MTGNexus

So somebody posted a message on reddit awhile ago accounting an incident where he/she was wearing a Boros Legion shirt in public where a woman thought it might of been inappropriate due to inciting racism:



The Boros Guild symbol does have connotations of being a white power / white supremacist symbol of some type. People have tattoos of this symbol, pins, collectible items, and this symbol appears on every Boros foil. Of course this was a symbol that Wizards of the Coast designed for MTG long before the Black Lives Matter Movement became a thing and now they might have to take it back. They're not the only game with a fantasy element that militaristic police oriented and you throw on top of it that Boros is kind of a police state where they do have images of beating up goblins and people while arresting them. A lot of the images of Boros arresting are them shooting fire at criminals.

The Boros Guild is found to be a fascist police state where they believe in stamping out any diversity. MTG has always been very segregated, it's a lot like the economy of a spaceship game that was very popular called EVE where people sold their ships for a lot of money online on eBay back when you were allowed to do something like that. When they sold these ships on eBay they would trade, sell, and there would be real cash like hundreds and thousands of dollars would go into one ship and that was a micro economy. So you could learn about economics via manipulating this environment and World of Warcraft had something very similar to COVID-19 which was showcased in an episode of YouTube's Game Theory:



So what happened in World of Warcraft that MatPat explained in that episode of Game Theory is very identical to what's happening today but on a much bigger scale.

And so, it begins.

The only political group I know of historically that had a symbol that looks kinda like the Boros Symbol (but not really) was the Black Panthers, and they haven't existed since the 70's.

Could we not? This is a card game, not a governmental body with the ability to actually change people's lives. Use your effort to sway legislators, not WotC staff or other players. The cards WotC banned were already good enough because they actually had real symbols from the past (even if you don't agree with the banning). The Boros symbol literally has never represented what the complaint is about and it wasn't designed for that. Calling the guild "racist" and saying it has "connotations" of racism is just reaching.

IF we want to do this sort of thing, we should be sticking to real symbols of hate and not "this image offends me". Thankfully, WotC has taken care of that already.

On the other hand, the PSA seems fine. I think it's smart to recognize that other people are looking for reasons to be outraged (of which there are many, the Boros guild not being one). I personally do not wear game memorabilia but I would not judge anyone for sticking their Boros shirt in the back of their closet for awhile. Not because the guild or symbol represent something (that clearly isn't there) but because the social climate is very primed for conflict right now and clearly if this has happened once it can happen again.