When I made this blog I was considering to cover pop culture and history in separate postings earlier in my timeline. I wouldn’t have thought that I’d already have a good opportunity to cover both in the same post so soon, but I discovered a recent controversy regarding an upcoming historical-based role-playing game (one of my favorite genres) called Kingdom Come: Deliverance , which provides a perfect example of misplaced accusations of racism. Accusations, I may add, that are almost entirely based on flawed interpretations of historical evidence.

These accusations have been specifically leveled against the games Czech director and designer, named Daniel Vavra. So what outrageously insensitive action has Vavra done to have made him such a target from not only Twitters and Tumblr users, but also internet publications, like Kotaku and The Daily Dot? Did the game he’s defending feature some sort of horrendous racial stereotype in terms of character depictions? Nope. He dared to design a historically realistic game that features little-to-no “people of color.” A game, I should mention, that entirely take’s place in 15th century Bohemia.

Now, as someone who majored in Cultural Anthropology, I can understand the concern for accurate character portrayals in media that focus heavily in historical accuracy. However, it’s undoubtedly clear that the reasoning behind such trepidation is primarily based on, what I believe, is a very poor understanding of history.

You see this all started when a Tumblr user by the name of MedievalPOC began making these claims towards the video game. Since then she was been the primary source used by these publications in their attacks against Vavra. According to MedievalPOC’s mission statement:

The focus of this blog is to showcase works of art from European history that feature People of Color. All too often, these works go unseen in museums, Art History classes, online galleries, and other venues because of retroactive whitewashing of Medieval Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia.

My purpose in creating this blog is to address common misconceptions that People of Color did not exist in Europe before the Enlightenment, and to emphasize the cognitive dissonance in the way this is reflected in media produced today.

The ubiquity in modern media to display a fictitiously all-white Europe is often thoughtlessly and inaccurately justified by claims of “historical accuracy”; this blog is here to emphasize the modern racism that retroactively erases gigantic swaths of truth and beauty.

To be perfectly honest, I can comprehend the importance of correcting such modern beliefs, in which Europe was completely empty of non-white or non-European peoples and influences prior to the 17th century. A notion such as this is in itself ridiculous given the high amount of trade and contact between nations and ethnic groups during the Middle Ages and prior. These cultural and ethnic differences are especially prevalent in empires, including the Roman empire, where the use of mercenaries and auxiliaries were highly prevalent and tolerating local religious customs are required to prevent large scale revolts.

However, as far as I can tell, I can’t find anything to suggest that the blog poster is a professional historian. This is apparent from not only in the lack of credentials, but also in the examples of art that she provides as proof of a large population of non-whites living in Europe, which are devoid of artistic and narrative context. Depictions, such as those of Saint Maurice or Black Madonna, are quickly asserted to be evidence of a large number of non-whites living in areas in Europe, such as Bohemia, despite the fact that these depictions where heavily influenced by stylistic choices, which were considered popular and customary in the eras they were illustrated in, and are normally of fabled characters partaking in Biblical events that supposedly occurred well over a thousands years before the artists responsible even existed.

Ironically, I’ve noticed that the same flawed interpretations made by Afrocentric historians are the same ones that their Eurocentric counterparts rely on. They both ignore certain contextual concepts when analyzing art, either willfully or ignorantly, in order to exaggerate a specific racial or ethnic groups historical importance in terms of technological, artistic, or cultural innovation.

Another example in her lack of professionalism in her posts which focus on Vavra’s response to the criticism directed towards him. One posting for example is chock full of ad-hominems and straw man arguments, not to mention it reveals the authors inability to accept the fact that baseless accusations of racism are no laughing matter. For example, she writes:

And yet I still marvel at the sheer gall it takes to imply that somehow, people should be unable to criticize something in several very specific ways, as opposed to criticizing something like the gameplay or graphics.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority of gamers, myself included, don’t mind such a perspective. In fact I know many who welcome it. But what they do mind is when a critique, which is based on such a personal view, is not done fairy towards the designer or developer or professionally for that matter. Perspectives such as this are largely subjective, and throwing forced accusations of racism are far from the appropriate response to depictions that you personally consider unfavorable. Nor are such depictions “anti-black."

I’ll conclude this posting with an example of MedievalPOC’s poor comprehension on the importance of context. The correction she gives is a supposed example of proof of a strong population of blacks in Bohemia, which in turn she gives as a reason why a diverse representation of this upcoming game is more needed. She apparently relied on this source:

The second work is evidently a portrait of Johannes Maurus, a black who was Frederick’s chamberlain. The two blacks who appear in the Adoration of the Magi on Nicola Pisano’s Siena pulpit are undoubtedly based on African retainers at the Hohenstaufen court. Even after the fall of the Hohenstaufen, artists made repeated references to the family’s fondness for black people in art and in life.

Black Africans in Hohenstaufen Iconography. Paul H. D. Kaplan.

Source: Gesta, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1987), pp. 29-36

Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the International Center of Medieval Art



The House of Hohenstaufen ruled the parts of Europe from 1076 to 1268 and Emperor Frederick reigned mainly in Sicily and southern Italy where many of these black Muslims lived and was a good distance from Bohemia. The upcoming video game, however, takes place in Bohemia in the 15th century. If you want to avoid a backlash against your "project” then it’s best you do better research and find better examples. And to the “journalists” and other bloggers who give her credence: just because someone frequently refers to and examines racial views in a supposedly sociological or historical manner doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about or that they are more credible regarding the issue compared to the individuals they’re accusing of being racist.