined otherwise.”

No, no it doesn't Austin. Putting words into the mouths of those on the other side of the fence, especially with the intention of labelling them as racist, is not a good way of saying "Hey, I'm open to debate on this topic and coming to a mutual understanding."

I really should stop responding to this topic though. I guess it just touches me because I myself have a very strong Polish background.

I created an account just to post in this thread, because there's an elephant in the room that I feel most people here are missing. The Witcher 3 is far from the first racially homogenous game that has been produced:

I'd like everyone to consider the dozens of video games that have been based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. For those who are unfamiliar, the Three Kingdoms is considered one of the "four greats" of classic chinese literature, and is one of the most culturally significant works in the Asian hemisphere, second only to Shakespeare. It combines mythology and history to paint a wonderfully rich epic fantasy setting in ancient China.

Now, I reached out onto twitter to ask Tauriq Moosa how he felt about games based on Chinese or Japanese mythology. He blocked me after my single tweet, for reasons that I don't entirely understand. But whatever! The point is that there have been numerous games based on Chinese, Japanese, and Indian mythology that have all been pretty racially homogenous, because they came from racially homogenous countries

Do any of these works lack something because of it? Would the Romance of the Three Kingdoms be improved with the inclusion of blacks or hispanics? Or can they be appreciated for what they are?

The point that I want to emphasize is that if you find yourself failing to connect with characters of a different skin pigmentation, then you're effectively walling yourself off from the rest of the world's most amazing works of art. Not just in videogames, but in films, plays, and literature. And these works should be open to any sort of artistic critique, but in doing so have the nuance to understand the context of where they come from and the audiences there were made for. Otherwise you'll look foolish opining essays on the lack of blacks in Kurasawa films.

However, "this thing wasn't made for me" isn't really a critique. It's a whine. And I get that many people would like to see something like the Witcher, but maybe set in an African setting and based on African mythology. I would also love to see an RPG like that! I really hope someone sets out to put as much love and dedication into such a work that CDP has into theirs, and I would support them all the way.

Diversity is great. I love hearing different opinions on this site. I just hope, as I am sure others do as well, that the articles don't turn into the same sort of drumbeat you see on Polygon or Kotaku where you are constantly hearing about how misogynistic/discriminatory/insensitive games and fans of said games are. It's tiresome. Even moreso when you are essentially told that your opinion is invalid because you happen to be white, male, and straight.

I don't know. I just hope the industry continues to move forward in such a way that it doesn't feel as if this is constantly an issue. There are so many positive things occurring in games, especially on the diversity level, that it's just a bummer that we always seem to fall back into these divisive debates.

And when the back guy merchant is lynched for being black in the game would that be okay??. Would Americans be okay with that.

In a world where people are blaming every one for there trouble and they are backwards as hell. Do you not think the people that looked different where not the first ones to be blamed and then killed??.

You ask "And would it? What would be ruined? It’s can’t be their escapism, a fear that they’d suddenly have to care about ethnic and racial politics–because again, the game already touches on those. Would their “immersion be broken” the first time a brown or black face walked down the street or into a tavern? I have my doubts."

Yes it would.

I am Danish and to give and idea of how rare any one non-white was in this region that is a few hours from Poland. In 1870 the royal Danish zoo opened op exhibits of people of different races. From black people, to Chinese the zoo imported them so that people could see real live colored people.

So yes Token black person would stand out.

Another reason why the Witcher is a generally poor target for an essay on the value of diversity, the Witcher 3 already features the voices of a historically marginalized ethnic minority- the Poles. In a greater context the Witcher kind of sort of represents the biggest and most mainstream Polish contribution to the international market, and should be celebrated as such.

And yes it's important for some (or many) games to include the voices of minorities and talk about racial issues, but the Witcher probably isn't the game that one should be going after. It already tackles the issues of racism and ethnic suffrage with more consideration and nuance than 99% of games on the market, and they manage to do this without PoC. Yes, it's possible, and yes characters don't have to physically resemble someone to share their perspective or struggles. At the very least, I think it does a better job of representing minorities than the Elder Scrolls games. Bethesda has never been criticized for a lack of minority NPCs in their games, but most of the black NPCs have the same voice actors and stock dialogue as white NPCs. Is that really all people want? A palette swap, with literally identical voices?

you know the person who made the article that this whole conversation and austins response is based on is not american right?

Hey everyone!

Still don't have a ton of free time right now, but I've been doing my best to keep up with the comments here. First, thanks to those of you debating civilly and smartly. Really love seeing that discourse, and I especially love seeing people hammer out the nuances of their own understandings and beliefs (even when they're not the same as mine! What can I say, it's the teacher in me, I guess.)

