The videos you posted I've already seen, the one regarding Nina Simone most recently.

Dominican natives disagreeing with what I say doesn't make me wrong. Of course, it doesn't prove I'm right either.

To be honest, though, this immediate discussion does indeed combat my idea of race generally being nonexistant, so I probably dug myself a hole trying to have the discussion. However, don't you think it is a bit odd to say a people bear two different ethnic lineages simultaneously?

Wouldn't that constitute a split in lineages? Kind of how Zoe Saldana is both Dominican and Puerto Rican.

Odd? Not at all. That's one of the main points I was trying to make. Race is contextual and more fluid than people like to admit. Why couldn't Zoe be considered a Black Latina if she has bi-racial heritage? At what point is the 'cut off to Blackness' line? Who get's to make that call? The US government used to use the racist ass "one-drop-rule" to determine "blackness" which directly lead to subjugation, segregation, and oppressive law.

You said yourself that you have Polish and Dutch ancestry. Does that disqualify you from "being black?" I don't know why you're framing it in "absolutes" and "pure lineages" when humanity has overlapped and spread at such a level that "pure lineage" is a bit of a misnomer.

Man, I just asked my mother about this (Zoe Saldana, to be exact), and she scolded the hell out of me.

She said I had no right to declare who someone is or isn't, and that anyone who has even an once of African lineage can call themselves black. Of course, that would apply to everyone on the planet, but maybe she's right. Maybe lineage really doesn't have a breaking point, you stated, Mojo. On that note, I guess I may have to admit that I could very well be wrong.


HOWEVER!

This allows me to once again return to the subject of Jade. The concepts of race and are still eclusively linked to human identity. Again, Jade is not human; she is Edenian. Until we gain clarification that there is a distinction in appearance in Edenian, all we can refer to Jade as is an Edenian with dark skin.

And that's all we really need. As I've stated before, trying to figure out what race Jade is is pointless.

That is pretty anal to keep reassuring yourself when you and everyone else knew exactly what was meant right off the bat.

It's like saying Superman is not white, he's a light skinned Kryptonian.

That 's already known and would be a weird thing to say when correcting someone.

It wasn't myself that needed the reassuring.

And you're right, it is indeed already known, hence my longstanding confusion regarding the question posed by this thread. Ironically, I held onto this thread like an idiot.

I'm sick of having to explain this distinction:

If the conversation is 'What race is such and such fictional character'? Then you have to DEFINE if you're talking about canon, nerdom, lore based ethnicity versus describing it SEPERATE of that in real-life terms.

Because on one hand...Superman is white on the other hand he is Kyrptonian. What is so hard to understand about this? It's only because we're talking about fictional characters that aren't designed to look that different from 'normal' people that we even have to have this conversation.

If the convo was....what race was Goro people would be more content with 'He's a Shokan' despite him being a humanoid. There's enough of a departure from "real-world ethnicity' that there's no need to define Goro as Shokan-Asian or whatever. What race is Yoda? What race is Shrek? What race is Motaro? What race is the fucking Predator monster? Do you see my point?

So yeah Superman is a white dude in tights with comic book super powers BUT he's also ULTIMATELY a Kryptonian crash landed on earth that gets power from a yellow sun and disguises himself as a human. All y'all naysayers need to recognize this godddam point because I'm tired of repeating myself.

This.

I like this.

So to reiterate finally and put this damn thing to bed:

The point I was trying to make is that we needed to establish some ground rules / definitions:

- Defining 'being black' (at least in the context of the conversation).
- Recognizing that we're talking about "real-world" ethnicity vs fictional.
- Acknowledging that since Jade is a make-believe character, her make-believe story/ethnicity will ALWAYS be the TRUE definition.

So with that I'm operating off of:

- Black to me is having heritage connected to Africa (beyond the whole "Well we're all from Africa")
- Real-world ethnicity as descriptions
- Real-world ethnicity as descriptions are MERELY that and that the CANON race is what counts the most.

Soooooo...get on with it already right? Ok, here we go:



MK9 Jade to me looks Latin American or Asian (Indian, Middle-Eastern) because of her brown skin, high/broad cheekbones, slight nose, straight-hair, and green eyes. Possibly North African. Those eyes are difficult to find though without having bi-racial lineage.



