A new wrinkle:
Game Designer Orion D. Black recently quit their job at WotC’s D&D department, and blasted the company on TwitLonger. Among other things, Black alleges that the department pays lip service towards diversity and change while exploiting BIPOC, especially Black freelancers, and silences and ignores criticism of systemic problems. They express they felt like a diversity hire in the most pejorative sense; only hired to be a token employee, not to actually have them express opinions, much less have those opinions impact company policy. They note,
Most people in that group were not ready for me to be there, a nonbinary Black person who would actually critique their problems. Idk what they expected.
In their tenure at WotC, Black was given “2 assignments in over 5 months,” and they had to seek out projects to work on. Black’s work was also stolen by someone in leadership, and the only acknowledgement was a second-hand apology for “‘[forgetting]’ that we had a meeting where I gave them my ideas, and then a follow up document the day after.”
Black sees the company statement as more lip-service, so that the company can continue “business as usual.”
Will they change?
I want to believe good things about D&D. I want them to live up to their 6-point plan, and actually fix the problems in their system, trying to make the world a better place. Black is with me on this, but cautions:
Trust actions, not words. Not “look at how much we freelance so and so”, because freelancing is exploitation of diversity with no support for the freelancer. Not “here we finally did what we KNOW we should’ve done a long time ago”, because they only care about how optics turn to dollars. EVERYTHING involving D&D will continue to farm marginalized people for the looks and never put them in leadership. They wont be put on staff. They will be held at arms length. I hope they prove me wrong.
I too am hoping they prove Black wrong. Only time will tell.
Comments? Questions? Thoughts?
