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Just a quick thought do you think inter human racism still exists in the 40k universe ?, I mean sure humanity's got a hell of a lot more foreign and literally alien species to hate on now then ever before but do you think the majority of humanity has altogether forgotten or otherwise put aside there racist tenancies ? or do they still exist to some extent ?.

Afaik there is no racism in the 41st milenium. They might hate aliens for not being human but they don't hate someone because of the colour of their skin.

40k is rascist free afaik

Considering the divergance between the african race and the european race only took 20,000 years in 38,000 years time with the ammount of worlds there are and the scale of human population there would likely be millions of different races. And given that humans are inherently intolerable of difference it would figure that racicsm in the 41st millenium would be worse than it ever has been.

Imagine the comments passed on a chinaman visiting a 17th century english village then imagine if the chinaman was from a planet on the opposite side of the galaxy which has divereged from the population completely independantly from theirs. Do you think he's going to look the same? Do you think no one is going to bat an eyelid?

Actually come to think of it...
There was a mention of a planet that had a lot of genetic "cleansings" so they could be "pure" but that planet was also attacked and wiped out by the Black Templars sogo figure...
I think there are racists but they are either bad or going to be bad and there is no racism in the majority of the IoM.

When there are aliens that look like walking birds or elves the colour of your skin or races seems pretty insignificant.

There probably is racism but since GW is a family friendly company I doubt they will write about it. The closest you will see is them generalising about abhumans. I guess the way the ecclesiarchy treats some abhumans is slightly racist.

ChronoCupcake wrote:Just a quick thought do you think inter human racism still exists in the 40k universe ?, I mean sure humanity's got a hell of a lot more foreign and literally alien species to hate on now then ever before but do you think the majority of humanity has altogether forgotten or otherwise put aside there racist tenancies ? or do they still exist to some extent ?.

Class and social circle prejudice and brutalisation yes. Though interracial conflicts in the Imperium seem much more set aside due to the amount of inter species and chaos threats out there.

In the mainstream media of 40K-ie the stuff that GW actually publish- its not really mentioned, but there probably is a hell of a lot of it out there seeing as humans opt to hate oneanother for the simplest of reasons in this universe. Ogryns, ratskins, astropaths are all counted as sub races of humanity, and all of them suffer some sort of mistreatment at the hands of the "purer" humans, and with a million million worlds out there, sure its possible for any sort of racist regime to take hold, GW just tries to tone it down a bit and make the xenoism more prevelant.

Only thing I can think of is mistrust between mechanicum and imperium citizens.

purplefood wrote:Actually come to think of it...
There was a mention of a planet that had a lot of genetic "cleansings" so they could be "pure" but that planet was also attacked and wiped out by the Black Templars sogo figure...
I think there are racists but they are either bad or going to be bad and there is no racism in the majority of the IoM.

the cleansing probably refers to mutants or sub-humans, not skin colour

Wyrmalla wrote:In the mainstream media of 40K-ie the stuff that GW actually publish- its not really mentioned, but there probably is a hell of a lot of it out there seeing as humans opt to hate oneanother for the simplest of reasons in this universe. Ogryns, ratskins, astropaths are all counted as sub races of humanity, and all of them suffer some sort of mistreatment at the hands of the "purer" humans, and with a million million worlds out there, sure its possible for any sort of racist regime to take hold, GW just tries to tone it down a bit and make the xenoism more prevelant.

ogryns, ratskins and navigators are so drasticly different from humans that they would be their own species, unable to breed sucessfully with normal humans. so racism isn't an appropriate word.

astropaths aren't a sub race, they are bonded psykers and people don't like being around psykers, not because of which world they come from or the colour of their skin, but because they fear daemons jumping out of their mouths.

i would think that seeing as everyone worships the emperor and are busy fighting aliens and chaos, most racism would very minimal

Its imposible to say. There are worlds in the Imperium where i am sure there would be extremely violent racists. However, on most Imperial worlds i would suggest discrimination is more down to wealth issues and clan or faction rivalries. I imagine that in the 41st millenium humanity is such a mishmash of different races and cultures that racism as we know it to day would no exist on most worlds.

