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Who are some notable non white characters in Warhammer 40k?

Also, I'm just wondering, are black people still called Africans and Asian people still called Asians or is it something else?(or Has racism been abolished altogether?)

I am aware of the White scars, the black from dawn of war 1 and those catachans on the box art for the Catachan battleforce

I don't think that any old Earth continent names are remembered. Humans are just humans, of varying skin tone. Perhaps different planets have different skin tones for the most part, and as such people are referred to by planet.

There are a number of factors contributing to the lack of such.

Colonisation of other worlds. After a few generations, they tend to consider themselves to be 'of' that world, and not 'Mericans or whatever anymore ('Merica was apparently one of the former nation states on Earth, in 40k).

The unification wars, when the emperor united the warring tribes of men into one force. This tends to mean identification with certain national or racial groupings becomes meaningless.

You also have ethnic blending, where certain characteristics become dominant over others, and a certain look goes with it.

Yes, certain cultural groups did establish colonies, and their offspring did follow the same cultural patterns (or similar), but they were no longer [insert culture of earth] but [insert name of planet] citizens.

Whilst Tallarn inhabitants dress in ways not dissimilar to the desert peoples and tribes of Northern Africa/middle east, and even have names evocative of such, I doubt they have anything else in common with Berbers. Fact is, a certain type of dress is defined by the environment.

Otherwise, the game was written by pasty english middleclass private school white boys in the early 80s. I really don't think omission of specific racial/cultural/ethnic groups was a conscious decision.

As per Rogue Trader, all current races and ethnicities are mixed up by the time of 40k and don't mean anything by that time. New traits (or older resurfaced traits) would have popped up on different planet populaces during the Dark Ages which may or may not resemble people today, but will certainly not be directly the same bar coincidence in terms of traits.

Little known fact (also from RT): Gothic is a mixture of Chinese, English and the Pacific languages, along with 38,000 years of 'natural' changes languages go through. So those Roman numerals on the side of Space Marine shoulders? not Roman at all, but highly stylised Chinese characters that happen to look like that.

Many words like Munitorum, Adeptes, Ecclesiarchy, Servitor and Ordos, are clearly Japanese in origin.

Kilkrazy wrote:Many words like Munitorum, Adeptes, Ecclesiarchy, Servitor and Ordos, are clearly Japanese in origin.

Definitely, mixed with some Thai of course.

chromedog wrote:Whilst Tallarn inhabitants dress in ways not dissimilar to the desert peoples and tribes of Northern Africa/middle east, and even have names evocative of such, I doubt they have anything else in common with Berbers. Fact is, a certain type of dress is defined by the environment..

The one novel I have read dealing specifically with the Tallarn Regiments describeds somewhat varied ethnic (but predominately "Arabic" ) backgrounds but a shared culture which I guess from the text is heavily influenced by Berbers and similar peoples. Some of this comes across in the free extract on the link below

http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/Desert-Raiders.html

I enjoyed the book

Personally in 40K I think names may have little to do with the appearance of the person - so a Admiral with a "Japanese" name is equally likely to be "black" or "white" as "Asian"........

re the OP on racisim - Again personally I think the human race int he 40 Universe is more foccussed on the are you "baseline" True human or a disgusting mutant or a foul Xenos rather than on skin colour. Thats not to say that unusual colours may not be commentented on, found attractive and/or unattractive etc in the usual manner, its more that any actual hatred is more easily and naturally directed into other areas?

As per Chromedog's comment... however:

Primarchs tend to be of or ethnically derived from particular cultural backgrounds...

Jagatai Khan (sp) - Japanese/Nipponese and Mongol... also exhibits traits of Mongol horse raiders.

Leman Russ - Nordik (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish peoples... did I miss any?)

Magnus - Egyptian (some also argue Babylonian)

In the GG novels there was a black scout named Jajjo....thats all I can think of....

When you consider the fact that mutation is very common in the grim darkness of the far future, then skin tone doesn't exactly cut it as a reason for prejudice and segregation, imagine the scene:

Imperial citizen 1: 'Is it 'cos I is black?'
Imperial citizen 2: 'No, it's because you have an extra arm growing out the top of your head!'

Midas and Medea Bentacore are important members of Inquisitor Eisenhorns retinue

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Midas_Betancore

PresidentOfAsia wrote:Also, I'm just wondering, are black people still called Africans and Asian people still called Asians or is it something else?(or Has racism been abolished altogether?)

Seeing as Africa and Asia haven't existed on Terra for millenia and only did exist on one world in the whole of the IoM, it would be ridiculous is anyone with dark skin was called african in 40k.

On a side note, i know a few black people that would be offended/bemused if you called them african.

OTOH there are plenty of white people who are delighted to be called African.

The world we live in is gradually becoming rainbow coloured.

Much of the IoM, being remote from any source of trouble from Xenos/Chaos and the like, is riddled with as much prejudice and "-sms" as the world today.

If they don't have different colour skin, they probably divide by hairstyles, or sports teams or something.

One correction to what I said before, it was the precursor to Gothic, the ancient tongue that is Latinised what's the one descended from a mix of English, European and Pacific languages.

The current, modern language used in the Imperium is a mix of that and oriental languages.

All on page 267 of Rogue Trader.

