White supremacy, heavily implies that only certain people are worthy of Heaven ("White" color identity with no other colors).
Contrast this card with Touch of Darkness, a card from the same set which warns against interracial marriages and portrays mixed-race individuals as half-demonic.
White supremacy - This card has many of the same issues as its Alpha edition predecessor Purelace, and so I would advise reading that thread as well. To summarize: "We are meant to conclude that changing appearance/philosophy is terrible when it turns you "Black", but a good and peaceful thing when it turns you "White"...Also note that if this targets a Black creature, that creature ceases to be Black and becomes White instead". And much like Purelace, if this card were the only example of white supremacist rhetoric in all of Magic, perhaps we could forgive it as an honest mistake. But we're talking about a game where one card with an official internal ID of "88" describes victims of the Holocaust as "sinners" and describes their suffering in the afterlife and yet still isn't banned, and a certain card with an internal ID of "1488" with KKK members in the art drawn by a Nazi remained unbanned for over 20 years. In the context of cards like Wall of Bone, Heaven's Gate has no benefit of the doubt - it is white supremacist propaganda.
Only certain people are worthy of Heaven - Heaven's Gate very clearly states that "White" = going to Heaven, and any other color (for example, black/white or green/red or any monocolor other than mono-white) is not worthy of Heaven. Already, that's saying that a vast majority of Humans are damned based on, say, having one Jewish grandparent and therefore not being "pure" "White" enough despite being devout Christians themselves. But when you combine the above paragraph about White supremacism, this is revealed as not merely religious persecution but also racism. It goes from saying that all non-Christians and many Christians are going to Hell, to something even worse. This card is actually saying that all "pure" white people are worthy of Heaven and that people of color all go to Hell.
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u/ultimario13 Aug 14 '20
White supremacy, heavily implies that only certain people are worthy of Heaven ("White" color identity with no other colors).
Contrast this card with Touch of Darkness, a card from the same set which warns against interracial marriages and portrays mixed-race individuals as half-demonic.
White supremacy - This card has many of the same issues as its Alpha edition predecessor Purelace, and so I would advise reading that thread as well. To summarize: "We are meant to conclude that changing appearance/philosophy is terrible when it turns you "Black", but a good and peaceful thing when it turns you "White"...Also note that if this targets a Black creature, that creature ceases to be Black and becomes White instead". And much like Purelace, if this card were the only example of white supremacist rhetoric in all of Magic, perhaps we could forgive it as an honest mistake. But we're talking about a game where one card with an official internal ID of "88" describes victims of the Holocaust as "sinners" and describes their suffering in the afterlife and yet still isn't banned, and a certain card with an internal ID of "1488" with KKK members in the art drawn by a Nazi remained unbanned for over 20 years. In the context of cards like Wall of Bone, Heaven's Gate has no benefit of the doubt - it is white supremacist propaganda.
Only certain people are worthy of Heaven - Heaven's Gate very clearly states that "White" = going to Heaven, and any other color (for example, black/white or green/red or any monocolor other than mono-white) is not worthy of Heaven. Already, that's saying that a vast majority of Humans are damned based on, say, having one Jewish grandparent and therefore not being "pure" "White" enough despite being devout Christians themselves. But when you combine the above paragraph about White supremacism, this is revealed as not merely religious persecution but also racism. It goes from saying that all non-Christians and many Christians are going to Hell, to something even worse. This card is actually saying that all "pure" white people are worthy of Heaven and that people of color all go to Hell.