Houston Chronicle: Video Game Racism “The New Norm”?

Hell lotta good this unity of America has done when we have the highest rape, violence, crime & murder rate per-capita in the world. Now we're facing the most enormous national debt that we've ever had, our economy is on the verge of collapse, we have a looming pandemic of 1 million cases of swine flu, two countries with possible nuclear capabilities want us to die and are unwilling to negotiate and nobody knows what to do about any of it.

Word of advice kids, don't steep a superiority complex about a topic you know nothing about, it makes you look like a fool. The War of Northern Aggression was a conflict that wasn't so "black & white" as they make it seem in our brain-washing school books, it was literally brother verses brother. Try walking the fields of Gettysburg if you think you know everything about the so-called "Civil War".

AlucardsQuest

@Kynes: While you may have gotten me on points, I've still taken relatively weak positions the full 12 rounds of the bout.

@GoonerVance:
I couldn't agree with this more. I'm terribly confused how people seem convinced that anything represented in any form of media is necessarily "promoting" or "glorifying". Worse yet as you mention are the people who suffer from the amazingly dissonant concepts that somehow video games and other forms of media are different in that regard. The fact that one is more interactive does not change the way the creators are framing the subject(s), and I would argue that video game developers are as aware if not more so about the impact their images and subjects matters have than similar large scale forms of media.

@Kynes: How could we all get along without you telling us that Obama is better than Bush and we should take all terrorist threats seriously, your next thread will be about how the PS3 is more powerful than the Super Nintendo. I'm discussing nuance, you're stating the obvious. I would tell someone "Oh the color of that shirt makes your eyes stand out", you would say "Your shirt is blue". I objected to "speaking abilities" which could range from eloquence to small talk. I didn't imply what imbiquitous said was wrong, I gave my opinion. If you want to get into a discussion about what are more valuable speaking abilities, eloquence or the ability to small talk, I would merely direct your focus to the 2008 election where Sarah Palin nearly gave the Republicans enough momentum to beat Obama, a man who is far more eloquent than she is.

@okeedokee:
wwf has a panda as a logo...

@frank0127: have you even google searched wwf?

@GoonerVance:
I was by no means confusing intelligence with fluency. The fact that George Bush Jr. was likable and had a "down home" affect does not make him more fluent or eloquent. I haven't really tried to bring up comparisons between Bush and Obama; I said that your defense of Bush's speaking abilities was as laughable as your comments made yesterday in a different thread. I think Bush's lack of eloquence stands on it's own and ubiquitous' comment is funny and apt because of it.

I'm not sure what kind of context you'd like me to give. Should I link to the other post, or to the specific comments you made? I don't think that would really help your cause, but if you'd like to go get the links I would welcome it.

@Slatz_Grobnik: I mean we can play as the Germans and the Japanese in WWII games. I don't think it is insensitive at all to play as a Confederate, especially considering as someone posted above the only reason you would even know they are Confederate soldiers is that they wear a gray uniform for a level or two. (I have yet to play this game.) I think this is a non issue completely, I really would like to hear someone's argument supporting the blogger, because obviously I "just don't get it."

@Kynes: By the way I love how you just accuse people of things without including the context.

@Kynes: Fluent isn't the same as intelligent. You can be a smooth talker and say nothing of substance. that's what Bush was, the old "guy you want to have a beer with". You haven't heard Obama stutter around with the "um" every other word? If he isn't reading a speech he isn't the best speaker. That being said I did vote for Obama and I never voted for Bush.

@Jak -'I can sell a bottle-cap like dis:

Yeah, I knew I wasn't kidding myself when thinking Suds is just in Final Fantasy 13 for comedic purposes. People who don't recognize these forms of stereotypes are just flat out ignorant.

@ubiquitous: Wow, that sure sounds impressive, but your solution of letting him "stew in his own idiocy" doesn't exactly ignite a fire under my rear. You're basically saying, "Let's leave him alone." Yeah, that's exactly what I want to do...

@okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under): I find it odd that you start your statement with "I clearly don't agree..." when we clearly have no prior information that allows us to infer that.

@Slatz_Grobnik: I don't understand why there's values dissonance in assuming the role of a Confederate soldier, but there's no moral conflict in playing a hitman (Hitman), a misogynist (Duke Nukem et al.), or someone who could be rightly classified as a serial killer (GTA series)?

