On Monday night, someone in the Judge Academy Discord server shared a racist alteration of a Magic: The Gathering card from the upcoming Secret Lair: Extra Life 2020 drop, Teferi's Protection. Last night, the Judge Academy has issued an official response to the offensive post on their website.
"Regrettably, a number of people engaged with this content positively before its problematic nature was pointed out," Nicolette Apraez wrote in a Judge Academy post. "We were made aware of the issue early this afternoon, at which point the original post had already been removed. Our admins removed additional shares or links with the artwork and then gathered to discuss what happened. Shortly thereafter, the poster apologized to the channel."
She went on to say that they've launched an investigation into this problem, and while they don't want to publicize the details of the offensive content shared, they wanted to clarify their stance on this issue: "Prejudiced remarks, "jokes", or insults based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation are ABSOLUTELY NOT WELCOME in the Judge Academy community, and instances of this on our platforms will be dealt with when they occur."
"Much like Unsporting Conduct at a tournament, someone taking inappropriate actions without intending malice or harm does not excuse harmful behavior," she added. "Judges who unintentionally create harmful or unwelcoming situations will be educated and warned, and are expected to show remorse for the hurt and damage caused. Even then, those instances will be documented and repeat occurrences will be treated more severely."
She also said that they will have to kick out those who "intend harm or do not show remorse once educated"
"While we are incredibly disappointed that this happened, we do want to thank the judges who stood up to point out the issue and bring it to our attention," she said. "Those individuals exemplified what it means to be a judge by first making a calm and firm statement that the action was unacceptable, and then educating those who did not understand the context so that they knew why it was unacceptable."
The card altered is from the Secret Lair: Extra Life 2020 product, the Teferi's Protection with brand new art featuring Teferi and his daughter Niambi.
While only one alteration was shared in the Judge Academy Discord, other offensive alterations of the new Teferi Protection card were distributed through various MTG forums (notably /freemagic and /magicthecirclejerking) as well as private Discord servers related to card alteration.
StarCityGames.com General Manager Ben Bleiweiss brought up the offensive nature of these posts on Twitter, saying, "Within the day, people began photoshopping Niambi into various previous MTG cards, featuring her being killed in various ways (crucifixion, put into an oven, blown up, and unfortunately more). This represents the most disgusting, repugnant elements of the MTG community."
These alterations are just disgusting, and hopefully the posts on Reddit and Discord servers will be taken down. While it's sad to see that someone in the Judge Academy server shared a racist alteration of a Magic card, I appreciate that the organization was able to issue a quick response to clarify their stance, and I hope that they take action against whoever is responsible for that.
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