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The imperium of man. Comprised of white people mostly... and the only people they ally with are white space elves..... hmmmmmmmmm this is a joke poll btw. But answer honestly.

The salamanders take offense!

Plus they ally with blue people too (tau)

And even pay off green people to work for them as mercs! (Orks)

There is no definitive evidence that the IOM is all white...at best after tens of thousands of years, humanity is a sort of dark beige.

If you want to cite images etc, people will come on with pics which show non white IG etc. As to models painted....its orders of magnitude easier to paint white people than it is anything else.

BTW....this thread will probably get trolled no matter how lighthearted the intent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There is no definitive evidence that the IOM is all white...at best after tens of thousands of years, humanity is a sort of dark beige.

If you want to cite images etc, people will come on with pics which show non white IG etc. As to models painted....its orders of magnitude easier to paint white people than it is anything else.

BTW....this thread will probably get trolled no matter how lighthearted the intent.

That's okay. I just wanted some laughs. Hope not to hurt feelings

The 40k universe in a nutshell!

Imperium of man (IG) = inter universal racist thingy (can't say the right word) Except salamanders
Tau = Asian aliens (they live in the eastern fringe =0)
Eldar = stock-up selfish aliens
Orks = They don't give a crap. They just wanna smash
Space Marines = Post-human bad asses that have anger problems
Tyranids = cockroaches that wan't to step on you instead
SOB = bad ass nuns
GK = bad ass priests
Chaos = same with the SM but much more angry!
Daemons = ugly people!(unless they are daemonettes)
DE = Pirate eldar

Other than that I say yes!

All of the High Lords, bureaucratic, planetary governors and powerful figures are white, so I'll say yes.

No. Apart from anything else, an Imperium that is not racist against other humans is far more interesting. The juxtaposition between the enlightenment earned by their forefathers and the cruel reality that forced them to suppress the freedom of the populace makes the Imperium a more nuanced place than if you go shoehorning in old bigotries.

The Imperium is immensely xenophobic but I wouldnt say racist, human is human unless its mutated, heretical, xenos touched, free thinking, rogue, in the way etc.

You have to realize that the skin colors developed on Earth were due to adaption to various climates and regions. However, as mankind has advanced technologically, there has been a slow merging. Look how many light skinned black people there are simply through slow mixing of traits in mixed race couplings. Some scientists feel like red hair will all but disappear in three to four generations.

I think in 38,000 years, it's fair certain that people will have become a fairly uniform light tan in color. However, given the nature of the Imperium as sprawling hive cities and other urban sections, as well as a lot of underground colonies, dreary planets, etc, you might see a slow reversion to paler skin tones. That's not to say that there might not be colonies on planets that skew skin color the other way, so it isn't like everyone needs to be white/tan.

Ultimately though, I think we see most models painted as white guys because 40K seems to be predominantly played by white guys, lol.

This question could be taken multiple different ways, but based on what you're asking, then no, no it isn't.

Actually having other sentient, intelligent, races in the universe would put a whole new meaning to the word "racist". Basically, only the Tau aren't ultra-racist. The Imperium as far as I can tell, don't give a rat's behind what sort of pigmentation your skin has, though, except for when cynically determining what planet you and your family is best suited to work on in which case it's a matter of UV tolerance rather than colour.

LoneLictor wrote:All of the High Lords, bureaucratic, planetary governors and powerful figures are white, so I'll say yes.

The Planetary Governor of Glavia would like to have a word with you.

*Resets clock*

As yet another poster thinks he has uncovered a really controversial subject worthy of discussion.

Next will be "Sexism in 40K", followed by "Female Space Marines".....did I miss some?

Who cares about the guy who has a different skin colour than me, when that thing over there has hands the size of man-hole covers, and just chopped some poor bastard in half with a huge cleaver?

Who cares about ethnicity, when that deformed guy muttering nonsense just liquified Bob's eyeballs? With his BRAIN.

Who cares about someone with different human traits, when the only reason I can tell what that guy's skin colour was is because that metal thing is currently wearing it for a hat.

Who cares what skin colour that person has? THEY STILL BLEED! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! THEY STILL HAVE A SKULL! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

Who cares about ethnicity? All that the Emperor requires of us is that we die standing.

They're not racist, they are xenoists

The Imperium tries to keep the black man down. Even the poor Salamanders have to wear blackface these days.
Ah well, at least they lost their lower initiative ( i wonder if they liked chicken and melons in 3. edition, yay stereotypes! ).