Now if you would've asked me about MK Armageddon Jade I would've been more inclined to say bi-racial Black/Latina (from god knows where). Main reason is that in this version she has a broader nose, fuller lips, rounder jaw that seem more of prominent African heritage. However, she has green eyes, straight hair, and caramel skin tone which only naturally happens bi-racially.

Thus, I hope you can see why I felt it was redundant, vague, and vain to debate Jade's real ethnicity to the point of a absolute definitive answer. At most we can only guess at her ethnic references in a broad sense and all that speculation becomes moot because her TRUE ethnicity is her canon ethnicity.

Maybe in the interest of more ethnic representation in the rebooted MK NRS decided that Jade was going to be the token "Latina" female where Tonya will be the token "Black" female?

But...the Shokan race has its own canon ethnicities, Goro and Sheeva are "Dracos", Kintaro is a "Tigrar".

Good point, so Goro is Shokan-Draco. Point is, no one is clamoring to call him Shokan-Draco/Caucasoid or whatever.

Which serves my point.

It is silly to place concepts of human identity on characters who aren't human. The same applies to Jade.

Skarlet has very bright skin, but I don't see anyone triyng to call her white.

But I think she's white....*blink blink*

If her hair were a more natural shade of red and she had prominent freckles, people would totally refer to her as "a Ginger"

And again, being from another planet never stopped anybody from calling Tuvok a "black Vulcan", silly though it may be.

Hooray. We have proceeded for once (– not concluded.) In this short time I wasn't here posting, this topic gained a whopping amount of posts. I'm not directing this to anyone specific but stubbornness runs rampant on Mortal Kombat Online sometimes. Riyakou vanquished this mindset. Well done.

It's been merely a couple of days during which mainly you and Riyakou discussed. Your willingness to end this without looking for the other participants' take on it tells that you are not interested in seeing the big picture. You attempted to finish this 'early' because you were afraid.J.R.R. Tolkien popularized the use of "race" in contexts where "species" would be more fitting, but unless we'd rather think like Tolkien, the Draco-Shokans and Tigrar-Shokans would be of different sub-species like Homo sapiens and Homo erectus are. The Draco-Shokans themselves have dark- and pale-skinned individuals but you cannot state that Sheeva is a Negroid, for she isn't actually a dark-skinned human being because her anatomy is vastly different from ours. She is a "human-like" humanoid only; her attributes differ too much from ours to be considered a human.

What comes to Jade's green eyes – though this is disputable – I wouldn't necessarily look into it too much. Her MK:D eyes for one look unnatural and suggest that she's got green eyes just to match with her theme color, similar to how e.g. the blue-clothed part-Cryomancers have blue eyes.

Do you honestly think that people didn't realize this by the page three? Your discourse is utterly pompous. Ultimately he's a DC Comics character.

This proves how much you back your statements on assumptions. "To you"? An Arabic person from Qatar is Black despite their origins are not from Africa (in your terms) but the Arabian Peninsula which is in Asia.

Re-read the definition of racism. It doesn't make Riyakou a racist in case he mistakes someone not being Black even if they are. It can be offensive (entirely possible) but it's not disdain or setting any race above another.

So you are here for personal recognition? If repeating the same argument over and over again combined with false statements and insults in your opinion is hot knowledge, you are sordidly wrong. You assume so many things that it's not even funny. Kudos for that Jade MK9 picture though.

---

If people desire to use the real world terminology for easier describing of Jade, I see absolutely no problem with that. Even if I disagreed with that, I wouldn't want to interrupt their discussions without providing something they don't already acknowledge. Stating that Jade cannot be Negroid is comparable with saying that she is not a woman altogether, with the basis that Edenians are not our world's denizens. There are Albinos even within the animal kingdom but Albinos are people, too. Similarly, I don't see why these superhuman Edenians could not be passed off as Negroids akin to how we normal human beings are. "Negroid" translates to "Black-like".

Jade bears the human attributes like a Homo erectus or a clone does and therefore can be treated as a human being like a Korun in Star Wars.