Having said that i think it is highly unlikely that there are not racism factions in the Imperium. Don't forget that on a hive world the different levels of a hive are as good as different worlds. What is excepted in the upper hive might not be in the lower hive and vice versa.

4M2A wrote:When there are aliens that look like walking birds or elves the color of your skin or races seems pretty insignificant.

There probably is racism but since GW is a family friendly company I doubt they will write about it. The closest you will see is them generalizing about abhumans. I guess the way the ecclesiarchy treats some abhumans is slightly racist.

agreed, racism plays a very minor role when the entire galaxy is out to eat your soul and your flesh.

IIRC there is a lot of inter regiment rivalry in the guard primarily because the differences in worlds and status of each regiment. racism consists of generalizing stereotypes of a certain group of people, there are the same things in between the guard regiments but that's what they have the commissars for......

Everyones so intersperced and mixed; they see alot of aliens, too. I doubt that racism is still going on- I mean, we've made a lot of progress in 40 years; I don't think it will stop 38000 years from now.

I don't think it exists as we see it today. Though I believe there may be "Planetism" IIRC the Tanith & Verghast didn't get along too well at first.

Also I don't think GW would put outright racism between todays races for fear of political correctness.

The eldar are racist against each other why wouldn't humans have it.

BluntmanDC wrote:

purplefood wrote:Actually come to think of it...
There was a mention of a planet that had a lot of genetic "cleansings" so they could be "pure" but that planet was also attacked and wiped out by the Black Templars sogo figure...
I think there are racists but they are either bad or going to be bad and there is no racism in the majority of the IoM.

the cleansing probably refers to mutants or sub-humans, not skin colour

It never said what it referred to but from what i could tell it started of small and got more and more aggressive. It probably did include those of different skin colours but i doubt they simply focused on them.

I still dont think discrimination happoens among normal humans- or in the SM legions. After all, the Salamanders are quite literally black.

Eldrad wrote:The eldar are racist against each other why wouldn't humans have it.

Since when are eldar racsists? Eldar have quarrels between craftworlds and there dark or exodite kin but that has nothing to do with race (they are the same elf race) and everything to do with philosophy and beliefs.

There is a lot of variety in worlds ( from stoneage to modern ) so behaviour may vary too.
But generally humans are used too servitors, psykers, and abhumans, some may know of the alien and demon too.
Its rather a indoctrinated fear of the witch, mutant and alien than any bad feelings against fellow humans. Too busy hating the servants of chaos....

Fluff has anti-mutant "racism" if you deem mutants part of humanity that is.
Psykers are feared like the witches were back in 16th century.
Aliens get their share as vile hungry space monsters...

and thus, racism is unlikely as they stand united against the grimdarkness and the Ecclesiarcy may do a good job at indoctrinating a religious view of the world
so having the "correct faith" is more important than look or where youre from.

Asgeirr Darkwolf wrote:I still dont think discrimination happoens among normal humans- or in the SM legions. After all, the Salamanders are quite literally black.

How would your average human being go abouts discriminating against a 8 ft power armoured giant who can chew through metal, spit out poison and instantly recover from any wound they could inflict upon them ?


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Another thing i never got was the dark angels are supposedly based on the native Americans yet there all incredibly light skinned shouldn't they at least be a little bit tanned / brown ?

ChronoCupcake wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another thing i never got was the dark angels are supposedly based on the native Americans yet there all incredibly light skinned shouldn't they at least be a little bit tanned / brown ?

Could be the Halo factor: Being stuck in their armor/in a space ship for so long they have paled a bit. Not saying thats what it was, but it could be.

technically it's not the whole dark angels chapter, only the deathwing, though I have no doubt GW somehow retconned that whole thing

I don't think races even exist anymore in 40k.... I think all humans are a mix Caucasian/African/asian because 40000 years should be enough to make A LOT of interracial marriages... But probably some inhabitants of some planet have developed peculiar traits... and probably we'll see some discrimination... Mutants are still humans but on several worlds they are severely discriminated or even kept in slavery. The imperial doghma is against racism, but the most fanatical ecclesiarchy teachings are fertile ground for any kind of racism...

People will still have black or darker skin though. They might live on a planet which is a teeny bit closer to the sun.

