Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of the collectible card game Magic The Gathering, rather infamously recently banned several cards from their game and all their websites for being "racist".
It's noteworthy that most of the banned cards had absolutely no racist connotations nor intent to them of any kind. For example, one of the banned cards simply has the card text "destroy all black creatures". Black in the game is one of the five colors of mana (black, blue, red, green and white), and all cards are either colorless, or one or more of these five colors. In the lore of the game the color of mana roughly corresponds to certain aspects of nature or personality (such as impulsiveness, lawfulness, technology, etc) but mostly it's just a gameplay-technical thing, where cards cost certain amount of certain color of mana.
In this context "black creatures" simply mean those creature cards on the battlefield that have black mana symbols in their costs (or have otherwise gained that color identity). It doesn't refer to any sort of color of the creatures themselves, just to their mana cost symbols. There is no racist intent in "destroy all black creatures" any more than there is in "destroy all green creatures", "destroy all blue creatures", etc. But of course since it sounds racist, it is of course now banned.
But I would like to especially draw attention to one of the banned cards, where the reason for the ban is more incomprehensible: Stone-throwing Devils:
In the picture there are, as the name implies, a group of demons throwing stones. The flavor text of the card says "sometimes those with the most sin cast the first stones".
This was banned by Wizards of the Coast for being "racist".
Why?
If I had been told to momentarily adopt the mentality of a social justice warrior and select from all the MtG cards the ones that could perhaps be deemed as "racist", I would have chosen the ones that say "destroy all black creatures", "destroy target black creature" and so on, as well as some others, but I swear in all honesty that it wouldn't have even crossed my mind to select this card. I cannot simply comprehend what's "racist" about this card.
What I believe is happening here is that the people at Wizards of the Coast banned this card because they made in their minds the connection between "stone-throwing devils" and "black people".
I think it requires a genuinely racist mind to make that connection. It requires a genuinely racist mind to associate black people with violent devils. It requires a genuinely racist mind to see a picture of demons being violent, and get deep within one's thoughts the idea that "this represents black people".
So I would argue that yes, the people are Wizards of the Coast are genuinely racist. They are racists with a guilty conscience. No normal person would ever make this connection.
Quite ironically, by trying to show how much they oppose racism, they are being obnoxiously racist by implying that black people are violent demons (and thus they are ashamed of depicting them). Way to go, Wizards of the Coast. You are just a bunch of disgusting racists.
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