Humans Are White: Difference between revisions

Space has a lot of people in it. Way, way more people than science tells us there should be. There are [[Amazing Technicolor Population|blue people, green people, orange people, purple people,]] [[To Serve Man|people that eat people]], [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Proud Warrior Race Guys]], [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]], [[Big Creepy-Crawlies]], [[Energy Beings]], and even the odd [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] with [[Ancient Astronauts|a very familiar name]]. And most of them even [[Aliens Speaking English|speak English]].

 

 

 

This trope can also appear in alternate dimensions or histories as well as in futuristic space stories.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', had at least one (propably) Hispanol Character, Ryou. (He might also have been black to [[Black Dude Dies First|fit the trope]].) Apart from that most people looked a lot the same but were probably evenly distributed between Asians and white ones.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|Zeta Gundam]]'' had [[Tagalong Kid]] Shinta.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam|Victory Gundam]]'' featured at least one female, Afro American main cast member and a couple of other kids who were not white. (Also the origin of Shakti are up to debate)

** ''[[Mobile Fighter G Gundam|G Gundam]]'' for all its internationality featured only one person who was clearly not white (two assuming Domon was supposed to be Asian) They had fighters from all over the world but none of them gets to be in the Shuffle Alliance?

** Uh, what? At least 3 of the Gundam Fighters we actually get to see are decidedly non-white: Neo Kenya is black, Neo Spain is Hispanic and Neo India is...green.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00|Gundam 00]]'' has at least two black secondary characters: Graham Aker's late wingman Daryl Dodge and the president of [[The Federation]]. There's also [[Ambiguously Brown]] Johan Trinity (who seems to be a different race than his siblings- they're [[Designer Babies]]). Despite his Japenese [[Code Name]], the main character Setsuna F. Seiei is Kurdish, along with his ex-mentor/arch-enemy Ali Al Saachez. Princess Marina Ismail and her right-hand Shirin Bakhtiar are Persian (Azadistan is of Persian etymology) Fellow gundameister Allelujah Haptism is Kazakh. And of course, there are all the other cast members with apparently multiracial origins, as shown through their names.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing|Gundam Wing]]'' had a large background cast of Arab characters, in the form of Quatre's private army. However, although also of Arabian descent, space-born Quatre was blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

* ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'' has its main characters supposedly as members of an [[The Federation|international military force]]. However, pretty much everyone on the ship has a Japanese name, and the high command are likewise Japanese. The token minority member is Lt. Kim who in averting [[No Koreans in Japan]] is probably meant as proof of a more "racially harmonious" future.

* [[Zoids]]: Chaotic Century features Moonbay, most likely supposed to be Native American, in the main cast.

* [[Fullmetal Alchemist]] notably averts this trope, particularly in the manga and Brotherhood. With the Asian looking Xingese characters, the dark skinned, white haired, red eyed Ishvalans, and the (generally) caucasian Amestrians, FMA is one of the few anime/manga to not only include a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but actually incorporate them into the character designs. Even among Amestrians, there are "black" supporting characters like Paninya and Jerso.

* ''[[Wing Commander (film)|Wing Commander]]'': Unlike in the earlier games on which the film was based (see below), this trope is played straight. There are only two non-caucasian actors in the main cast, and one of them is barely present (Mr. Obutu is part of the Claw's bridge personnel, and often somewhat in the background).

* Invoked in ''[[Planet of the Apes]]''-There's only one black man, Dodge, in the original film. Zira says in the third film that the apes were intrigued by Dodge and stuffed him for display because they'd never seen a human with dark skin before. That said, there ''was'' a black man among the mutant society in the second film.

* There is only a ''single'' black person in ''[[Space Mutiny]]'' (a frozen corpse). This has bigger [[Unfortunate Implications]] than most examples since the film was made in Apartheid era South Africa...

 

* The future history of [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''[[The Federation|Terran Federation]]'' implies that the original races of humanity have been mixed in a Waring blender, resulting in such character names as "Hideyoshi O'Leary" and "Themistocles M'zangwe".

* Earth in the ''[[Known Space]]'' universe has had such thorough mixing through the convenience of the [[Transporters and Teleporters|transit booth]], which eliminated distance and borders. The Belters are also evenly mixed, for the opposite reason-- there are only a few asteroids with life support, so everyone meets and mingles with everyone. The extraterrestrial colonies are less varied, either due to [[Hollywood Evolution|adapting to extreme conditions]], patterns of settlement, or low starting population; the [[Heavyworlders|Jinxians]] all have very dark skin regardless of ethnicity, due to the intense sunlight of their world. The Crashlanders are 40% albinos. And it's specifically mentioned that nearly everyone uses medication to darken their skins as a protection against sunburn.

* In the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' black people are extremely rare, and go as far as for one character to ask if one of the black character's skin is dyed. They apparently come from far away and travel is limited by technology, much like the real world.