Why is it exactly that Jade wouldn't pass off as a human being? She looks like one, acts like one – the only thing that differentiates her from us is her home place and longevity in regards mortality, which by the way may very well be fixed by us human beings as well (in future.) Thus, only her home place differentiates her from Earthlings de facto. Creationism partially applies to Mortal Kombat and therefore the evolutionary roots are not a necessity to look upon. Besides, human clones would pass off as human beings just like the Neanderthals would: therefore it is within reason to consider the Edenians human beings too. They bear all the necessary attributes for humanity and not much more (aside the fantasy settings.)P.S. The whole colorization thing indeed has questionable connotations, but there are indigenous citizens who accept their "color". The Khoisan people for example are proud of being "true Blacks", in Europe people may admit they're "White" and e.g. an Arabic friend of mine calls himself "half-Black" for fun. "Red" is probably a bit different because it also refers to a communist, for colors often refer to people's political stances too but "Yellow" and "Brown" people probably feel relatively secure with their theoretical colors. Why are Europeans "White"? They have little-to-no pigmentation similar to the Albinos. Impureness; it's okay because almost all races are more-or-less mixed these days. A Mestizo, if had to be chosen, would likely be "Black" too, for the "Whites" are after all recessive.Just an idea: How about classifying Jade just Brown by her Edenian race? It should do for everyone, wouldn't it?

I'm down with Brown.


























Or chameleon.

I don't think I'd agree with that. Just because the biological differences between them are more radical than the differences between human ethnicities doesn't mean Dracos and Tigrars are separate species. I mean...a German Shepard and a Poodle are both Canis lupus familiaris despite being completely different kinds of dogs.

It would help if we knew more about the origins of the Shokan race, like are they ALL half-dragon, even the Tigrar, or do the Tigrar in fact have a unique ancestry from the Draco, or maybe the whole "half-dragon" thing is just a myth that came about because they happen to have some dragon-like features like scaly skin and fire breath?

I personally think people would only call Skarlet a ginger for shits and giggles rather than actual appearance, and probably due to that stupid South Park bit.

As for Tuvok, screw Star Trek. Also, I think the only reason people give humanoid characters such descriptions is because we already do it to ourselves, and since they look like us, it's much easier to just repeat the action.

However, I find that action quite lazy. Just a quick way to give identity to a character that looks different. Strangely, this seems to only happen to characters of darker skin tones. I've never heard anyone call Superman white, only Kryptonian.



It seems better to refer to her as dark-skinned.

Even for humans, it does seem kind of odd to identify ourselves with colors, especially inaccurate colors. Most people on Earth tend to identify themselves by nationality anyway, or if not by nationality, by culture.

@Zmoke Man I'm tired of trying to address your personal insults at me and you trying to establish straw man arguments. It's exhausting and pointless to talk to you. I made it abundantly clear that I felt that the concept of "being black" was a complicated topic and my definition was JUST that, merely the definition I was personally operating out of in order to provide context to this conversation. I wasn't insinuating that it was THE definition, just that we needed to be on the same page to get anywhere positive with the conversation. I spoke AT LENGTH about this back when Riyakou and Razor were going to murder one another.

Also, me asking for Dragon Points was a fucking joke dude, jesus christ. And I'M pompous?

Man just stop talking to me, seriously. I'd straight up block you at this point if the site allowed it.

Anyhow I've said my piece on this whole Jade thing. I tried.

I have been thinking the same thing as well: are the Tigrars ultimately like the Dracos but further mixed (with the tiger)? I don't know. It's something to delve into certainly, they may retcon/fix this confusion one day. I would consider them two separate sub-species because the Shokans are a lot closer to humans than dogs because the Shokans have fleshed out civilizations, they are humanoids and lastly they're actually part man. The dogs seem to be clustered into this one diverse species because they aren't deemed equally as important as the humans are, who have gotten multiple different sub-species albeit how small their differences may be. So the humanoid rules apply more to the Shokans than those of the dogs.

Why is it so commonplace that especially within the superheroes the race comes further into question whenever they are other than Caucasoid? Hollywood and the older comics had the vast majority of prominent characters white as a standard, if you will, so when there is an exception to the rule; people notice it because they have eyes. However, this is bound to change now. I actually read somewhere that the "white reign" in the entertainment industry (games, movies, etc.) will be over in the 2030's. The movies used to feature mainly Caucasians because they (Anglo-Americans and Europeans) were the biggest paying audience what came to that kind of entertainment, when the market was not as globalized.

As we have now realized, both "dark-skinned" and "Brown" apply to Jade. "Brown" doesn't actually include very dark-skinned people, whereas "dark-skinned" does. But Jade is not very dark-skinned, so the term could be a bit misleading. It's about the accuracy. As long as your words remain truthful, you want to stick to the more specific terms. That's why Brown.

