Thread by @woot_master

Hot take:

The real reason other zebras never appeared in My Little Pony is because Hasbro was so terrified of offending people they literally shot down any attempt to further explore them as a species.

The problem is they couldn't take back the original faux pas, Zecora.

You see in its early seasons MLP had a few racial stereotypes that don't really survive scrutiny today. The show has been on for almost a decade! 2010-2012 was a really different time.

Remember these?

Thats not to say that you can't do positive things with stereotypes (Bridle Gossip is an excellent example), but as the years went by it became clear the writers had no interest in further drawing from that well.

And as the years went by attitudes towards stereotypes changed.

So as a neoliberal megacorp with neoliberal writers, you have two choices:

Further explore the concepts of racial discrimination introduced in Bridle Gossip

or

Ignore those themes completely and invent new "safer" races to explore.

The show went with option two. Zebras and buffalo were ignored, as the racial connotations were to obviously and messy.

Enter yaks, griffons, changelings and dragons. No immediately obvious racial parallels outside of safe ones (YAK TALK LIKE THIS, VAGUELY MONGOLIAN???)

But unfortunately Zecora was at this point somewhat of a major character and couldn't be so easily ignored. It would seem weird that they never explored zebras even though they explored griffons, yaks, dragons and changelings.

But that's exactly what happened.

Nopony in the show ever brought up how weird it was that apparently Zecora is the only one of her kind they've ever seen. They treat her isolated existence as totally normal, even though it makes no sense. Its never questioned because the writers CAN'T question it.

No other character ever asks the simple question:

"Hey...where are the other zebras?"

For the racial sanitization hat trick to work Zecora's lonesome existence can never be questioned. Zecora herself isn't even allowed to show any feelings about it, happy or sad.

Hasbro, too cowardly to address the obvious racial connotations of zebras in a post-Trump political climate, performed what is essentially an unspoken ethnic cleansing of all other zebras besides Zecora.

Thus when Hasbro DID actually come around to addressing the idea of racial discrimination in S8-S9 it rang...sorta hollow?

The nuanced themes of Bridle Gossip were replaced with a cartoonish caricature (Professor Neighsay) and hamfisted liberal ideals (RACISM BAD)

Zecora became a token minority character happy and unquestioning of her lot in life, trotted out every now and then as a plot device. The meaningful character interactions were reserved for other safer concept characters, like the Student Six.

Its really indicative of how many "woke" liberals interact with minorities. They try so hard to not be racist that they end up being even more racist.

Its a quaint sort of thinking that seems dated when compared to more ACTUALLY progressive shows like Steven Universe or She-ra.

In conclusion, woke liberal cowardice killed off zebras ever being explored again in the show and I will die mad about it.

Corporations, despite their attempts at pandering, are not your friends and don't give a crap about minorities whatsoever.