u/KyleMCarthage

This may sound like a stupid question to ask because racism and other forms of bigotry at its core is fundamentally illogical and so trying to conceptualize irrationality seems like a moot point, but at the same time, given that racism is somewhat important to the narrative of RWBY to warrant a plotline about it, I think it's worth asking.

Now I'm not asking for a whole history lesson on it (though world of remnant would have been the ideal place for it) nor does a story need to deeply explain its racism to explain why it's bad (i.e. static shock's sins of the father and Teen Titan's Troq) to get its point across, but to know the why in how such discrimination occurs does help when trying to write a narrative where one of your central main characters is trying to make a world not racist against her people as otherwise you just have people preaching to the choir to not be a dick.

Cause from what we see in the show, Faunus racism comes down them being treated as lesser than human via overt discrimination, instances of them barring Faunus in some establishments, slave labor that seems to have also evolved into unsafe labor that's taken on by Faunus, and having them live on an island far removed from the main kingdoms to the point where Faunus have to hide their identities or join up with the white fang which then promotes another level of anti-Faunus sentiment. However, none of these forms of discrimination makes sense because they're drawing from discrimination of different groups which muddles the question of how their racism actually works.

Note: the examples I'm providing are American with an American perspective. I recognize that racism comes in all shapes and sizes and differs throughout the world. However, as an American, these are what I'm familiar so I apologize if I don't know of examples beyond of what I learned in my education system. That said, given that the defunct RT was an American company and Miles and Kerry are also Americans, I feel it's worth using as these examples in history likely influenced how they wrote the Faunus racism.

• The slave labor turned low waged workers is reminiscent of African Americans who historically were enslaved and traded across the trans Atlantic. Then when they freed, they were still historically in poorer conditions and faced discrimination until the Civil rights movement that demanded equality in the eyes of the law in things like voting, but that doesn't mean that racism is gone as society is still structured that way. This is likely the main inspiration given the Faunus also had a civil rights movement and how there was also a Great war of 2 opposing sides.
• The hiding of traits to conceal their identities is very reminiscent of Jewish antisemitism where the cultural identities of these people had to be hidden in order to avoid direct confrontation with opposing viewpoints, but also has elements of McCarthyism on the side of the humans who may suspect people of being Faunus
• The forced migration of these groups to a more favored environment is reminiscent of Native American tribes who were forced off their lands by colonizers onto reservations given that the only recognized Faunus land is Menagerie, though it could also be a read into the housing of Blacks into impoverish neighborhoods
• The White Fang's actions breeding anti Faunus sentiment is reminiscent of anti Muslim sentiment following 9/11 as an act of terrorism.

Sure the end result is "I don't like this other group cause it ain't me and so I'm gonna be a bigot to them" hence the discrimination, but it misses out the nuance that racism is different between different groups and ultimately is kinda racist in of itself to assume that bigotry is the same just because the outward expression of it is the same.

I'd also like to note that this isn't even scratching the surface of how racism is actually a class issue where how it's used to propagate incorrect assumptions of racial superiority amongst other problems, but that makes a simple question of how it works too long.