** The [[Inheritance Cycle]] swings into [[Unfortunate Implications]] territory when it mentions that the "wandering tribes'" favourite thing to do is "smoke cardus weed."

* Ursula Le Guin's ''Hainish Cycle''. When a fair-skinned, Caucasian-looking character crops up in the short story "Dancing to Ganam", most other people find his appearance downright bizarre. [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] likes to play around with this trope in most of her works, largely in opposition to the [[Unfortunate Implications|racial undertones]] of many fantasy novels.

* Justified in ''Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy'', in which virtually anyone with black African ancestry has been wiped out {{spoiler|by a racist nanite plague. Two of the main characters, a father and daughter, are black ''with green eyes'', this being a trait the virus was programmed to read as "not black".}} Period movies featuring black characters have to cast Australian aborigines in those roles, and there's a [[Show Within a Show|TV show]] with an all-aboriginal cast who play black space colonists who'd survived the plague by being on Mars at the time.

* Inverted, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. ''Parafaith War'''s hero is blond and white-skinned... and therefore regarded with a lot of suspicion by everyone as straight "anglos" are rare in the Eco-Tech Coalition. They are more often associated with their adversaries, the fanatical Revenants of the Prophets. Most Eco-Tech citizens are Asian (predominantly south-east asian with a strong component of Japanese.) Because of that he is ultimately sent into enemy territory as a spy.

* Somewhat subverted in John Scalzi's [[Old Mans War]]: colonists for newly discovered planets are specifically taken from the less developed countries in general (though mostly war-torn India). If an American/European (unless you're from Norway) wants to get off-planet, they have to join the [[Space Marines]] (who have ''green'' skin and die a lot).

* Somewhat averted in the ''[[Honor Harrington|Honorverse]]''. While many characters seem to be Caucasian, the ruling family of Manticore are explicitly dark skinned, and Honor Harrington herself shows signs of her Asian ancestry. The prevalent skin colour on most worlds is dictated by how much UV they receive from their sun. In addition, cosmopolitan names such as Alfredo Yu seem to be the norm.

* Averted in [[Vernor Vinge]] 's ''A Fire Upon The Deep'' universe. All human settlements in The Beyond come from one common ancestor -- Nyjora, a [[Lost Colony]] already several generations removed from Old Earth -- and are described as having a common phenotype: dark skin and black hair. Pham Nuwen's red hair and asian features are so unusual as to be almost alien.

* Played With in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'', since while all main characters and most of the side characters are white, Hotep-Ra is depicted as being black.

* Averted in the remake of ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]''. In [[Battlestar Galactica Classic|the original show]], due to the time, almost the entire cast is white and the majority are male. In the remake, there are several people of other races and/or females.

* The original version of ''[[The Tomorrow People]]'' had a black actress in their regular cast, who was once forced to sit out their visit to a [[Human Alien]] planet because there weren't any black people on that world. A native asked her if she was from the same planet as the other Tomorrow People, then commented that there must be "an interesting variety of skin color" on Earth when she said yes.

* [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] was quite unhappy about the Caucasian cast of ''A Wizard of Earthsea''. In the novels, the protagonist is red-skinned and his best friend black, and the nation of white folk in ''The Tombs of Atuan'' are rather imperialistic and warmongering compared to the other inhabitants of the world. This was not reflected in the animated version, which didn't even have the risible excuse of lacking suitable actors.

 

 

** The Salamanders [[Space Marine]] chapter, who are all black-skinned due to [[Unfortunate Implications|gene corruption]]. Note that this black as in the color black, jet black, (like obsidian), not what we call black skin in real life. Whether the unmodified humans of their world are black or white keeps getting retconned back and forth.

** The ''[[Dark Heresy]]'' RPG, where you can roll for your skin tone -- aside from the void-born, whose skin-tones range from "porcelain" to "ivory", all origins can have a variety of skin tones and eye colors.

** ''[[Dawn of War]]'' introduces Inquisitor Mordecai Toth, who is black. Perhaps the only explicitly black character in the setting. [[Unfortunate Implication]] in that the novelization implies he was not real but the creation or avatar of a powerful daemon. Meaning the only black person didn't actually exist. This is however only true in the novel, all other sources treat Toth as a real person.

* Cheerily averted in ''[[BattleTech]]''. Black samurai and Asian Scotsmen abound.

* The ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' sourcebooks for [[The Big Easy|New Orleans]], [[Atlanta]], and [[Milwaukee]] feature next to no black characters, even though all three cities have a black majority.

* This was (at least during the 1980s) ''the official policy'' of TSR when it came to ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', their reason being, "That's what we have demihumans for." Thankfully this isn't as strong as it once was, with entire sourcebooks having since been written on non-Eurocentric fantasy settings.

 

 

** Similarly, ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' has only two black guys, Sazh and his son.

* Played straight in [[Civilization]] 4. Every regular unit regardless of the civ is white.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' had as its only black character an easily-forgettable minor noble who only exists in one cutscene. If you don't count the [[Unfortunate Implications|slightly-darker-than-everyone-else generic thieves]].