The argument presented is one for neutering any kind of creative art. The same logic could be applied to any kind of game, movie, or book with some sort of anti-hero because some aspects of the character may not be ideal. And really, just because someone is a Confederate soldier doesn't make them an automatically vile person, and people would be right to remember that before passing judgment on someone.

@superdance14: Well, that depends. Could you write the zombies a letter explaining to them that you think their behavior is deplorable and that they should stop eating brains and turn their "lives" around?

Only a "zombist" Republican would actually shoot them without giving them a real chance.

If you seek racism you will find it. Often people who seek it end up finding it by creating it themselves. I'm not really sure why people like the author go to such lengths and make such assumptions to find it.

The Civil War wasn't fought solely based on slavery and not every Confederate had slaves nor supported slavery.

I could understand him taking offense if the COJ asked him to play as a Nazi, or went out of it's way to make racist remarks or statements, but in this case he is being overly sensitive.

I'm black. I played RE5. I didn't think it was racist. Hell, the chick was black and so was the badass soldier fella.

People are too sensitive.

CALL OF JUAREZ? So they're confederates. Everyone who lived in the South wasn't a racist. Unless the characters use slurs, I'm sure I can let it go.

Now this guy lives in Houston and as I understand Texas is kind of like its' own planet when it comes to cultural issues so maybe he's a little tender about these sorts of things.

GalinaPotts

@GoonerVance:
Yesterday you suggested that we shouldn't take threats of terrorism too seriously. Today you're suggesting that the most recent President Bush was a fluent speaker.

If you've got any more whoppers to drop on this site I would love to read them because this is fascinating.

@kirby822: Yeah I did miss that part. I did a terrible skimming job. My mistake. My second paragraph still stands though.

IvanDashSmith

Resident Evil 5 is racist, but every single other game where you only kill white people is A-OK?

Personally, I'd just be happy a game was set in Africa, which is a pretty unique choice. Also, I am pretty sure zombification eliminates racial motives when it comes to killing people. If you are the walking dead and hunger for my brains I am breaking out the shotgun and the molotovs well before I check you skin color against some chart.

"A book is like a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out." -- G.C. Lichtentberg

WWF? whats vince mcman gonna do about it?

okeedokee

how dare you mention katrina as a racist attack. or imply that the fact they didn't get help was a racist action.

were you affected by the hurricane? did you lose you house, your job, EVERYTHING YOU HAVE? i bet not but i did and i sucked it up, moved and rebuilt.... in under 6 months.

why haven't others done the same that still live in new orleans? because they don't want to help themselves and if you think differently than fuck you.

Leland Redmond

@QualityJeverage: If there's anything to complain about, it would be that the game too easily straddles the line of political correctness. If you make a game based in the Civil War, why avoid the issues of the day. Gamers should be evolved enough to realize they are playing through an experience, not that the developer is trying to suggest the characters are good people/bad people. Like in Grand Theft Auto, Nico does some "disturbing" things, but the developer isn't saying what he's doing is right. You're merely playing through an experience. I think it's actually a testament to how racially sensitive many in the video game community are. They put killing and drug running in a game and no one thinks twice about it, but when there's a possible racial component involved most developers try to avoid it. Or maybe that's an example of how we've been desensitized to having violence in all our forms of entertainment...meh, time to play some Gears.

@ubiquitous: Actually I would say our last Presidents ability to speak was probably more consistently fluent than Obama's is now. It's just with Obama, what comes out is more thought out.

@dry-roasted-peanuts: I dont think the whites hated balcks as much as they were trying to exploit free labor and if you have no pretense to something being wrong then evil does not show up in the equation. Blacks in teh past were looked on no differently then farm animals. People who still use horses or oxen on a farm are not evil and to those in the past this is how they viewed it. As horrible of a viewpoint as it is was, it wasnt evil as mcuh as it was just ignorance taught to them by there parents.

