Educational Rundown of the long overdue Depictions of Racism in Magic Bannings: (with references) #MagicTheGathering

1: Invoke Prejudice (1994)
This card is the most egregious of everything banned today for being blatantly racist. See artist details and '1488' reference below.

The public CardID for Invoke Prejudice was '1488', a code phrase.

Referencing the "14 Words" slogan: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

The second is 88, which stands for "Heil Hitler" (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet).

With this banning, the CardID has been changed.

The artist of this card has allegedly been closely associated with White Supremacy/Neo Nazi movements.

Wizards of the Coast has not worked with this artist since 1997.

2. Cleanse (1994)
With the obvious reference being "Racial Cleansing", Cleanse is a card that was printed after the already pseudo-identical card "Wrath of God", specifically omitting out everything but Black. This itself is not racist but combined with..

The flavor text referencing the elimination of 'each foul beast', this card has more than enough innuendo for those with limited imaginations to make the racial connection.

The intention is the issue here. This card could've been called, literally anything else and been fine.

3. Stone Throwing Devils (1993)

STD makes religious references to annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning_of_the_Devil

During this ritual Muslims throw pebbles at three pillars otherwise known as 'jamarat'.

Each Jamarat represents a temptation from the devil. Throwing stones rejects those temptations, and each 'crush' or rejection brings the person closer to god 'Allah'.

Note that the jamarat symbolizes the devils, the stone throwers are people.

The card and its artwork reverses these references and depicts Muslims themselves as the 'Stone Throwing Devils' on top of the ledge looking at the 'Jamarat'.

Again, the intention here was Anti-Islamic. The depiction of Devils has been prevalent throughout magic..

The issue of this card is very obviously not around the inclusion of Devils themselves but rather the associated religious metaphor, depicts muslims as devils.

4. Pradesh Gypsies (1994)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
(1.5 Other Designations)

The Romani are widely known in English by the exonym Gypsies, which is considered by some Roma people to be pejorative due to its connotations of illegality and irregularity

The Council of Europe consider that "Gypsy" or equivalent terms, as well as administrative terms such as "Gens du Voyage" (referring in fact to an ethnic group but not acknowledging ethnic identification) are not in line with European recommendations.

In North America, the word Gypsy is most commonly used as a reference to Romani ethnicity, though lifestyle and fashion are at times also referenced by using this word.

I did not previously know this, but have educated myself on this topic and will refrain from using the word.

5. Jihad (1994)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad 

Jihad is a controversial topic even among muslims. The word jihad appears frequently in the Quran with and without military connotations often in the idiomatic expression "striving in the path of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)"

Islamic jurists and other ulema of the classical era understood the obligation of jihad predominantly in a military sense.
They developed an elaborate set of rules pertaining to jihad, including prohibitions on harming those who are not engaged in combat.

In the modern era, the notion of jihad has lost its jurisprudential relevance and instead given rise to an ideological and political discourse. While modernist Islamic scholars have emphasized defensive and non-military aspects of jihad,

some Islamists have advanced aggressive interpretations that go beyond the classical theory.

Note: This card was printed in the Arabian Nights set, a set completely inspired and designed around Arabian fantasy themes.

With that said, the religious connotation of this card was not the reason it was banned.

The same set also includes "Army of Allah", a card that would fit an identical narrative, which was not banned.

The reasoning behind this banning is the white creature clause. The effect of both this card and the next, would be interpreted as 'White Supremacy' over every other color.

6. Crusade (1993/2010)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades 

Crusade references the medieval religious wars of Christians and Muslims, between 1096 and 1271.

Again, the religious connotations are not why the card has been banned, but rather the effect to only White Creatures.

This effect could be interpreted as 'White Supremacy' and thus has been removed from the game.

Note: Personally, as a person of color. This one....was a bit of a reach.

None of the cards banned today were relevant in any major competitive formats as all of them weren't very good, and were already hard to come across due to age.

Magic The Gathering has always walked a fine line of incorporating religious and demonic elements in its cards.

The game came under scrutiny in the early 1990s for its repeated use of pentagrams in the artwork of cards. Later removing them to appeal to a larger audience.

Today's bannings were a step in the right direction for making the game more inclusive. Large vendors like @Card_Kingdom have completely taken cards like Invoke Prejudice off of their buylist/store.

I hope this thread was valuable in educating yourself in today's decision. I found the research to be very interesting, particularly Stone Throwing Devils.

As pointed out by @KayleHatt Both Jihad and Crusade were probably banned due the history of racial violence associated with both cards.

We weren’t given the exact reasons for each card but I think this is closer rather than the color buff.

Forgot to paste one additional card.

Imprison (1994)

This card depicts a person with Black Skin being imprisoned, as a black person I find this image deeply disturbing as the same card could've been expressed in many other ways.

Following up to clarify because I misspoke.

Both Jihad and Crusade were banned because their references blurred the lines of white’s color indentity in magic and white racially.

Each are based on historical religious wars where people were murdered based on their religion.

Crusade being the Latin Christian perspective of recovering the holy land (Modern Day Israel) from the Muslims, and killing as many needed to accomplish this.

In this case, white creatures getting +1/+1 is referencing Christian soldiers.

Honor the pure is a functionally identical card (-1W) that does the same effect without any religious/racial references.

Buffing a creature based on its color is not racist, doing so referencing historical racial/religious wars is.

This interpretation of Jihad is the same time period from the Muslim perspective.

Again the direct effect of buffing cards based on color is not racist, doing so referencing religious/racial war is.

‘Army of Allah’ was not banned because it doesn’t apply effects based on color.

Once again. Referencing religion or color is not the issue, blending them together is.

Wanted to make sure the correct information was there, my initial interpretation was incorrect.

I anticipate we’ll see a couple more cards added up over the next couple weeks. There are a handful of artworks that are a bit dicey.

Will update this thread if any additional cards are added and may make a YouTube video about it shortly.

Muting thread.

With that said #blacklivesmatter

It comes coming, additional information about the references for Imprison.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_iron_bit

The facemask or iron bit the depicted character is wearing was a method of torture used on black slaves.

*Exhale
Video on the way for the people in the back. Hoping to have it done in the next week. Your personal interpretation of the cards are irrelevant to how they may be seen by others.

With that said, this video will be focused on education not attacking malicious people.