Second, I said this on Twitter already, but I'll say it here too: Thanks again for the folks who have brought in up to date demographics data on Poland, and to those who have provided sourced historical arguments (regardless of which case you're arguing.) I wrote this post in about 15 minutes (while waiting around for a ride to finally go get an desk chair for my apartment, yay), and knew I wouldn't have time to do the sorta research I wanted to. Still, I wanted to force myself to address the existence of a Slavic history of racialization and ethnic grouping. I meant it when I said that "This is super complicated," and I don't think you have to look any further than these very comments to see that. Some of the counter arguments to my line of critique are "Poland is almost entirely white." Yet, some different counter arguments to this post include some version of "Wait, since when are Slavic peoples white?", referencing a long history of Othering and oppression that the people in this region suffered from other European powers. So, having updated numbers on this stuff helps--though as one poster noted, the discrepancy isn't so big as to fully undermine the argument.

Third, I've seen a lot of folks throwing shade at the final few paragraphs of my post as "building a strawman," or reading those grafs as me arguing that if you disagree with me that "you're racist." To some degree, I can see where that read of those sentences comes from, so I don't want to dismiss that complaint full stop by saying "That's not what I meant!" I'm also not really interested in "walking back" anything I said here. But I am happy to clarify a bit.

So, the most contentious passage, I think, is this:

And some fans want to lay on a sword over this. And whether its intentional or not, when those fans say “Why should they include a person of color?” it ends up sounding a lot like “I’m glad they didn’t include people of color. It was right of them not to. The game would be ruined otherwise.”

The confusion in my writing centers around this pivot from "what is said" to what "it ends up sounding a lot like." If this had been a real piece, something I'd worked on for a week or more, I would've reworked this whole graf to focus in on what I'm getting at there in a more precise way. So, what I mean when I say "...it ends up sounding a lot like..." is something like this:

Given the long history of racial oppression, of the dismissal of criticism (polite and otherwise), and of cultural gatekeeping, when those fans of The Witcher say "Why should they include a person of color?" it makes me feel like that person, whatever their heart or intentions or politics, is not interested in pushing back against that history. I'm not making a claim about them here, I'm making a claim about how this reaction makes me feel. When the conversation starts at "Justify for me why people of color should be included in my media," I know, deep and suddenly, that this is a losing fight. This is why I cringe when (in this very thread) I read that the inclusion of people of color in Dragon Age: Inquisition felt "unnatural" to a player. It is a sharp reminder that my experiences and feelings of exclusion (which are shared by many) will, by some, continue to be coded as irrational, emotional, and a billion other words that orbit around "unnatural," instead of being addressed directly.

(This is also just a clutch moment to link Jay Smooth's classic "You are a racist vs What you said was racist" video.)

Fourth and finally, there are a couple of recent posts asking "is the inclusion of skin color really enough?" (And you can toss in the posts I saw that were something like "Race doesn't really exist, anyway, so why do you care about skin color?" for good measure).

The answer here, again is that it's complicated. Or at least, it can be.

The short answer, which I gave on an episode of Justice Points a few months ago, is that when I play games like Freedom Wars I'm really, deeply happy that I get to play a black anime #teen, but that I also wanna play a game that speaks to an experience of blackness the way Kendrick Lamar's good Kid, m.A.A.d city does, one day.

Race, as those argued, "does not really exist." But that's only true if what you mean is "race doesn't exist physically/biologically." But it does exist socially, historically, and culturally. And often, it is made to exist. (Instructive and straight forward here is Herman Goring, Nazi Officer, stating plainly "I decide who is a Jew." I'm also partial to the work of Ali Behdad, whose academic work examines how Western European photographers helped to "create" the mysterious and exotic version of North African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian races in the cultural zeitgeist of the west.) And once racialization occurs, once a group of folks is set aside and told, "Oh, y'all are X, okay? I don't care that five years ago you were Y and you were Z, now you're both X," well, that process eventually leads to a real, lived culture and experience of race. (And this is why, for the record, I wanted to make sure not to easily group the Slavic cultures of Europe with the "White People" full stop--I know that Europe's own history is messy and interesting and brutal and beautiful, too.)

So yes, I'm black. No, that doesn't mean that I think I have any special, physical traits given to me by my blackness. But it does mean that there are people in the world who do believe that, and that is inescapable. And it means that I have lots of--not all, but lots of--experiences in common with other black Americans, and marginalized groups in general, too. (There was, for a long time, a cultural closeness between Black and Jewish populations in America built on that commonality.) But "blackness" will always expand beyond whatever cataloging I can do. Because race is a social construct and not a reflection of innate, physical reality, its boundaries are deeply porous and flexible and its shape is unfixed. This is a beautiful thing. And it's why I can smile both when I get to make a black anime teen in Freedom Wars and why I can hope against hope that some day we'll get the Kendrick Lamar of video games.