** Rafa and her brother are clearly meant to be Arab, however.

* Better dealt with for the squad of [[Operation Flashpoint|ARMA 2]] - there are two black men, two white men and a latino in the five-man squad. Even more, the main player character is one of the black men.

* Averted in ''[[Half Life]] 2'', where the deuteragonist, Alyx Vance, is Afro-Asian; Alyx's father, Eli, is black. Then there are the Citizens, who can be white, Asian, and black, of which the latter two can be seen quite often, if not just as often as the white models. There is a black character named Matt, an Asian character named Mary, and even an unambiguously Japanese character (Noriko). There are also quite a few Vortigaunts, if they count (they ''are'' voiced by black voice actors).

** ''[[Halo 3: ODST]]'' introduces ODST sniper Kojo "Romeo" Agu and New Mombasa natives Sadie, Dr. Endesha, Jonas, and Commissioner Kinsler, all of whom are black (with the latter four being native African).

** ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' features three squad members that aren't simply of European ethnicity, although Emile, who has a black voice actor and is depicted as such in concept art, never removes his helmet.

* Every important human characters in the ''[[Warcraft]]'' games are white. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' makes a token effort at sprinkling dark-skinned human NPCs around (albeit as unimportant quest givers or random extras). There is some kind of an explanation for this in-universe {{spoiler|humans descend from the very scandinavian Vrykul}}, but still.

* The Wild-West game ''[[Wild Arms 3]]'' has Gallows, a "Baskar", a race obviously inspired by Native Americans, as one of the characters in your party. He's not really [[Flanderization|Flanderized]], either. So far he's the only playable Baskar (Aside from Tim Rhymeless from ''[[Wild Arms 2]]'', who is as white as the moon but since he wears a poncho he's totally Indian okay?!)

** Played straight in the first two games, where the only black characters are Thunder and Whisper in the first game and Garth in the second. Of course, Garth is from another country, so it's not unreasonable that Thunder and Whisper are as well (the game strongly supports this via dress and accents).

* ''[[Capcom vs. SNK 2 Mark of the Millennium|Capcom vs. SNK 2]]''. The roster is made up of mostly East Asian and white characters. 4 Eurasians (Ken, Ryo, Yuri, and Benimaru) are also on the roster, along with Balrog (black American), Blanka (originally white, but now takes the appearance of a wild man with green skin), Dhalsim (Indian), Morrigan (a succubus hailing from Scotland), and Sagat (Thai). M. Bison's ethnicity isn't clear, though.

* ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]]'': Averted in the first game. Although a majority of your crewmates on the Tiger's Claw are white, it's not by a large margin. Among the main characters, besides the white ones, are a black man, a Japanese woman, and a Taiwanese man. [[And Zoidberg|And Maniac]].

** When the games made the jump to [[Full Motion Video]], the ratio of ethnicities tilted towards caucasians, but there was still a fairly significant non-token minority presence, including the first carrier captain seen in the series who wasn't white, Captain Eisen.

** The above statement is actually true. Most of the vaults were experiments except for a few. Ironically, the most successful vault, Vault 15, was an experiment involving people of different races together. They were supposed to fail. They succeeded. Out of Vault 15 came three of the wastelands toughest raider bands (The Khans/New Khans/Great Khans, the Jackals, and the Vipers). But what ''really'' came out of their spirit of multicultural and ethnic diversity was the ''' ''New California Republic'' '''. '''The first major post-war government''' that ultimately ended up being like late 20th Century America.

* Averted in [[The Elder Scrolls]] series... sort of. Humans come in four flavors: Roman/Italian, Norse, Celtic/French, and... Black with a cultural mashup of the Middle East, northern Africa, and even bits of Japan. So there it's Humans Are White Except When They're Redguard.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' was pretty bad about this as well; the only non-white non-alien recurring character was Raoul, a Hispanic-ish street punk... ''whose skin tone [[But Not Too Black|switched to a lighter color]] in his second (and final) appearance''.

** They probably figured that Jazz was enough.

** The live action movies have visibility of non-white races, but some [[Unfortunate Implications]] that are ''not'' just limited to the twin [[Ethnic Scrappy]] bots.

* ''[[Silverhawks]]'' (which was basically ''[[Thundercats]]'' [[Recycled in Space|in Space!]]) started with a bunch of white people and their pet. They later added 1 black guy and 1 vaguely Hispanic guy (from the future!) to the team. They were the only minorities I ever recall seeing in the entire show. On top of that, having recently watched some of the old episodes online, it was hilariously unfair to them, via ''[[Scooby Doo]]''-style scenarios. The white Silver Hawks have to go talk to a king in his palace. The black guy and the latino get to explore the strange signals coming from the Black Hole of Death in the Terror Galaxy. Every episode.

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Family Guy]]'''s parody of ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]''.

{{quote|'''Leia''': The Lando System?