It's the subtlety of the unconscious racism in that gets you. I'm running an OSR-style game for the kids and to keep things lively for me I am a big fan of the Random Encounter Tables (RET). Whenever the kids aren't in an adventure area with a RET I pull out the big honkin' RET in the 1E DMG (or the Fiend Folio when they are in the dimensionally warped Lost Lands). The geography of the setting is the Caribbean, because I like the island hopping potential.
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So those giant honkin' RET have charts for Temperate and Sub-Tropical Inhabited and Patrolled, Temperate and Sub-Tropical Uninhabited/Wilderness, And Tropical or Sub-tropical Uninhabited/Wilderness.
But no Tropical or Sub-tropical Inhabited and Patrolled.
Apparently the idea of there being meanigfully inhabited areas outside of temperate zones didn't occur.
Now mind you, the map I just saw attempting to define subtropical included the United States South. So there you go.
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Brian Rogers