[honkycat]

Black creatures are "death" creatures, and are things like "Demonic Tutor", "Dark Ritual", "Rune-Scarred Demon"...

Demons and vampires and zombies and things like that.

The use of "Black" as a stand-in for nefarious things is its own problem, but it does not refer the the color of skin in any way in MTG.

[b0rsuk]

White is the color of death in (tribal) Africa, because people are afro-Africans and skeletons are caucasian-colored.

[tsherr]

I think this is more of black = Night and night=scary.

But it could be seen as tone deaf right now.

[honkycat]

as another commenter responded, that is not as universal as you would thing! :)

[hckr_news]

I don’t play Magic, my co-workers do. But seems a little pedantic? I suppose they’re trying to be more inclusive, maybe focus on outreach and getting the game out to other communities.

[honkycat]

I am willing to bet they just did not want to hear about these cards anymore, and this is as far as they can go since they do not have a magic lamp to wish them all a way.

The cards mentioned above are NOT good in play, they are only notable for their content.

Personally, I think the art for Imprison is gorgeous, but depicting violence against people of color is dehumanizing and problematic, so I understand and support the decision.