okeedokee

@bluetom00: Thee were a lot of reasons other than racism that the war was fought. And as far as all you guys hopping on the band wagon of Lincoln is concerned he said several times throughout the war that if he could win the war without freeing the slaves he would. Lincoln wanted to keep the Country together he didnt give a shit about the slaves either way. All the peole here that are trying to say the civil war was fought over slavery are ignorant at best and a liar at worst. THere were plenty of confederate soldiers and there families that opposed slavery. There was the whole thing about state rights and tax laws that were also involved in the issue. And in fact if you do some research youll find those were the thigns that the north and south were more concerned with not slavery. The real problem is teachers in schools now days are so worried about being PC that they bend the truth about the war to keep the PTA happy. Slavery was an awful thing but its over, there is no one alive who was a slave or slave owner. Is racism still alive and strong yes but stereotyping works both ways. For instince how come the head of all crime families in games are whilte,its not like all weathly white folks go out and start running crime families. Although in history most of the major crime families that have been taken down were headed by white folks. The problem is we as a society try to sugar coat everything. Or worse pretend it never happened. If there were slaves in this that be wrong , if the main character ever said something racist that would also be wrong, what isnt wrong is portraying a losing side to a war that actually happened. The connection to racsim is being made by thoughs who are ignorant to the facts of Americas history not by those who made the game. It would do a lot of folks in here good to go and read a book about the war b4 commenting.

okeedokee

@Ignited_Impulse: lol

@All: Just to add my .02 and what I've been taught in high school. The civil war wasn't fought because of slavery. The grounds for war was because the South wanted to secede from the rest of the nation. Kind of how now, retards in my home state of Texas, would like to secede from the U.S. and become its own country with Chuck Norris as president.

@CommittedToExcellence: This is how I feel about it.

Slavery is on so many levels wrong.

Nonetheless, if we hadn't had slavery, Black people, specifically, would not even be here. In a way, they might be grateful they are where they are today instead of lingering on what happened in the past and what they had no control over.

If their own people hadn't been selling their forefathers to us, they wouldn't have been here and, as most Africans, would still be in Africa since it isn't the easiest thing to pick up and go to America from where slaves were originally coming from; even today.

@dry-roasted-peanuts: Need a friend there buddy lol

okeedokee

@Solidusian Fury: Eh. Once before. Terra in VI. I'm glad that they're bringing another female protagonist to the front.

Andrew Testerman

This is not racist. Golden Axe is racist.

RosaliaZinnikas

I played German campaigns in some Second World War games and I don't feel bad about it. Mind you, me and my family are part of a nation that suffered the most during that war, and my great-grandparents nearly starved to death in early 1940s.

I don't see a problem in playing a game as some former enemy or whatnot, as I want to see an understand the conflicts from both sides.

@okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under): Yeah, but he's defintiely reading too far into it. Of course the main reason of succession was wrong, but that is definitely not what the game was about.

I wonder if he doesn't like the fact that in CoD4 you play both good and bad sides. WOuldn't be much of a game if there were just the "good guys".

"Let's do this Marines!"

*everyone starts running to other side of map*
Radio: "Where the heck is everyone?"

*Match ends*
"Good job men."

@SacGamer: It cuts both ways. The people get want the people want and the people want what the people get.

dd528

@MattB: Firstly I would say that most art comes bundled with a whole load of controversy. If artists shied away at the first complaint, the world would be a much less interesting place.

Also, I think that there is a lot of scope within games for tackling difficult subjects, even where that means the player plays someone with whom they struggle to empathise. Indeed, that tension between the mindset of player and character is a valuable artistic tool in itself, if utilised in an intelligent fashion.

dd528

@b33eazy: No war has just one cause.

dd528

@mayfaire: I think The Won's point is that New York's tragedy is, for whatever reason, considered too precious for game developers to include it in their games in any sense, whereas basing an entertainment experience on the tragedy in New Orleans seems to be fair game. I think that's a pretty big leap to make from a sample size of one game though.

I do think TheWon is right in that there shouldn't be any topics that are off limits to games. Obviously if someone is sinking millions of dollars into developing a game then they are not going to be prepared to take big risks in terms of sensitive content, but I do get frustrated that within the indie game movement there are not more developers striving to explore complex and difficult social and political issues. I'm sure it will come in time though.

dd528

Here's the idea I'm wondering: If a Caucasian person is put in a situation where they are faced with hostile infected people including some African-Americans, will they not try to defend themselves?

You can argue racism all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that both games had a tone of survival. If you didn't kill these people, they would kill you.

superdance14

@jayislost: I beat it last night myself, and while I did think it was a little strange to be put on the confederate side at the beginning of the game; you soon find out that the ideologies of the heroes themselves aren't consistent with that of the confederacy. The only overtly racist part of the game is the antagonist, who, as you can probably guess, is portrayed as a pretty bad guy anyway.

