dancingdaggers:
And by that I mean “shut up and listen to people of color for fucking once.” I have repeatedly seen meta post after meta post about mages, mage oppression, etc and damn near every single one is written by a white person. That’s a huge problem in and of itself right there, but my primary issue is that disabled whites are talking up a storm about the ableism parallels without a single fucking thought as to how these issues started with colonialism and affect non white people the most.
Before I continue any further, for reasons of full disclosure I am a white-passing disabled (check about for specifics) West Indian Latinx from the United States, and as such my own personal accounts and research will be restricted to the culture I live in. This does not mean that if you’re white you get to dismiss what I’m saying; however I do absolutely welcome input from non white people from other parts of the world. If you’re white, YES you may reblog this post, YES you may ask me questions/comment RESPECTFULLY (be mindful that I am disabled though), NO you cannot start an argument with me over the premise of this post I will come at you like a flock of turkeys after a suburban New Jersey mailman. General content warning for all sorts of negative topics, I will warn for particularly bad things but may miss tags. Onwards!
So just what is racialized ableism? Beyond the obvious, it’s the intersection of racism and ableism. It’s how ableism affects non white people and people of color. Many whites in disability advocacy/awareness communities like to pretend all ableism is equal. It is not. Disabled whites, to say nothing of the actual structures in healthcare and society at large, frequently target disabled people of color. The stigma behind many mental disorders such as psychosis gained their stigma by association with POC, specifically Black and/or Latinx people (link warning: contains anti Black racism, forced institutionalization). While you’re clicked off of tumblr, go google the history of eugenics and take special note of how racialized that was, and how eugenics was practiced in the United States until the 1970s, and frequently targeted women of color for sterilization (link warning: forced medical procedures). You’ll note the link between disability and race comes up again and again. Racism and ableism cannot be separated as many whites, especially those in the Dragon Age fandom, like to pretend. If the issue of mage oppression is about ableism, it follows that it MUST also be about racism, as one cannot be untangled from the other.
Most circle mages are found in their youths, usually after accidentally committing some sort of petty crime due to their magic manifesting. Committing petty crime isn’t restricted to children of color in the real world, of course, but the punishments ARE. Mage children are dragged away, usually in shackles, to the circles where they become prisoners. How often does that happen to white children here on Earth? Very rarely, yet for children of color it’s the norm, and it’s further reinforced by the school-to-prison pipeline, something I myself very nearly got caught up in as a teenager dealing with trauma and harassment by white students that the administration and police refused to do anything about, despite the fact that I had evidence they were committing crimes against me. Here’s a page from the American Civil Liberties Union, scroll down and click through the articles to get a clearer picture of just what the school to prison pipeline is, and how it disproportionately affects youths of color. Take special note of the part where it says many of these children have disabilities or come from broken homes. Sounds exactly like circle mage kids right?
These comparisons aren’t accidental. Bioware consistently shows a startling amount of self awareness when it comes to mages and mage oppression, particularly with Anders’ narrative. This is evident in everything from the more explicit things involving the mage rebellion, to his disability, to his faith and relationship with the Chantry and Andrastianism. Anders canonically has bipolar disorder and is demonized for it frequently in game and out of game by Bioware’s own staff. While of course ableism happens to anyone with a mental illness, as I established previously racism is a major factor in the stigmatization of mental illness; people of color are considered inherently violent regardless of disability status. The writers repeatedly portray Anders as being uncontrollable and prone to violence, regardless of how out of character it may be – such as his attack on the runaway mage girl, Ella. In his rivalry route, Hawke micromanages Anders so he doesn’t “lash out” and hurt people because he’s “inherently dangerous” which is how white people treat people of color; hence the criminalization of people of color and the higher rates of incarceration.
The demonization of people of color is historical. We all know that the Chantry is a fantasy version of the Catholic Church, but many non-Latinxs don’t understand our relationship with the Catholic Church and the colonialism that the faithful enacted against us, and how we took what was used to control and destroy our cultures and people and infused our own folk practices into our very own, unique version of Catholicism. Anders’ faith (and by extension, Leliana’s as well) is highly reminscient of folk Latinx Catholicism. He reinterprets the scriptures to reflect his worldview in a way that is not condoned by the Chantry. In his manifesto, Anders argues that Andraste would’ve never accepted the circle system and the total condemnation of magic and instead says that she argued for moderation; this is in direct conflict with official Chantry line about absolute control of magic, and how those who are born with magical talent are cursed by the Maker. Again, this has parallels to real life where colonial priests thought they were “saving” the cursed Latin Americans from our own “savage” cultures and how unless we were forcibly converted, we would be condemned to eternal damnation. Mages are browbeat with Chantry line harder than most other people in Thedas; they’re taught to hate themselves and who they are, much like how Europeans used colonialism to enforce a racist system and maintain inequality easier. If you believe you’re lesser, then you won’t rebel against your betters; I’ve known plenty of non white Latinxs who believe that whiteness is superior, and for a long time even I was in that number.
And in the event I was not explicit enough: ANDERS ISN’T FUCKING WHITE, PUTXS. HE DOESN’T EVEN LOOK WHITE.
I’m not even going to get into the “tranquil solution” (Holocaust) and “mage underground” (American slavery) or the whole “his writer lives in the post 9/11 west and continuously calls Anders a terrorist” thing – that’s really explicitly racism and I don’t know why white fandom keeps ignoring it (just kidding I do, it’s racism).
If you’re still convinced this is all just a happy accident, I went through and picked through the wiki and found all the plot relevant characters I could, and sorted them into categories:
White mages: Wynne, Irving, Elsa, Karl, Grace, Decimus, Hadriana, Connor, Idunna, Uldred, Gascard DuPuis
Mages of color: Anders, Merrill (whitewashed in DA2, was brownskinned in DAO; also Dalish have been explicitly linked to non white people by the writers), Alain, Jowan, Morrigan (explicitly stated in DAO to be half Chasind), Marethari, Dorian, Fiona (whitewashed in DAI; in her novel she was described as brownskinned), Varania, Velanna, Feynriel, Solas (he was Black in his concept art), Ella, Orsino
For the templars, I decided to include seekers as well because they serve a similar function:
White templars/seekers: Cullen, Gregoire, Meredith, Alrik, Karras, Samson, Lucius, Emeric, Thrask, Keran, Varnell
Templars/seekers of color: Leliana (explained above; her narrative is explicitly Latinx), Alistair (whitewashed in DA2 and DAI, mother is Fiona), Cassandra (whitewashed in DAI, was brownskinned in DA2)
There is a MASSIVE disparity between these two groups. Nearly every templar and seeker character is white; the mages are more evenly divided between white and non white, though the non white mages are higher in number. While your mileage may vary on whether or not these characters are good or bad, it’s clear: mage oppression is tied to race. It’s not just an issue of ableism, because ableism is an issue of racism.