I thought you guys were joking. Isn't Gothic staight up pseudo-latin?

Latin is used to represent the 'old tongue' because it gives the same archaic feel as it would to people in M41. The reason it's used is stylistic to convey the 'feel' you get from the universe.

But the actual language itself did say it was descended from English, European and Pacific Languages, with more Oriental languages added in for the more recent tongue.

Daba wrote:Latin is used to represent the 'old tongue' because it gives the same archaic feel as it would to people in M41. The reason it's used is stylistic to convey the 'feel' you get from the universe.

But the actual language itself did say it was descended from English, European and Pacific Languages, with more Oriental languages added in for the more recent tongue.

Ah, so in real life its pseudo-latin but you're saying they (and by they I mean the writers) say its a mix of various languages. (even though it's totally Dog-Latin).

Basically, in-universe it's the weird mix of languages; we see Latin (or the writers use Latin for things) because it gives the same emotive response to us as it would to someone actually in M41.

So you're saying that just like how when we read a BL book and the characters are speaking English its actually being translated from gothic for us, the actual written gothic is still being translated into dog-latin for us? I don't know. I'm under the impression that Adeptus Astartes, Exterminatusetc. are the actual High Gothic terms.

I think you find more allusions to skin color and culture as the writing and universe "matures" and the gaps are filled in.

The descriptions of members of the Thousand Sons (Ahriman, for example) shows us that at least some humans are representative of cultures/races we might recognize on earth today. Ahriman is from the "Achaemenid Empire" on earth. Located pretty much where it was in our own ancient history.

Elsewhere, there are many mentions of dark skinned remembrancers during the heresy. You find these things here and there.

One important note, however, is that we must keep in mind that the Space Marines at least are genetically altered and bear the expression to varying degrees of their Primarch regardless to which race/culture they may have originally come from. That expression may be radically different than what the marine started with. It is often stated that certain individuals even begin to look like their primarch since that genetic expression is dominant.

Sometimes I have preconceived notions about a character in a book because the author doesn't give any more detail other than his name. I had this problem when I read "Starship Troopers". I never would have thought Juan Rico, the major protagonist, was a Filipino. You don't find that out until near the end. This kind of thing can completely change your notions about things.

It's nice to have your "bubble popped" once in a while. Some authors are good at this... others not.

Talarans anyone?

Thousand Sons - Egypt motif

Rainbow Warriors [expunged]

Lion'el Johnson the DARK Angel, anyone?

Come on...the whole history from the inception is rife with non-White characters and armies.

The only thing better about the grim darkness of the future is that humanity has finally moved past the concept of race. It's just not something people think about.
Mainly that's because we have better things to be prejudice about. Damn mutants/xenos/witches!

I think in one of the HH novels, the guy who actualy managed to stab Alpharius before being cleaved in half (I don't know his name as I don't have the books handy for reference right now, sorry!) was referred to as being black skinned, along with his elite band of soldiers

In the 30th-31st millennium- I'm not actually too sure which one Unification and the Great Crusade took place in- many regions on Earth still had distinct identities and recognizable namesnames: Merica, the Yndonesian Bloc, Hy Brasil (Meeya Meefla?); the Siege of Terra obliterated everything.

I think that skin color depends on the type of environment, the climate, and the relative isolation of the planet... just like it does on Earth; every skin color from Earth ought to be represented in 40k, and then some. Owing to the (typically) sparse descriptive detail in Black Library books, unless they are described otherwise I envision people as tending towards olive-skinned.

As far as intra-human racism, any group perceived as mutant is classified as non-human and oppressed; and some worlds human ethnic groups may be (are!) marginalized, but as far as justifying it in racist terms that has never come up. Internecine struggles seem to be characterized as a result of either the ambitions of the powerful or the misguided masses rising up against Thatcherism Imperial governance.

Warhammer 40,000 seems to follow the general rule that Terry Pratchett formulated for fantasy worlds:

"...speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."

VoidAngel wrote:Talarans anyone?

Thousand Sons - Egypt motif

Rainbow Warriors [expunged]

Lion'el Johnson the DARK Angel, anyone?

Come on...the whole history from the inception is rife with non-White characters and armies.

Actually Lion El'johnson is believed to be a reference to the poet Lionel Johnson who wrote a poem called Dark Angel (or my dark angel) which was about the conflict between his sexuality and his religion.

Yes, I know. Mentioned for the stereotypically black name, AND the gay reference. He's two, Two, TWO minorities in one!

VoidAngel wrote:Yes, I know. Mentioned for the stereotypically black name, AND the gay reference. He's two, Two, TWO minorities in one!

Lionel Johnson is a stereotypically black name? I may not live in the most ethnically diverse place but i have never heard about that stereotype...

If you asked ten Americans to guess the ethnicity of a person named "Lionel Johnson" - 11 would answer, "black?"

VoidAngel wrote:If you asked ten Americans to guess the ethnicity of a person named "Lionel Johnson" - 11 would answer, "black?"

Maybe it's a cultural thing then...
But, considering 40k was created by a bunch of nerdy British people i don't think they were going for that angle... especially since Lionel Johnson was English.

Given the time period, and the name of the chapter - it's entirely possible that even British nerds intended it that way. I'm sure it was intended respectfully.