NeoStarr HD

@Comban will Ban you.: This is brilliant.

dd528

@CommittedToExcellence: Did I say racism was gone? No. I said people screaming that something is racist when in context it is not is one of the reasons why it is still around.

Because what does something like that accomplish other than make people angry? I don't want to baby minorities and think that will somehow work, because it doesn't.

@RicoTheSaboteur: That doesn't mean it's not a problem worth tackling. I think part of the problem is that even games where you play from the point of view of a British or American soldier in the war all generally pretty low-concept. Maybe when war games begin to transcend pure shooting and actually begin to explore some of the emotional and intellectual issues surrounding conflict we'll be in a position where empathetic treatments of of the experience of soldiers in the Nazi army can be developed. Hopefully that will be sooner, rather than later.

dd528

Running with the film thing, there is a precedent for this in westerns. Look at "The Searchers", considered by many to be one of the best films ever made. John Wayne plays a former Confederate soldier, and is the hero of the film. Being a Confederate did not make you a racist, and the war was not about slavery. The Civil War was an important part of American history, and there are many good stories to be told on both sides of the battlefield.

skarecrow13

@supo: Still, some unfounded stereotypes are more damaging than others. Historical context is an important factor. But I haven't played Resident Evil 5, so I can't comment on that specific example.

dd528

@(zombie) buddhathing: Whilst I am sure there are problems with institutional racism in Louisiana, I think that the slow response to Katrina was more to do with the fact the the majority of the people left in New Orleans were poor, rather than that they were black.

dd528

@jayislost: This is a very good comment.

dd528

@ShadowOdin isn't american:

I had a long reply killed off by clicking outside the box, so here's the abridged version:

1. Racism didn't magically disappear at any point in the last 40-60 years.

2. The people who point out racism now are more often labeled as racist, troublemakers, nitpickers, or otherwise maligned because of the belief that we live in a post racial society.

3. That belief is a fallacy, we still have rampant and egregious miscarriages of justice, a lack of true equality, and there will continue to be these disparate conditions for minorities as long as we allow people to shout down everyone who speaks about racism.

All that said, this columnist is an idiot, but there's altogether too much of this lingering idea that racism just up and left after the Civil Rights Movement, the second party after Affirmative Action acts/laws, and the stragglers after President Obama was elected. It's just simply not the case.

CommittedToExcellence

@kirby822: So he's one of the black people that make sure we have racism by making it an issue.

He wasn't even IN the civil war, and the confederates lost. So no matter how the game plays out, he'll still be safe.

And instead of feeling sad over how his ancestors were slaves, he should worry more about the slaves that exists today and are several times more than the meager amount of slaves kept in the U.S.

@jayislost: I finished the game and dont recall any racist moments... it seems this guy just hates the idea of playing as a confederate...

the game is fine, it is the blogger who has issues.

good game tho, kinda short (think i finished it in 6 and a half hours)... it lacks co-op which is silly since for almost the entire game you have a choice of which character to play as, and they follow you around..

worth a rent

@dry-roasted-peanuts: There are not that many games where you play a Nazi, a Viet-cong, a republican guard or a red coat... a shame that shows the immaturity of the medium OR something that underlines it's specificity? Writing a book from the point of view of a Nazi is one thing, having you play one is another... not a simple problem.

@IvanDashSmith: White Guilt? Did you miss the part in his article where he said, "As a minority, had the South won, I wouldn't be in this position I am today."

kirby822

@(zombie) buddhathing: I don't think his comment was directed at you. I think it was just a general sarcastic comment.

@dry-roasted-peanuts: Actually, we still hate freedom. That's why we have the Tower of London; we keep foreigners there.
@bluetom00:: Maybe it's not "unrealistic" to say "every single person who fought for the Confederacy was a racist", but it is oversimplifying and gives the wrong impression, seeing as what you've essentially said is that the confederates were products of their time, that almost everyone thought that way back then. So, for someone to use "confederates were racists" as an argument for why they're bad is completely unfair.

Saying that the US might not have developed the way it has (abolition of slavery, work towards racial equality) if the condfederates had won, which to most people's view would be a bad thing, is fair.

It's very easy to look back at older cultures and conflicts and judge them from our cozy computer desks. It's also entirely unfair. History is about people, not ideas or numbers.

What can be said here, people see racism where they want to.

This guy obviously has problems if he's seeing racism in Left 4 Dead 2 where there were a few black zombies, outweighed by the white zombies.