So you gave up. But you're wrong with your unbased accusations/attempts to avoid what was actually in talks. It is not pointless to talk to me. You aim at egoistic wins (laughably unsuccessfully and in lowly ways) while I aim at or at the very least focus in fruitful discussion. Once again, Mojo6, you misinterpreted your terminology. I haven't made conscious fallacies nor misunderstood in the first place your repetitive comments about "what is Black". You however focused in complaining about me as a person in your post herein instead of even bothering to quote a single thing. I have quoted, I have source material and I'm not a juvenile quitter who goes away mad like you do (as you did to Mick.) Grownup people shake hands or such even after a disagreement. You have so much to learn, rookie.

Since the topic is complicated to you and you are overwhelmed, do you know what you should do? Keep away from this. As if you ever wanted anything positive out of this thread – but keep telling that to yourself. You attempted to derail the ongoing conversation halfway so you would not have to face the truth in case you're wrong. The thread speaks for itself.

Is this supposed to suggest that I skipped that part? I quoted from that very part as well, dude. It doesn't matter for how long you repeated your argument because people have acknowledged whatever argument there was and besides, "I spoke at length" is barely a defense of any kind.You know, I have been in the Mortal Kombat forums for quite a while now. I do and people do notice if you talk bullshit. No, you were not joking.Some weeks ago, you pestered my thread about Edward Snowden. That was a ridiculous act on your behalf. Still, I took your criticism and made the opening post above anyone's expectations. Then you inquired the staff to delete your post and never actually bothered to write in it thereafter. This is evidently habitual to you, Mojo6. Or should I call you Saboteur-6, as you're known in Test Your Might. Because that name describes you a lot better.

I'm pretty sure science doesn't play favorites like that. There's probably a very logical reason why dogs of different breeds are considered the same species, like maybe despite how radically different two breeds of dog can look, the actual difference in genetic code is too small to justify calling them different species. Particularly since every dog on Earth shares the same ancestor: tamed wolves.

Jade reminds me of Dashil Hernandez. She is Puerto Rican (look at those kneecaps boyyyyy).



Those calling Jade- Black, are colour blind. Jade's BROWN/DARK TANNED.

Unfortunately the scientific terminology does fall prey to favoritism on occassion – languages in general do. After all they are catered to the humans by the humans, hence there is always a chance of subjectivity within the terminology of us. It is argued that the present human races could be classified into subspecies (Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo S.S. X Homo erectus, Homo S.S. X Neanderthal, and so on) if the political and social pressures didn't forbid that. Some Africans are actually pure Homo sapiens sapiens whereas Europeans are more mixed (thus impure.)

The tamed wolves indeed play a crucial part in this. The dog's relationship to the wolf is in fact the reason why the dogs have no subspecies within them – the dog itself is a subspecies and the variations within the canines are races, sub-races, breeds and mutations. Regarding the classification of hybrids of different species (half and half); they are treated as specimen or sub-specimen and not races. Motaro is a Centaur (technically half man, half horse) and the Centaur is unanimously its own specimen in lieu of a sub-specimen or a race of the human. Kintaro is a Tigrar-Shokan (half tiger, half "Onaga" as it's seen) and since "Shokan" means "half dragon, half something", the Tigrar-Shokans are a sub-species of the Shokan which isn't necessarily a sub-species of anything. If a modern German hybrid human of Homo S.S. and Neanderthal (with only a minor portion of the latter) could be considered a subspecies, a 50-50 hybrid creature can without fail be classified as a (sub)species. There are different "Centaurs" too, such as Onocentaurs, and in the game cosmos there is at least the Minotaur which could be a "subspecies" of the Centaur herein. Thus, the Tigrar-Shokan is not a race in scientific terms – it can only be a race in Tolkien's terms. Within these striped creatures there can of course be different races. We could have a Maltese Tigrar-Shokan that would have unique fur and other attributes. The Ficspecies encyclopedia has also concluded in the "subspecies" classification, which sounds about right.Fairly soon we are going to finish the Jade poll, so be sure to cast your vote as the seventh voter. The other present users seem to have done it.

Canon has never said anything about Onaga being related to the Shokan, that's fandom guesswork.

1) Onaga is a dragon and 2) the Shokan is half dragon. Only Onaga-like dragons 'could' mate with a human and in fact he fell in love with Li Mei in her ending. These beasts have a lot in common, as noted in this topic.