>But mongol-typed are not actually dark skinned, they were in fact often very pale in the past, and tbf he also wrote "degraded and repulsive versions of"
True, but Star Trek's treatment of the original Klingons was much the same, based on a vague archetype of "swarthy" Eastern "barbarians" like the Khanate or stereotypes of the Japanese during WW2. We're talking about broad-brush stereotypes here. There was no non-racist reason to make the Klingons dark-skinned to begin with. As has been mentioned, the Romulans were also a villain species and they were white (as a plot point, they looked exactly like Vulcans because they were the same species. The Klingons were dark-skinned because in Western culture dark skin is visual shorthand for "savage."
And portraying "degraded and repulsive" versions of a specific human race is the literal definition of a racist caricature. Especially if the point is to make them evil.
>Same way I could say, as Italian, that "Jersey Shore" protagonists are a degraded and repulsive versions of Italians.
... if literally every Italian in the show was portrayed that way, and was canonically in the Mafia. And the protagonists were all non-Italians. And when people were corrupted by evil, they turned more Italian.
True, but Star Trek's treatment of the original Klingons was much the same, based on a vague archetype of "swarthy" Eastern "barbarians" like the Khanate or stereotypes of the Japanese during WW2. We're talking about broad-brush stereotypes here. There was no non-racist reason to make the Klingons dark-skinned to begin with. As has been mentioned, the Romulans were also a villain species and they were white (as a plot point, they looked exactly like Vulcans because they were the same species. The Klingons were dark-skinned because in Western culture dark skin is visual shorthand for "savage."
And portraying "degraded and repulsive" versions of a specific human race is the literal definition of a racist caricature. Especially if the point is to make them evil.
>Same way I could say, as Italian, that "Jersey Shore" protagonists are a degraded and repulsive versions of Italians.
... if literally every Italian in the show was portrayed that way, and was canonically in the Mafia. And the protagonists were all non-Italians. And when people were corrupted by evil, they turned more Italian.