{"id":8432,"date":"2020-09-22T17:55:56","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T21:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/?p=8432"},"modified":"2021-04-20T16:06:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T20:06:33","slug":"can-a-font-be-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/originals\/can-a-font-be-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a Font Be Racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

Can a font really<\/em> be racist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, not exactly. Fonts are inanimate. They don\u2019t say, do, or believe anything\u2014they\u2019ve never even retweeted anything sketchy. But fonts can (and often do) have problematic origins. Maybe they were created by a designer with racist, anti-semitic, and\/or totalitarian leanings. Or maybe they were used (sometimes even created<\/em>) for propaganda purposes, or to stifle dissent in certain populations. Even in our current climate of heightened sensitivity, it is hard to imagine castigating a designer for espousing the values of whoever designed the fonts they choose. But maybe it\u2019s time to just stop using these fonts, anyway? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that one of the most prestigious type organizations<\/a> has folded amid allegations of racism, it\u2019s a good time to ask ourselves whether the fonts we rely on to convey messages also have some unsavory associations. As the Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s RZA<\/a> showed with his rewritten ice cream truck jingle\u2014the original song was a remnant of minstrel culture\u2014we can wash away the residue of racism, even when we didn\u2019t know the residue was there. \u201cReplace negativity with positivity,\u201d RZA recommends, and we agree. It\u2019s just a good practice. Here, we\u2019ll uncover some of the tainted pasts of some common fonts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fraktur<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Fraktur family of fonts\u2014often referred to by its style, blackletter\u2014has a complicated history that\u2019s stained by its association with the Nazi party. Blackletter was originally a script used across Europe from 1150 to the 17th century. In particular, Fraktur became the traditional and formal typeface of Germany leading into the Nazi period. At first, the Nazis were more than willing to carry on the tradition… until they learned that many blackletter fonts had Jewish origins. Hitler commanded the Nazis to adopt Antiqua<\/a> typefaces, first developed in the 15th century, as a replacement\u2014as well as the geometric sans-serif Futura<\/a>, for which he had a particular penchant. The great and tragic irony is that the typographer who designed Futura in 1927, Paul Renner, was arrested when Hitler shut down the Bauhaus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re looking for an alternative, think about using the medieval script Rotunda<\/a>. Sometimes it\u2019s considered a blackletter; other times, it\u2019s seen as its own thing. It\u2019s related to Carolingian minuscule, and was mostly used in Southern Europe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of the Cleveland Type Foundry<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mandarin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Henry Thorp, 1883 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally issued as \u201cChinese\u201d by a foundry in Cleveland, Mandarin was one of the first\u2014if not the <\/em>first\u2014\u201cwonton fonts\u201d produced in the United States. A wonton font is a Roman typeface offensively styled to evoke an Asian writing system. Beginning in the late 19th century, the creation of these appropriative typefaces came about as a result of new immigrant populations from Asian countries (China and Japan in particular) residing in the U.S. Unfortunately, they are still commonly and inappropriately used in various food-related contexts, including on restaurant awnings and grocery store packaging. Some other more recent examples include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n