So no, a few Zerrikanian traders or merchants or alchemists wouldn't fix the problems games have with race, but no single game will ever do that, in the same way that no single film solved the problem of representation in Hollywood cinema. But each time a dev takes a moment to think about how diversity might fit into their game--or, no, better: how it might have always been there, ready to be uncovered, ready to make their worlds feel more alive, more real--they add a brick to a wall of overall improvement. And sometimes that brick looks like a few brown faces in a crowd. Sometimes it looks like character creation. Sometimes it looks like a bi-racial lead character whose racial background is identifiable, but not directly addressed and sometimes it's a game that tackles the racial identity of its characters directly. It's all of these things and more, and none of them are perfect, and none of them can do it alone. How could they?

There is no silver bullet, no grand plan for creating diversity in games. There's lots of little steps that we can applaud, and that we can remind developers that they have access to. We do this constantly with other bits of games (Oh my god, please put the Nemesis System, or something like it, in a bunch of other games by this time next year, thanks). Why not also do it here? And if the answer is "Because this isn't as interesting or valuable or meaningful as X game feature," well, it is to me, so I'm gonna keep writing this stuff.

(And hey, side note: To folks saying that I'm "commenting on the hot topic of the week," I've been writing about race and games now for a long while. Most of it is available here. Start with the Animal Crossing piece at the bottom, if you're interested.)

Anyway, it's late and I need to get back to work. I'll keep peaking into the convo, because like I said, I really love seeing everyone work out their own positions--even those of you I disagree with. So keep it civil and keep the good info coming.

And believe me, this will not be the last time I talk race on Giant Bomb. And maybe next time you'll get more than a blog post.

-Austin

Good! I'm so excited to hear more from you, Austin!

@austin_walker said:

God damn. I am so glad you're here, Austin.

I think that's an oversimplification and mischaracterization of what he was saying. The actual motivations may not inherently be racist or carry any malicious intent, but for people that care about diversity and representation, that's just the way it may feel when there's some push back or indifference towards those issues. It's not even something that's unique to this matter - anyone that cares about something is going to feel similarly towards someone writing off or downplaying their concern.

Well...maybe. I can see how adding Zerrikanians COULD hurt, and make things worse. I think the Zerrikanians fit into the "savage" trope, where the diverse ethnic group is tribal, seems uncivilized, and is seen as a savage. I think that can, by quite a few people, be viewed as racist for reinforcing and inadvertently showcasing racial stereotypes. I think if you look at how people are angry at how racial diversity is used on Game of Thrones, you see what I mean by how it could create a different problem. I'm all for showing the Zerrikanians. I just worry at how they might be received, is all.

The absence of the Zerrikanians is actually not puzzling, considering the source material. I've read more than half of the novels that have been released, in which the games are based and continue from. And I can tell you, I don't remember the Zerrikanians being mentioned even once, much less there being characters from there. And there are different characters, and political intrigue in those novels. Evidentally, Zerrikanian characters appear in a short story in 'Sword of Destiny', which is being translated and released this December. The Witcher, on PC, featured a Zerrikanian as well. So...to be brutally honest...the games have done about as much with the Zerrikanians as the novels have. Not an excuse, but we shouldn't misrepresent the books. The games have very much been in lockstep with the novels, for better or worse.

Honestly, I think patching in NPC Zerrikanians would make things worse because it'd actually be tokenism. The right way to include the Zerrikanians, and do right by them, is to try and do a questline in the upcoming Expansion "Blood and Wine", which is supposed to take place in Nilfgaard. That expansion won't come out until next year, so maybe it can be done there. Maybe.

Yeah, well said Austin.

Well said Austin, well said.

Im gonna turn this around and say when people brought up the lack of people of color in the witcher it was like they were saying "This game would of been better with people of colour", or maybe they were saying "I personally would of liked to have people of colour in this game"

I have no problem with that. Like what you like, want what you want. I think theres some miscommunication where people take the post as

"This game is bad because it doesn't have people of colour" (Note that the first discussion of this came up in a review of witcher 3!)

And that point people would like to point out that the game isn't bad because it doesn't have people of colour. This escalates and gets twisted until it seems to turn into a "These fans don't seem to want people of colour in their game". I take a little bit of offence to that accusation but can understand how people can come to that conclusion with the miscommunication.

It seems really weird that Witcher 3 has sparked this controversy. I didn't see any complaints about Gone Home or Life is strange or 60 seconds. It seems if we are going to bring up this discussion on the internet it should be standardized and criticism brought up with several games, not just the game that people seem to like the most at the current time.

Really glad to have you here @austin_walker.