ChronoCupcake wrote:Another thing i never got was the dark angels are supposedly based on the native Americans yet there all incredibly light skinned shouldn't they at least be a little bit tanned / brown ?

that was only one of many recruiting worlds, after the destruction of caliban, and the world fell centuries ago so is no longer recruited from.

for the majority of space marines their skin colour isn't fixed

purplefood wrote:People will still have black or darker skin though. They might live on a planet which is a teeny bit closer to the sun.

you are still thinking in an Earth perspective, your ideas of racism is based on african/asian/european, they don't exist in 40k. in 4OK their are peoples with no eyes and translusent skin, entire worlds of mongolian nomads, catachans and most likely jet black humans.

GW presents most worlds with a unified 'ethnic group' for easy referencing, and as the only time nearly all normal humans can leave a world is during war, they are abit to busy to hate one another.

humans in 40k hate the mutant, the witch and the alien. the closest think 40k has to racism in fluff is clan factions in necrumunda

purplefood wrote:People will still have black or darker skin though. They might live on a planet which is a teeny bit closer to the sun.

So? Everyone on this planet lives about the same distance from the sun but look at how many different skin colours there are.
It's not politically correct to have racism in stories, certainly not positive racism, so it wont appear in the fluff but the Imperium of Man is big enough for every possible way of grouping ourselves to become a defining feature of one civilisation or another.

The only black person I've ever seen is the driver of my vindicator, and everyone seems to hate that guy.

punkow wrote:I don't think races even exist anymore in 40k.... I think all humans are a mix Caucasian/African/asian because 40000 years should be enough to make A LOT of interracial marriages...

And the 10000 years within that 40000 years where 1000s of human civilisations were isolated from each other is more than enough to create thousands of different races. And even when they are not isolated there are far too many worlds and people interacial breeding to bring every race together.

Also ftr racial skin colour is only teniously linked to the sun.

In legion one of the Imperium commander's security is said to made up of soldiers from a particular race. So that should quash any ideas that no racial divergance exists.

If you quit thinking about the 40k universe in black and white and think beyond what has been written then it is highly unlikely that no form of racial prejudice exists.

whatwhat wrote:

punkow wrote:I don't think races even exist anymore in 40k.... I think all humans are a mix Caucasian/African/asian because 40000 years should be enough to make A LOT of interracial marriages...

And the 10000 years within that 40000 years where 1000s of human civilisations were isolated from each other is more than enough to create thousands of different races. And even when they are not isolated there are far too many worlds and people interacial breeding to bring every race together.

Also ftr racial skin colour is only teniously linked to the sun.

For example the difference in Japanese and northern European skintones.

punkow wrote:
I don't think races even exist anymore in 40k.... I think all humans are a mix Caucasian/African/asian because 40000 years should be enough to make A LOT of interracial marriages... But probably some inhabitants of some planet have developed peculiar traits... and probably we'll see some discrimination... Mutants are still humans but on several worlds they are severely discriminated or even kept in slavery. The imperial doghma is against racism, but the most fanatical ecclesiarchy teachings are fertile ground for any kind of racism...

Exactly. Scientist today already predict what most humans will look like in the future by examining which genetic traits are dominant, and which are recessive. I would take a long, long period of interracial marriages, but certain traits like blue eyes would likely become incredibly rare, and eventually totally extinct.

BluntmanDC wrote:
humans in 40k hate the mutant, the witch and the alien. the closest think 40k has to racism in fluff is clan factions in necrumunda

Think about racism today; if mutants, psykers and aliens were to coming into existence they would almost certainly become despised. Sure the racist still wouldn't like they're original targets, but I think mutants, psykers and aliens (Oh my!) would be the new main focus of their hate. Eventually as time when on there would be less focus on 'different looking' humans, and that racism may decrease; especially if their old targets hate the mutants, etc. as well.

I don't think prejudice against other 'normal' humans will ever go away, but like other have already posted it will be biased on class, faction, and planet of origin, not skin color.

I also think it depends what's going on with a planet at a certain time. If you've been fighting Orks for generations, you're probably going to direct you hate at the Orks, not the guy next to you in the trenchs who may look slightly different.