(06-09-2015, 04:57 PM)RiniKett Wrote: While I do not believe racism is justified by any means, it is a character trait/flaw. If someone wishes for their character to hindered by such it is their choice.
But, everyone is different, but everyone has their own rights as well, even those who play a racist character as long as it doesn't involve an OOC hate....If it does then that person is just petty.
Well, I also think we need to keep in mind that race in the FFXIV world is drastically different from what we consider "race" in the real world. In the real world we have only very minor physical differences between "races" such that it's absurd to make generalizations about them. We are all the same species. We don't have drastically different genetic lineages and origins.
In Eorzea, the races are presumably individual species that just happen to be sentient humanoids capable of speech. So racism in Eorzea is not as stupid as racism IRL, since it doesn't involve members of the same species. It's kind of unfair to compare it to what we in the real world would call "racism."
Different animals can have different levels of intellect, temperaments, etc. To me, it's more analogous to different breeds of dog - all dogs are the same species, but beagles and poodles are more intelligent than many other dogs, greyhounds run faster, corgis and collies are more personable, and pit bulls are more likely to be vicious. Are these all true? Maybe so, maybe not, but in theory a person might start seeing distinctions like these among the races of Eorzea.
You don't need to look any further than the race lore to see these attitudes confirmed. Example of dunesfolk lalafell:
Quote:They are adamant about scholasticism, placing the advancement of knowledge before all else. Other races tend to perceive male Dunesfolk as introverts who care more for books, business, and the prosperity of Ul'dah than the goings-on of the rest of the realm.
And of course it's all based in personal experience rather than reason, because that's how prejudices are formed. "I don't trust lalafells" says the Hyur who has been ripped off by more than one lalafell merchant at some point. "Plainsfolk are lazy slackers" says the proud Ul'dahn Dunesfolk.  "Miqo'tes are all feral beasts" might be something you'd hear from a person who only knows of their social structure and has never met one in person. And so on.
We need to keep in mind that Eorzeans don't live in the information age, there's no internet and no globalization, and education is a privilege of the upper class, so personal opinions on these matters would be informed by nothing more than individual experience. High-minded modern ideas like "racial tolerance" would have a hard time penetrating the public consciousness, in my opinion.
![[Image: hlEovB0.png]](http://i.imgur.com/hlEovB0.png)
