Out of Context: Is it Still Racist?

Any Pokemon fans out there? If so, you’re probably familiar with the Human Shape ice-type pokemon, Jynx. Jynx is a part of the first generation of pocket monsters to hit the market in the 90’s, and, for reasons I am about to share and explain, was not very popular in the Western market for it’s original design.

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On the left is Jynx’s original design, and on the right her updated design after some pretty well-needed controversy.

If it isn’t obvious what might have rubbed Americans the wrong way about this design, I’ll just say it: Jynx really looked like a Jim Crow-era African American caricature. So let’s get to the bottom of this, I’ll give you a little bit of context for her design:

Aside from Nintendo 64 having a limited color palette, Jynx’s dark complexion (and overall design) is thought to originally be inspired by the Japanese mythical creatures Yama-uba, a white-haired hag who lives in the mountains and wears a tattered kimono with, dark frost-bitten skin, and the Yuki-onna, a young, blue-lipped, icey ghost woman who lured men to their deaths. These claims have never been comfirmed by Nintendo, but after a bit of Googling, I kind of buy it? I won’t deny the similarities between Jynx and these Japanese ghosts. So, for the sake of moving foward, let’s assume Nintendo meant no harm and that in Japan, where the game first released, this pokemon was very well recieved because of it’s cultural connections.

Despite their good intensions, Nintendo got called out big time by African-American author Carole Boston Weatherford shortly after the first Pokemon movie came out in 1998. She described Jynx as a “overweight drag queen incarnation of Little Black Sambo, a racist stereotype from a children’s book long ago purged from libraries.”

Yikes…

So obviously they had to redesign Jynx, and it was the simple switch from black to purple that did the trick.

But. Is it still racist?

Well, maybe not. But that doesn’t excuse it, not even a little. Even if the design was not intended to be racist, it was still deeply offensive. What is and is not offensive is COMPLETELY subjective, because there is a certain context that’s needed; at the end of the day, we humans give everything in our world meaning. The legendary steel Pokemon Registeel was given a different pose for the European releases of Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl because the original pose eerily resembled a Nazi salute, and all Nazi imagery is illegal in Germany. That’s something totally specific to Germany, completely subjective. So, don’t let the “we give words meaning” logic trick you into thinking you can say and do anything you want. Just because something wasn’t intended to be offensive doesn’t mean that it isn’t offensive. That’s just not how it works, ever.

 And it’s not something specific to racism either, we find it in little things we do in our own culture. Do you swear in front of your parents the same way you swear in front of your friends? Do you swear in front of your grandparents the same way you swear in front of your friends? Do you call people who are older than you Ms. or Mr.? If so, you have taken part in tiny “political correctedness” that can change depending on the context of your relationship with that person, i.e. basic respect and consideration of other people. Swearing in front of you mother isn’t going to hurt anyone, obviously, but your mother calling you out for it doesn’t make her a snowflake, she’s just trying to keep you polite.

The bottomline is, if you wouldn’t say fuck in front of you mom, you also shouldn’t say something that can be precieved as racist, and hope that if you ever say or do something offensive, in general, that someone corrects you.