Obviously you and I see the world differently. Speaking as a white man, if I read in a story that a black-skinned orc defeated a white-skinned elf, I wouldn't think twice about racial overtones. I can't imagine thinking, "Ah, this is some black racist's fantasy about killing white people." Now that you brought the subject up, I wonder how many people, black, white, yellow, or whatever, see racial overtones in such things. I realize that not everyone thinks just like me. Just because the idea never occurred to me of course doesn't mean that others don't think of it.

Occurs to me: I've got a running joke with my wife. She likes martial arts movies. And I regularly say, "You just like these movies because you like to see white people beat each other up." (My wife is black.)

@Galastel I can certainly see a more subtle racism slipping in to a visual medium than writing. In a movie, a character can, for example, be portrayed by a black actor, and that's obvious to the audience without anyone mentioning it. The producer might say -- honestly or disingenuously -- that the actor had to be SOME color, and he didn't mean anything by the choice. But in a book, if you explicitly say, "this guy is black", then it's harder to say that you didn't think it mattered.

@Galastel My wife and I regularly joke about racism. Like once we went to a concert and the ticket taker dropped her ticket. Later I joked that I should have said, "Did you throw my wife's ticket on the floor just because she's black?" She laughed and said that I should have, we could have created a big scene and had fun. But I have been pleased to observe that we see very little actual, real racism.

@Beanluc If you leap to conclusions about someone just because he's a white man, that's racist and sexist, by definition. :-)

@LaurenIpsum Well sure, if you replace a phrase with another phrase that means something entirely different, you change the meaning of the sentence. I could imagine a world in which we replaced the phrase "person with red hair" with "incompetent fool", and that would change the meaning of everything said about people with red hair. And it would prove nothing, unless you started with the assumption that all red-haired people are incompetent fools. (No offense intended against red-haired people, just an example.)

FWIW, I discussed this thread with my wife, who as I mentioned is black, and she said that she never saw any racial overtones to the color of elves and ogres either. From there we drifted to a conversation about real racism -- people being denied jobs because of their color and that sort of thing -- and what we both saw as going out of one's way to find subtle sort-of maybe racism.

@TRiG Well, we're veering off into an argument here. "Political correctness" is only about calling SOME people by the names they choose. Like people who support political correctness don't shy from calling people they disagree with "racist" and "Nazi" and "homophobe", even when those people object to those labels. More important, "political correctness" is normally used to include many political and social issues besides just "calling people by the names they choose". You can't lump a whole bunch of things together, then pick one and say, "if you support this, than you must support all".

@trig It doesn't necessarily follow that a while man would notice racism less than a black person. Lots of people who talk a great deal about racism are white. I've heard many white people talk about how racist it is to use Indian names for sports teams, despite the fact that polls routinely show that the majority of actual Indians are not offended by them.

@Jay pretty much by definition, people who are not routinely subjected to racism or other identity-based negativity are less likely to notice that it happens. My black and trans friends see things I don't, but I know they're not BSing because I, a Jew, see things that many Christians don't. If I were majority-everything (white, male, Christian, etc) then I might not understand this without help; because I'm Jewish and a woman I experience it too and can maybe hear others better. Sounds like you've been blessed to not have these experiences, but others do. Please don't dismiss out of hand.

@Jay your first paragraph is not helping, and in fact your answer is attracting flags presumably because of tone and dismissiveness. Please edit to focus more on answering the question and less on expressing opinions about racism. Thanks.

@MonicaCellio Hmm. Tell me, if my first paragraph had said, "Yes, racial allusions in fantasy characters are a huge problem that contributes to racism in our society", would you have said "please focus more on answer the question and less on expressing opinions"? Or would you have considered that a very reasonable lead in to a response? Because if your answer is the latter, than your objection is not that I expressed an opinion irrelevant to the question, but that I expressed an opinion that is different from yours.

@MonicaCellio If myy answer is "attracting flags", that tells me that many people on this forum are intolerant of opinions that differ from their own. I am perfectly happy to engage in a reasonable discussion about controversial issues. I am disappointed to hear that there are people here who consider any opinions different from their own to be off limits and calling for censorship.

@MonicaCellio As my wife is black, I would think that she is just as subjected to racism as any other black person. Perhaps more so as she is married to a white man, which I'd guess would doubly offend extremists of either color. I had a black foster son for several years, and I saw instances of blatant and subtle racism against him. I have plenty of personal investment in the issue, even though I myself am white.

Yes, I understand what a flag means. In this case, though, what are the grounds for flagging my comment? I really don't see what the grounds are other than, "this person expressed an opinion that I disagree with and I don't think that should be allowed". The question was about perceived racism. I think an answer of "I don't see any racism here" is directly relevant to the question. In the comment thread I frankly said that obviously some people see it differently than I do. Is that not allowed?

Are only opinions that the moderators or the majority agree with allowed to be expressed, and any contrary opinions must be censored? I did not use vulgar language. I did not insult anyone or make any ad hominem attacks. So what is my offense, other than expressing an opinion that some people disagree with?

Your "offense" is using the majority of your answer to, essentially, say "I don't see it so it doesn't exist". Answers aren't for personal opinions; they're to answer the question, which was about how to avoid tropes. The opinion of one random person on the Internet -- you, me, Joel Spolsky, some anonymous person on Twitter, whatever -- doesn't really matter. Answers matter. Supported opinions as part of answers matter.

This post has a little bit of answer in a bunch of personal opinion. That personal opinion is presented in a way that dismisses the OP's concerns. Here in chat you're basically saying "I know one black person who isn't offended so there's no offense", as if all black people have the same opinions. How about if I tell you that one white person is offended -- how do you square that with you not seeing the problem? People are complicated.

That was a rhetorical question. I do not want to get into a huge back-and-forth with you. Your answer is on track for deletion. If you edit to address the issues people have raised, it's likely to stay. If you don't, it's likely to get deleted, either by the community or by another mod when one comes along and reviews this thread. Not a threat just a prediction. I'm trying to help you.

The original question said, quote, "I realize that many aspects of these races contain hidden racism". I expressed an opinion stating that I did not think they contained hidden racism. Are the moderators considering censoring the question as offensive? Apparently not. So why is it that saying "I think this is racist" is perfectly okay, but saying "I think this is not racist" is not okay?

If you want to delete, edit, or otherwise censor my post, okay. (a) I can't stop you. And (b) It doesn't do me any great harm. It doesn't affect my paycheck or anything.

Let me ask you, though: Do you think that intolerance and bigotry are okay, as long as the victims are people that you disagree with? Because that's what you're saying. That it was perfectly good and reasonable for someone to post an opinion that you agree with -- "this is racism" -- but it is unacceptable for someone to post an opinion that you disagree with -- "this is not racism".

@Jay, I think you're taking this too far too fast. Many people disagree with you, true. It might be that they have reason to be more sensitive than you. I am an outsider to American society, I wouldn't presume to judge. It might also be that you have reason to feel you are being silenced because of your gender and skin colour. But your post has not been censured or deleted yet. And I hope it won't be. You have been nothing if not polite.

I think it is important to hear the opinions the majority disagrees with. To keep a healthy outlook. Downvotes are a way of saying "I disagree". I think you can expect those. But that's different from censuring/deleting.