But seriously, the setting is made by a bunch of white skinned nerds whose initial market was composed of other white skinned nerds.
Now that 40k has expanded a bit it would be nice to actualy see a few important humans which do not look like a straight import from
some crazy, white supremacist's fever dream ( a blonde superhuman who purges degenerate canibal-mutants to keep the blood of his people clean...yes Sanguinius, we know what you are up to ).
The Imperium as a whole is usualy not racist. While individual planets might have some policies that go in that direction, the Imperium usualy itself cares about other virtues than the colour of your skin, at least as long as you are human.

Can you hold a gun? Can you fight? Do you worship the Emperor?
If you answered yes to all three of these questions, the Imperium doesn't give a rats ass wheter you're black or white.

Of course they're not racist. They're equally indifferent to everyone.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:Of course they're not racist. They're equally indifferent to everyone.

This, the imperium oppresses all of its citizens EQUALLY.

aapch1 wrote:The imperium of man. Comprised of white people mostly... and the only people they ally with are white space elves..... hmmmmmmmmm this is a joke poll btw. But answer honestly.

Oh wait. You mean as in between groups humans?

No. Absolutely not. The Cadian n space marine models are meant to represent white people; true. BUT if you consider that humanity colonized the galaxy from earth then its completely acceptable that any race could be found in any army. An ultramarine could be black for instance. Thats before you consider Salamanders who are supposed to be black .Dan Abbnett in his writings in Eisenhorn and Gaunts Ghosts (I believe one regiment was from a world where everybody was black) theres no indication that colour has any meaning in 40k.

The Emperors mandate is that humanity as a whole has a divine right to inherit the universe and slaughter all other races. As one FFG suppliment put it, 'to call the Imperium xenophobic would be more than an understatement'. However, there is no indication, nor intimation that it even considers race and even gender relevent in a galaxy filled with aliens n chaos daemons. Lore wise there are plenty of women and people of various races in positions of authoirty n power in the 40k verse.

Also they ally with the blue people, and apparently the chrome people as well....

They're not racist and there isn't a shred of fluff to suggest other wise.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:The salamanders take offense!

Plus they ally with blue people too (tau)

And even pay off green people to work for them as mercs! (Orks)

The third point is right, and wrong.

They don't hire orks as mercenaries. They DO hire green mercs though (kroot)

loota boy wrote:

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:Of course they're not racist. They're equally indifferent to everyone.

This, the imperium oppresses all of its citizens EQUALLY.

Thank you.

Some people.

Its xenophobic. However, when it comes to humans, I dont think its truly racist - note that IoM tolerates abhumans such as Ogryns and Ratlings.

Space Marines however, seem less tolerant to me - no wonder since their origins lie in eugenics.

Its more like GW is ethnocentric, supplying us with white color schemes mostly. On the other hand, we have few "non-european" schemes as well, eg. White Scars, Tallarn and Salamanders (though the new codex ruined them).

How did Terry Pratchett put it?

"Black and White lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on Green."

Hazardous Harry wrote:How did Terry Pratchett put it?

"Black and White lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on Green."

Though it probably have been more accurate if he said, "Black and White lived in perfect harmony, and teamed up to survive green, but one still died and the other was horribly injured,"

The Imperium is horribly, horribly human-supremacist. Then again, in a universe where everyone else is out to kill humans, there's no real reason not to be horribly, horribly human-supremacist.

Really, its a completely different universe, with different rules. Our standards of morality can't apply there.

And if you really want an Imperial Guard army of Asian people/black people/Indian people/Native American people, then write up the backstory and paint the models' skin tones differently. It's not that hard.

LoneLictor wrote:All of the High Lords, bureaucratic, planetary governors and powerful figures are white, so I'll say yes.

Most of the US government(pre Obama) is white, that doesn't mean they're racist, they let others into the country all the time.

Uh, racist yes, but not in the way that we think of racism generally. Today racism is any white guy doing, saying, or acting in anyway that could be construed as racist. Notice this rule only applies to white people (I see what you did there).

The imperium doesn't care at all about the color of a humans skin. All that matters is that you are human. If your xenos of any type, watch out. The Imperium is more literally racist, as in, if your not a member of the HUMAN RACE, we're going to kill you, with extreme prejudice.