blood caste is NOT the alternian equivalent of race… even if we ignore that canonically alternians DO have an equivalent of race (land and sea dwellers are referred to as the “two races”), every blood caste has its own COMPLETELY UNIQUE internal traits that make them better at one thing or better at another thing, which is nothing like what ethnicity is, unless you’re literally using a definition of race from like, the 17th bloody century, mate
racism is racism. caste is caste. if the hemospectrum was a racialist institution, equius would hate gamzee just as much as he hates lowbloods. but he doesn’t, because the castes represent pseudo-xeno-feudalist classes (and are referred to as classes many times in the comic and suplementary material!). racists don’t see race as a spectrum; the closest thing would be the spanish-european caste system introduced in the americas post-colonisation, and even that brings up an important point; you can be of mixed ethnicity, but you can’t be of mixed caste. because castes aren’t malleable, arbitrary distinctions like ethnic groups are; they are strictly enforced social classes.
also: castes exist in real life. for starters, the troll “castes” are probably named after “castes” in ant colonies: physically differentiated forms of ant who all have specific roles to play in a colony, just like troll castes in the alternian empire. and ant castes aren’t anything like “the ant equivalent of ethnicities”; they’re actually more like genders. so if you wanted to directly translate the troll blood castes to a near-western near-human setting, you’d more likely be dealing with 12 genders than 12 ethnic groups.
if you really need a direct human analogue to caste, you’re in luck and still don’t need to use ethnicity because there are human societies with caste systems that don’t depend on ethnic segregation. take the caste system of the Ethiopian Amhara people, for example;
The […] caste system consisted of: (1) endogamy, (2) hierarchical status, (3) restraints on commensality, (4) pollution concepts, (5) each caste has had a traditional occupation, and (6) inherited caste membership.
so there you go. didn’t mean to turn this into a whole arse essay but reading the alternian castes as a form of alien racial segregation not only lacks a whole lot of nuance but also just has a bunch of unfortunate implications. tune in next week
Hm. The “traditional, assigned roles” thing makes me feel way more confident in all the idea of the Castes all assigning some kind of Class behavior to its members, as well as the Aspect association. Interesting stuff, thank you!
Flying through Storytelling 