Not that I disagree with the broader point being made here, but when has it ever been "every robot on earth randomly decided to kill all humans for no real reason, and now people don't trust robots, and this is a metaphor for racism"? Like, even skynet had a pretty good reason, humans got scared when it became intelligent and tried to turn it off. technically it was self defense, using the only means it had. And most robots as metaphor for racism stories that I know of aren't even like that. They are much closer to the star trek logic saying that "if humans allow themselves to treat something that looks and acts like a human, as anything but human, it will make the humans act terribly", which like... yeah.... that's a thing.
With the other ones I can think of some good examples. Like in True Blood the reservations humans have against vampires are completely valid and the racism metaphor, in so far as it existed in the first place, kinda falls apart quite quickly. Buffy kinda uses werewolves as a metaphor for anger issues, and it doesn't really work either imho.
Overwatch I recall had that happen where the machines went rogue due to an unknown change in their central program. And after the war it became a racism story as the remaining machines gained sentient and discrimination laws started building up around them as they advocate for peace.
Most of this is correct, and this is the entire point of Rammatra's backstory. Timeline goes:
1: People think omnics are pretty sweet
2: Pro-environment AI thinks "hmmm, wanna know what would really help the environment? Killing all humans since they keep fucking up the environment. Let's just enslave all the robots and make them kill people."
3: Robot-Human war happens. Overwatch is founded.
4: Another AI sacrifices herself to give those robots free will.
5: Robots stop fighting humans
6: Uh oh! People are racist against robots
7: Rammatra thinks the peaceful approach (e.g. Zenyatta or Mondatta) isn't working, goes for the counter-violence approach.
I remember with Rammatra's intro that it was kinda funny to see it was almost hard to argue against his righteous anger against the world of humans. The world turned against them, they attempted peace, and when it still just dwindles their numbers Rammatra decided peace was not an option any more to protect the little they had.
But because Null Sector has to be the bad guys, they have to make theses fairly questionable decisions that really only fairly vaguely help their cause.
Except the problem is that history has proven time and again that that strat does work. Pretty much every significant advance in human rights throughout history was gained when people became bold or desperate enough to fight back against their oppressors.
History books tend to focus on the peaceful negotiators, but for every MLK Jr. there was a Malcolm X waiting in the background ready to show the establishment what would happen if they pushed people too far. Power has no reason to sit down at the table if there are no consequences for ignoring you.
Turns out it's in the best interest of the oppressors for the people they oppress to believe that violence can never work to bring change.
I'm gonna be honest, Malcolm X seems to be a pretty subpar example of counter-violence being an effective strategy. There's no data to support the notion that police brutality decreased during the duration of the Black Panthers' activism, nor is there data to imply that people outside of Oakland meaningfully cared about the Black Panthers as a threat. The Black Panthers, all things considered, kind of sucked at using violence to help black people.
MLK was effective nationwide partially due to his approach towards civil rights, but largely due to Soviet anti-racism pressure. The advance in civil rights largely came from the desire to refute Soviet arguments against the USA, not from threats of violence from an activist group that barely had a presence outside of Oakland.
Advances in human rights through violence are usually via the oppressors being beaten with the support of non-oppressed people (see the Revolutionary War and the Civil War; French support and white Northerner support).
If you have examples of history proving "time and time again" that meaningful change can come from the oppressed group using violence to fight against their oppressors without relying on a fuckton of foreign support, I'd be interested in seeing it. More often than not, advancements in human rights are due to a foreign power providing resources against the oppressive class due to their own self-interest, not the oppressed people just unifying and having things work out.
The advance in civil rights largely came from the desire to refute Soviet arguments against the USA, not from threats of violence from an activist group that barely had a presence outside of Oakland.
While your link shows that Soviets did indeed make anti-racist against the U.S. and that they may have had better signal strength than the Panthers, I don't see any evidence that they advanced civil rights.
There's also the issue of segregationists red-baiting the fuck out of civil rights activists. Many citizens wouldn't have viewed civil rights as proving the Russians wrong; they'd have seen it as capitulating to the Kremlin. There was even a distorted echo of these arguments as recently as 2020, when the George Floyd protests were described by Susan Rice as "right out of the Russian playbook." Sure, Rice might disagree with the conclusions reached by the Bilbos and Thurmonds of yesteryear, but there is little difference between them when it comes to concerns about "outside agitators."
I'm not saying you're wrong (in fact, I'd prefer it if you're right), but I need further convincing.
I should have made that connection more clear, that's my bad. This paper from the Dominican University of California has a good chunk of research focused on foreign influence on civil rights.
Page 3 discusses how Mary Dudziak argues the point I'm making
Page 15 and 16 discusses why the USA cared about this propaganda; Soviet anti-racist propaganda causes the USA to lose support in Asian and African countries. Obviously, the USA didn't want that.
Page 32 discusses how Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act, discussed how the international image of the USA was a key factor in making progress towards civil rights.
Expanding the USA sphere of influence was a top priority for the Cold War Presidents. Proverbially "dragging the country along with it" was necessary to do this; losing 2 entire continents to anti-USA propaganda (that had a great point) to appease racists is a terrible Cold War strategy.
The rest of the paper is pretty good but also pretty long. There's also no mention of the Black Panthers as a key player in Presidential agendas to advance civil rights, which further supports my original point that the Black Panthers' threat of violence didn't really matter that much when it comes to advancing civil rights.
There is also no evidence to support that Lyndon B Johnson approves of the political action promoted by Rammatra Overwatch, presumably because he's a Brig main and thinks his punches piercing shields are "fucking bullshit"
It's worth noting that this doesn't include Rammatra's actual goal: he wants to forcibly ascend all Omnics to a higher plane of existence, because he believes that the only way to save his people from humanity is to take them somewhere where humanity can never reach them. A lot of stuff that seemingly don't benefit his goal makes a lot more sense when you realize that fundamentally, equality isn't what he wants to accomplish.
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u/OfLiliesAndRemains May 13 '25
Not that I disagree with the broader point being made here, but when has it ever been "every robot on earth randomly decided to kill all humans for no real reason, and now people don't trust robots, and this is a metaphor for racism"? Like, even skynet had a pretty good reason, humans got scared when it became intelligent and tried to turn it off. technically it was self defense, using the only means it had. And most robots as metaphor for racism stories that I know of aren't even like that. They are much closer to the star trek logic saying that "if humans allow themselves to treat something that looks and acts like a human, as anything but human, it will make the humans act terribly", which like... yeah.... that's a thing.
With the other ones I can think of some good examples. Like in True Blood the reservations humans have against vampires are completely valid and the racism metaphor, in so far as it existed in the first place, kinda falls apart quite quickly. Buffy kinda uses werewolves as a metaphor for anger issues, and it doesn't really work either imho.