Jacques talks about Faunus complaining about lack of pain in Volume 4 among other things. And Qrow was raised by a bloody bandit tribe, where the fuck would he get a inheritance from?
Pretty much every Huntsman or their family that we've seen who weren't dead or deadbeat look to be upper middle class at worst, with the sole exception of some of the people from Vacuo which is the poorest and shittiest of the Four Kingdoms. And economics are not the focus of the show so I don't see why you're so obsessed with it. Nobody is going to spend an entire episode talking about varying income levels because its a freaking fantasy series focused on fighting monsters, robots and kung fu wizards. The fact that it doesn't focus on the economics doesn't make it unrealistic.
By the fact that a ton of Huntsman students are Faunus. Again why would there be discussion on that? Blake is the only really major character who is both a Faunus and a Huntsman student and as a former White Fang member and the daughter of its leader her reason for joining was about progressing the cause of Faunus equality as a whole rather than getting more cash for herself. Again a show not focusing on what you want it to focus on is not the same as it being unrealistic. Or should we start complaining about shows being unrealistic because there's never any discussion about sanitation and sewage? Why do we never see anyone going to the toilet in most shows? Totally unrealistic.
We weren't shown a lot of things in early volumes, primarily because of the extremely limited screen-time that comes part and parcel with having a limited budget and a small animation team. There has been much more focus on what kind of things the Faunus have suffered from in Volume 4 and Volume 5 and will likely get more of a spotlight going forward. Especially since they're going to Atlas now which seems to be the worst Kingdom and since Adam has been kicked out of the White Fang which will likely mean that Blake's struggles for equality will now shift more towards dealing with the racism that caused the White Fang to rise in the first place.
Mook, your defense is to list things that are shown or discussed
four years into the real world release of the media.
Furthermore we are talking about "how would you show racism." The conflict with the White Fang has been important to the series since the first Volume. (Or before that with the Black trailer, depending on your point of view.) These are things that should have been included from the beginning. Things like, as Tada suggested, having a "No Faunus Allowed" sign on a business as the cast walks around Vale.
On the economics thing, who said it would be the focus? When did I ever say "hey, let's drop everything and move the show to talking about the economics of racism" ? These are things that can and should be included in the world building. Something for the people working on the show to keep in mind so they can tell a consistent narrative. So, just for example, when the cast are walking around Vale there should be crowds. (Or at least other people in the background.) In the wealthier portions of Vale the crowds should be mostly Human. In the poorer sections of town, like the docks, there should be more Faunus.
And if you want to use the argument that RT didn't have the funds for large crowds we know they had funds to create the grey background silhouettes that we see in the beginning of Volume 1. All it would take would be adding ears (something which can be interpreted as dog- or cat- or fox- ears) or a generic tail to a few of those silhouettes.
On the Faunus drive to be Hunters, how hard would it be to have a side conversation early about why people are Hunters? (Or at least how they made their way to Beacon.) Picture this - assume there are more Faunus shown in Volume 1 than just Blake and Velvet. Furthermore let's assume that Team RWBY gets into a conversation with a Faunus from another Team. Yang is proud that her sister got into Beacon early, Ruby is embarrassed, and so on. The discussion of which school people attended before Beacon comes up because Yang and Ruby don't recognize the new Faunus character I'm proposing. Cue them explaining that they went to high school in the poorer part of town. Not a Hunter prep school like Signal, a regular high school. From there Weiss, Ruby and Yang can be surprised - but Blake points out she didn't go to a Hunter prep school either. She was raised outside the Kingdoms where "If you can't fight you don't survive." Then Ruby asks why they wanted to become Hunters and, wait for it, the new Faunus replies that they wants to help provide for their family. They has enough aura to have a shot at being a Hunter! Just one job would pay more than their parents make in a month!
For bonus points they could be wearing a much simpler outfit than Team RWBY. Just a shirt and jeans with some combat boots. For a weapon they'd have something that Ruby would consider very basic. No transforming parts, no fancy built in gun. Just a melee weapon or a single gun. Nothing too excessive but something to show the economic inequalities. A way to
show not tell that this is someone who doesn't have a lot of money to spend. And in a perfect world it would be subtle enough that the people watching it wouldn't immediately notice it. (Meaning no obvious stains, tears, or holes.)
If RT's budget is a concern again there are two options. The first is to have this new Faunus be a background character they use to help fill in the "blank spaces" in some scenes. They can be sitting in Dr. Oobleck's history class, cheering on Weiss in Portman's class, studying in the library while Team RWBY is playing their board game (hey, maybe that Faunus is the one who yells "Thank you!" when the board game playing is mentioned as distracting others.) The second option is to have the Faunus be Velvet. They had already built the model for her early in the series. All you'd need to do would be to give her some generic civilian clothes though I would recommend removing the bit about the very basic weapon.