You really hit the ground running man.

@planetfunksquad: And some fans want to lay on a sword over this. And whether its intentional or not, when those fans say “Why should they include a person of color?” it ends up sounding a lot like “I’m glad they didn’t include people of color. It was right of them not to. The game would be ruined otherwise.”

It was worded very poorly.

@sirfork: yes it was. Austin tried to clarify what he meant in another thread. Maybe go check that out?

I don't want to get deep into this discussion since I don't have time to formulate my arguments.

But I just want to throw out this link here.

This is another polish developer's take on this issue.

@fangrim: I think it's become a thing with the Witcher 3 since it combines the subject of race in games with the wider conversation of race in fantasy settings. Any lack of diversity in Life is Strange may be an oversight by the devs that could be criticized, but I don't think you'd see the responses of "it wouldn't make sense" to include POCs or that it would "break immersion" to see them in the game. That line of argument seems especially prevalent in the fantasy genre because it leans so heavily on stereotypical depictions of europe and has done so since the invention and popularization of the genre.

While Gone Home and Life is Strange may not be diverse, they are much smaller in scope, telling the story of just a few people, even just a family unit. The Witcher, by contrast, is epic fantasy, purporting to depict an entire society and world. The lack of diversity is much more glaring when presented on such a large scale.

If why should they becomes they shouldn't have, then why didn't they becomes they didn't because they're racist.

Well, in Europe, people seem to regard the 'white' race not as one group but a wide-ranging variety of peoples with historic and regional implications. The Witcher 3, in a sense, aims to represent these diverse makeup of peoples that are archetypes drawn from their society and does justice to their inclusion quite ably and sensibly.

It is quite notable that Austin skirted around the issue of the original source material, which is the book, obviously, concentrating his emphasis on diversity in the context of the game in of itself. Coming from the book, one might say CDPR had done a good job of expanding the horizons a bit and made the material stand up to a broader appeal outside of its native audience.

Regardless, CDPR has sold in excess of four million copies of the Witcher 3 and counting. The game is going to be GOTY on a majority of gaming press and will be showered with accolades for years to come. Instead of being mired in this political correctness, let's focus on what CDPR is doing that is absolutely fantastic, which are tremendous support, strong and independent female character, free DLCs, and its DRM free and fair pricing policies. Those issues are, I believe, what people of all races, not only the white people, can get behind.

Another thing worth mentioning is that I noticed a gender gap in the game (~55% males and ~45% females). I sincerely hope CDPR will release a patch to reduce the size of that gap.

"I think this issue is super complicated."

No it's not. It's the simplest issue in the world: They are NOT obligated to include diversity. You desperately want them to, but that's in the end just your wish. There are a lot of people who don't scour every game looking for race, but instead focus on mechanics, the story, the feel of combat etc.

They are obligated to develop the game in line with promises to their publishing deal.

If you wanna make a game about a certain squad of soldiers during World War One, and history tells us that squad was all white, you're not obligated to suddenly make some of them black, hispanic and Asian just to satisfy modern cultural values. That's an extremely silly thing to argue.

"And whether its intentional or not, when those fans say “Why should they include a person of color?” it ends up sounding a lot like “I’m glad they didn’t include people of color. It was right of them not to. The game would be ruined otherwise.”

And would it? What would be ruined? It’s can’t be their escapism, a fear that they’d suddenly have to care about ethnic and racial politics–because again, the game already touches on those. Would their “immersion be broken” the first time a brown or black face walked down the street or into a tavern? I have my doubts.

It all feels like a desire for “the good old days,” where things–race, countries, games–were simpler. But there were no good old days. There were just days before we knew better."

Oh, come on. You can't even engage the actual argument, but you have to make up your own? How do you even intend to have a discussion about this "issue" when you won't let the opposition actually speak for itself?

It's a terrible way to conclude for you to twist the obvious question: "Why should a game developer be forced to adhere to your desires for diversity" into "I want everything to be white." That's completely disingenuous and it completely invalidates any attempt at sounding like you're making an actual argument.

Why not just answer the question instead, as in "why is a creator of an entertainment product forced to be responsible for you feeling like you belong to their fantasy, imaginary world? Why are your feelings their duty?"

Why are your last two paragraphs a rebuttal to a statement nobody made? Are you that incapable for formulating an argument for why CDPR should be forced to include more people of color?

This obvious tactic of deflecting any questions towards your own position and attempting to just make your opposition sound racist does you no credit. It only makes you sound incapable of actually answering why CDPR should be forced to include more people of color.

Next time, Austin, try answering the question instead of pointlessly trying to go "well, that sounds like you're just racist."

"But there were no good old days. There were just days before we knew better."

A-freakin'-men.