That's where they'll aim next. That there aren't enough black zombies. Black people have just as much right to be infected with a cannibalism inducing virus as white people do.

@jayislost:

I think confederates = racism. They fought to keep enslaved humans enslaved.

I dont know about you, but I wiped out the slavers in Fallout 3. heh

badSamurai

Well, sorta have to agree. I mean as far as playing as confederates.

although I wont be buying Call of Juarez for sure now. Not that I think the game is racist. just that I really dont want to play as part of the hill billy brigade that tried to tear America part over free labor and entitlement.

That said I understand that my argument doesn't necessarily have legs. Being that its more based on my own bias against the confederates, and any idiot who puts that flag on their car (you know they did lose right, its like wearing a cubs jersey). I just think of them as immoral, and I can't tolerate sympathy towards them.

badSamurai

@FISSIONMAILEDGF: TheWon isn't saying Left 4 Dead 2 is racist, s/he is saying it is (or could be) offensive to people with ties to New Orleans, specifically about hurricane Katrina.

@TheWon: However... I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying developers think it's okay to offend certain people (i.e. folks from New Orleans) but not others (i.e. folks from New York)? I'm not sure that really stands up. It seems more likely that, y'know, 9/11 caused mass panic and paranoia, which spread internationally. Governments, particularly the American government (it seems, anyway) are still incredibly paranoid about it. It wouldn't surprise me if developers were told "no plane crashes, plz".

Granted, it seems like a double-standard, but I'm not sure if you're arguing the hypocrisy or that we shouldn't offend anybody ever. Does that mean any location that's had a disaster in it within at least the last four years is a no go for video games?

They have, look at the comments on the first article he posted and the newer article of it on the their front page. People have go into great detail against this guy. The writer and his buddies all reply with sidestepping issue etc.

QuanikaFearbot

http://blogs.chron.com/gamehacks That is the main part of their page, might want to check on the comments on the part of this "article" the guy (Madzskills, something like that) who wrote this thing is kinda going crazy paranoia. Heck look as his buddy that wrote the new thing, he basically pulling the whole "Why won't anybody think of the children" crap.

Their both trying to divert the issue they brought up into different thing. I love the part where he freaks with "You will respect me!" Sorry dude, I can't respect people like you..

PrimoAlexiares

Oh K'mon, wasn't RE4 based in some obscure place in spain and the coin was the oldskool peseta? Did any of my fellow spaniard men complain about it? No we just got the game and played it.

Much worse was losing 2-0 to USA in soccer, in the confecup... That's what we have to worry about!

ShyamalimaGaloof

Someone needs to tell this guy what playing a *character* means.

Hint: it means you motivation and opinion differs. So don't be a goddamn BIGOT and refuse to play out the opposing viewpoints *for fun that it is*.

@Jak -'I can sell a bottle-cap like dis: Perhaps, but I would note that Final Fantasy has had a female protaganists before. Lightning isn't anything new, shes just cool because well, lightning is cool.

Solidusian Fury

Wars may sometimes have a villain or a hero, but both sides will have heroic men (and women) giving their lives to the cause.

We should honour those who gave their lives for their country regardless of the ultimate intentions of their leaders.

mcderek3000

@Hey_Blinkon:

I think it's interesting that they automatically tag racist on it from 2 minutes of intro upon learning they're confederate. They forget that not everyone who fought for the confederacy were racist bastards, as far as many of them were concerned, war was coming and you had to be on one side or another. The fact that both Ray and Thomas deserted the Confederacy for the sake of family proved they were there to protect their family, not out of care for the South's goals in the war. From there on they're just plain outlaws.

Considering the time and a lot of dealings with Native Americans, they weren't racist at all. About the worst offense was the use of the word "injun" which is par for the course on westerns.

@dry-roasted-peanuts: I met someone online who thought the Confederates should have won. In response, I said "that would have been akin to the Nazis winning WWII." They said it was the most offensive thing they've ever read that I said that. I don't see how so. Even if there were other reasons for the civil war, the fact is the Confederacy defended slavery. No truly good person would ever defend slavery. While it is true to say not all Confederate soldiers were evil, how could anyone defend the likes of people that would make it illegal to teach people how to even read and write? Anyone who supported slavery was a moral degenerate, and that includes "great" historical figures from before and during the civil war. There is no excuse to defending slavery, period, and that makes the Confederates the bad guys, even if there were other reasons. That is not to say every Confederate soldier was, but it does mean the government itself was vile and thank goodness it no longer exists.

