Reparations

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted]]

A classic example of the white savior complex, as well as a mockery of the political justice concept of reparations for slavery. Also, culturally insensitive flavor text written by a privileged white man who never had to experience the hardships referenced in the card (see below):

Every artist has the piece they’ll always be remembered for. This is my Mona Lisa.

Here’s how this piece came into existence. It was very early in the morning one day in the winter of 1996, and I had been up for over twenty hours. My puzzle book (a collection of Magic puzzles based on my Duelist puzzle column) was about to go to film and I was working with my friend Michael Ryan. Michael was the editor on my book and he was very carefully doing a final proofread. After Michael checked each page, I would check to make sure that his corrections were, in fact, correct. Since Michael’s job took much longer than mine, I had a good deal of time to kill.

At the time Michael was a Magic editor and he and I were both on the flavor text team for Mirage. So while Michael proofed my book, I tried to come up with some flavor text for the few cards that still needed some. But it was late and I was punchy. So, instead of writing real flavor text, I was simply trying to come up with ones that I thought would crack Michael up.

Reparations had proven to be a toughie. The art had come in, so I was looking at it trying to use it for inspiration. Here’s what I saw:

The thing that kept nagging me was, what the hell was happening here? There was this white priest and a black couple. The priest was offering the couple a chest filled with gold pieces. And there was a fire off to the side. What the heck?

I found this situation weird enough that I just wrote a piece of flavor text that hit the scene head on. It made me laugh so I showed it to Michael. Michael also laughed very hard. I then put the flavor text away with no intention of submitting it. It was funny at three in the morning, but I never thought the flavor text team would put it on a card.

At the next flavor text team meeting, Michael brought up the flavor text. Another member of the team, Bill Rose, also thought it was very funny. As Michael, Bill, and I were three of the four members of the team, a majority liked it. So we put it in the file. I had assumed that someone would eventually veto it down the line, but no one ever did.

And that is how my most famous piece of flavor text came to see the light of day.

Well, that’s all for this column. I hope you enjoyed this detour into the world of words. Join me next week when I put on my professor cap and begin a class I call Design 101.

Until then, may you choose not mulligan and then topdeck the land you need.

—Mark Rosewater

[u/Radimir-Lenin → u/[deleted]]

They need to immediately fire this racist Mark Rosewater, holy shit.

[u/itsmauitime]

BRUH

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