Best of the Web - WoTC Orcs and Drow

Old post, I only fixed a few typos I didn't notice previously.

I should call this weeks post Worst of the Web. Wizards put a disclaimer on their legacy products that more or less called the bulk of their long-time customers crypto racists, then they partially backtracked. The complaints were about the following:

1. Drow are racist because they are evil and also black skinned. This is nonsense since they are based on North European Myths and despite the black skin they have nothing in common with any human culture that has ever existed. There is a detailed history of Drow that has nothing to do with any Earth cultures. This claim is laughable and could only be made by someone with a Google Image search  knowledge of the subject. I have more of an issue with an underground race being black skinned rather than pale-white as nearly every animal that lives entirely underground eventually adapts to be super-pale and hairless, but that is another matter.
2. The claim that the pseudo-Gypsy, the Vistani, in the Ravenloft setting are a bunch of stereotypes. The whole game is a bunch of stereotypes, it makes it easier to get your mind around things. They are not Gypsies, it says it right there in the name that they are Vistani. They are all the stereotypes once attributed to Gypsies (fair or not) but they are not Gypsies. They are filling the role Bram Stoker gave to Gypsies, a role expected in Gothic Horror, but they are not Gypsies. When the actual Gypsy complain I'll still disagree, but I'll listen, until then someone being offended on behalf of the Gypsies carries no weight.
3. The last, and lamest is the claim that Orcs are racist because someone decided that some mythical gamers consider them black people because they have darker skin. I've never seen anyone treat Orcs that way, even when we were dumb kids in the 80s nobody went there. This is another case of second hand offense and in this case they are assuming the worst of a large number of their fellow gamers, assuming they are secretly racists. The evidence for this claim seems to come down to some of Tolkiens letters in which he describes his Orcs to a friend (I'm not sure who). He says they have the grossest features attributed to Mongols or something. This isn't saying Orcs are Mongols, and its certainly not saying they are blacks. Shorthand descriptions to a friend are not cannon in the actual books mind you. He spent more time and care describing the Orcs in the books. Also Tolkiens books are not the game. A lawsuit or two between TSR and the Tolkien estate made that clear. Orcs in D&D started as pig-faced, nothing like the Orcs in Tolkien, and nothing to do with any human race. Eventually they became green skins in Warhammer and I think Warcraft and others adopted that. No human cultures have green skin either. But still there are those ready to be offended on behalf of others and to make blanket statements bashing fellow gamers as racist which is pretty offensive and has created some ill will.

Personally I think Wizards is foolish for getting involved in all of this. They are going to chase away long term fans and are unlikely to gain any new gamers in the process. Nobody thinks Orcs or Drow are racist until someone goes to great effort to explain to them their strange theory that they are, and even then they probably only repeat the nonsense as a gag along the lines of "The Empire were good guys in Star Wars" type humor.

If they  must make a statement I would suggest a statement saying "The problematic races in D&D are not problems as written unless one adds meta context to them o make them problematic. We recommend you don't add such meta context and don't make them problematic.  If you find this impossible don't use the problematic races at your table.