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Subject: 
Re: Concerns with Racial Attitudes and Lego
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 15 Aug 2000 13:57:06 GMT
Viewed: 
170 times
  
In lugnet.starwars, David Low writes:
In lugnet.starwars, Eric Joslin writes:
In lugnet.starwars, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:

But my statement you quote pretty much holds regardless: Lego has an all-
yellow policy (for whatever reason), and it does seem traditional.

Right, and that's a good reason to keep it.

This reminds me of the time when I was introduced to my arranged bride-to-be
(my wedding day, of course).  Apparently, the dowry her parents could offer
was meager, but she said she would go out and work to make us more money.
Well, obviously I couldn't have any wife of mine out working- that would go
against tradition!- and I had to beat her with a switch to get her back in
line. Don't worry, I followed the "rule of thumb"- the switch was no bigger
around than my thumb- so it was all very traditional.

Yeah, traditions are important, even when they're hurtful.  That's what I had
to get her to understand.  It's nice to see that you already do.

Eric, I seriously doubt that the yellow minifig is as repulsive as domestic
violence.

Ok, whoa.  Hold on there, bucko.

1) Grab a sense of humour from somewhere.

2) Take another look at all the things I mentioned.  I did not even come
*close* to saying that yellow representations of darker-skinned characters
would be as repulsive as domestic violence.  Rather, I pointed out that a lot
of "traditions" change with time- ie, arranged marriages, dowrys, women not
being allowed to work, and the (at one time) commonly accepted practice of a
husband taking a switch to his wife.

I think you cheapen your argument by reacting in that way to Bruce's
assessment of TLC's position (as I understand his comments). That's TLC's
position, not his own.

No, it's not.  That was the whole point of my original post.  TLC has never
come out and said that their position is that "all minifigs are one race".
They remain as inscrutable as a Sphinx on the subject, as they do with so many.

The idea that "all minifigs are one race" is one that has been bandied about
for so long that I've watched it go from "here's how I look at it" to "here's
how TLC feels about it".  I was merely trying to bring the argument back to
some reality- namely, that TLC has never advanced that theory.

Quoting from http://news.lugnet.com/starwars/?n=8622 :

If you want my take on choice of color:

Yes, that is the *poster's* take on the choice of color.  Not TLC's.

The explanation I prefer
is stated above, at http://news.lugnet.com/starwars/?n=8633 . Briefly:

In Legoland everyone is physically the same. Maybe I'm reading too much
into it, but I see this as a metaphor for political equality...

Once again, the poster freely admits he is reading his own interpretation into
it.

Eric, I'd be interested to hear what you think of this perspective.

I think the same thing I thought before- A) that the choice of Yellow only for
'figs was probably made when Yellow was, indeed, the only color that really
mapped to any human skin color (despite Lego's attempt at Native Americans, 215
Red Indians), and B) that though this has been the status quo for the entire
history of the modern minifig, to keep it  *only* because it's been the
"tradition" thus far is short-sighted.

eric



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