With Playmobil History is Fun!

[Thagarr]

I never know quite what I am going to find when I go to look up news to post on the front page, last night was no exception. The first story that I ran across was an article over Washingtonpost.com with the title “Dark-skinned Playmobil pirate-ship doll wearing ‘slave collar’ ignites outrage” well of course I had to dig in to that one. It seems Playmobile has released a pirate set with a figure the article said represented a black former slave, and included a slave collar to wear around his neck. The woman in the article was incensed that Playmobile would tell her son to put a color around a black mans neck. You can read the full story HERE.

While I certainly do not advocate slavery in any form, either present or past, it is certainly a historical fact that needs to be kept visible and not buried under layers of political correctness until it is totally forgotten. During our modding of POTC, and more recently during our development of Hearts of Oak, the issue of slavery has come up many times. Slavery was very much a part of the Caribbean economy, right or wrong, and censoring it out completely just does not make any sense at all. As most of you are aware, a good number of former slaves found their freedom by joining the brotherhood of the coast. Forgetting history, or at least the parts of it that some people don't like seems to be an ever increasing trend throughout the world today.

There also seems to be a segment of society that believes that throughout history, only black people were slaves, nothing could be further from the truth! Slavery has been in existence as long as people have roamed the planet. Had this figure represented a white, or even yellow man, there would have never been an uproar. I won't get off on that subject at the moment though. The set has been out for about a year now, and this is really the first controversy I have seen about it.

All the reviews that I have seen are overwhelmingly positive, and the playset does what it is designed to do, spark children's imaginations! And it does that in a very big way. From the product description, here is a list of what is included in the set :

Set sail for high seas adventure with the Playmobil Pirates Ship! This ship features working cannons, a hidden compartment to store treasure and a crane that can be used for loading and unloading the goods. Float it on water, or upgrade it with the Playmobil Underwater Motor set (sold separately). An included magic coin can also be used on the Pirate Adventure Island play set (sold separately). Four figures and many other accessories are also included with this play set.

• Ship features working cannons, a hidden compartment to store treasure and a crane that can be used for loading and unloading the goods
  
• Can float on water or be upgraded with the Playmobil Underwater Motor set (sold separately)
  
• Included magic coin can be used on the Pirate Adventure Island play set (sold separately)
  
• Dimensions: 26.7"L x 8.8"W x 22"H
  
• Part of Playmobil’s Pirates theme, which also includes the Pirate Adventure Island, Pirates Commander with Armory, Pirates Rowboat with Shark, Cast Away on Palm Island, Soldiers Fort with Dungeon, Redcoat Battle Ship and Guard with Cannon play sets (all sold separately)

The set is designed to tie in with the rest of Playmobil's pirate line, and it seems to do that flawlessly. I ran across a Youtube review of the set by someone who is much more familiar than myself. According to his review. The black pirate has just been rescued after being held captive in the soldiers fort. I am not sure how accurate that is, but here is the review :

When taken in context with the rest of the set as mentioned in that review, that Washington Post article seems quite blown out of proportion to me. Looks like a heck of a lot of fun to me, I would have certainly loved to play with this thing when I was a kid! Heck, I am tempted to order me one now! By the way, if you happen to be in the US, the set is currently on sale at ToysRUs!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed pretending slavery never existed isn't politically correct as far as I'm concerned; more like criminally wrong.

While we deliberately never added the feature to PotC that basically allowed you to play as slaver yourself, you do get to rescue some slaves throughout done of the stories.

As for something to play with though: I like my LEGO.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes there has and is a movement to hide slavery. A school textbook is being reworded now because it called the slaves imported into North America workers instead of slaves.

Also, black slaves was a relatively recent thing. Slavery was popular especially in Southern Europe in Columbus's lifetime. When the Pope declared that Christians could no longer be kept as slaves a lot of people got upset. It seems the closest non Christians were the Muslims and they were pretty well armed, so that didn't work out too well. That left the blacks of Guinea as the only easy source of slaves.

 

[TCO 006]

Slavery was "popular" during Roman Empire too, and Greece. It happened quite often that people offered themselves to be slaves, so that their "master" pays their debts. They had that option, or pay their debts with their life - literally, it used to happen that money lender would ask for body part if you had no money or money lender would just come to you, chain you, and drag you to his basement and keep you there until your relatives pay your debt (that happened in early stages of Roman Kingdom). Later on, slavery was booming, especially as Romans conquered new territories, and it became profitable business. And most of slaves weren't black - anybody could be slave - and every captured enemy would become slave. Also as Romans didn't care about color of your skin there were black people who were rich and were considered citizens of Roman Empire, with every benefit and obligation that goes with it.
And that's it, a bit of history I was taught on university while I studied Roman law

 

[Thagarr]

Yup, there is a whole lot more history that I didn't even touch on in the article, specifically, the Christians slaves that were forcibly converted to Islam by the Barbary pirates. Although there are other factions that wish to change that history as well.

Thanks in large part to the US media propaganda complex though, most people couldn't care less about history.