Zunnoab

@(zombie) buddhathing: The federal response was slowed down with slow cooperation by our idiotic governor. She waited too long before responding to what areas needed immediate help while she pondered the outcome of embracing help from Bush. It's despicable and she is very disliked here.

outlawauron

Pure Paranoia for Racism. What a dick.

I have posted this on GamePolitics, my facebook, and at www.sfx-360.com:

The "journalist" that wrote this article is racist against everybody who isn't black apparently. He sees no problem killing countless Japanese in CODWAW, or Germans in Medal of Honor, and Middle-Eastern Muslims in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. I'm pretty sure that if it was in an African-Muslim nation he would bitch about it and yet he wants developers to give gamers the option to choose their side?! You and others like you would condemn a game that give people a choice to gas Jews or save them.

He calls Left 4 Dead 2 racist because there are black zombies in the game. Well, where are the feminist groups complaining that there are female zombies? Oh yeah, most people aren't as stupid as this "journalist." Not to mention that 67% of New Orleans is made up of black citizens. They are not a minority there.

He calls Call of Juarez racist. Is a film racist when it realistically portrays what happened during the Civil War? Does this "journalist" think that Danny Glover really beat Whoopi Goldberg when he watched the Color Purple? Does he think that Edward Norton really was a skin head? They portrayed people who were terrible to the black men, doesn't that make them racist in this man's eyes? I mean, what fictional world does this "journalist" live in?

What hasn't been said about Resident Evil 5? You go to Africa and guess what!? There are Africans that you must kill in order to survive. Remember, just because you are a minority here, you are not a minority elsewhere.

Oh and forgetting and avoiding your history means that you refuse to learn from your mistakes and that is a dangerous way of thinking. If you try to forget the past, you are doomed to repeat it.

One more thing, play the game before you condemn it. It sounds like you didn't get far in Call of Juarez due to your own ignorance. If you did, then you would know that the character leaves the Confederacy early on in the game and you kill the people that are sent after you for leaving.

Integrity is something that is supposed to be a cabiot of Journalism, apparently The Houston Chronicle disagrees.

@afrosheen: Wait a second, read what I wrote? Where did I say that RE5 is racist, exactly? Hmm?

(zombie) buddhathing

The problem is this guy doesn't know his history at all. He doesn't know the first thing about the civil war, for one.

People are looking to draw a connection to racism. Surprise! Those people are the actual racists, they see difference in any form and they automatically shout "racism!", whereas everyone else just goes on and barely pays any mind to them or whatever they're shouting at.

TheCodexx

Honestly, this is why a lot of people who live in and around Houston don't really read the Chronicle. We're all for the violence and dark side of human nature with No Country For Old Men, but when someone starts to get racist-- ooh, don't push the big red button or someone might get hurt!

Eh, I just think that at the point in which we accept such a large measure of violence in the media that "racist" entertainment wouldn't really bother us anymore. However, this is not to say that I want to see racist games for the sake of Freedom of Speech. What I am saying is that Resident Evil is one thing and Bubba's KKK Rally is something completely different (not that BKKKR is a real game, mind you).

The point is that we shouldn't be so focused on picking out the details like this when the game is meant to be fun. If the game's fun and attracts people, then it will sell. This is what developers want: money in exchange for their work. This may be different for the making of movie tie-ins for a quick buck, but the general rule is that these developers are trying their hardest to appeal to you, not to turn you away.

Nanaue

Want proof of video game culture being racist? Play X-Box live with your headset on.

krushjudgement

One thing I've always wondered about when it comes to things like this is why is it racism just because it happens to involve black people?

Is Call of Juarez racist to mexicans because you happen to shoot a lot of mexicans or is that ok, but if it was black people then all the sudden it's racism.

I just find it kinda funny that every mention of racism in games is when it comes to black people.

Cragen

Good thing the whole part where you play in the confederate army lasts a whole 20 minutes. Woah. That's very sympathetic to the confederacy compared to the 13 or so chapters dedicated to the McCall brothers abandoning the confederate army. I guess that amounts to mere peanuts though.

Plus it seems like a zombie apocalypse makes a hurricane or institutional racism seem like a good day to me (no offense intended, just being sarcastic). Had to add that sarcasm part because I didn't want some blog writer digging deep into my words for something that wasn't there to begin with.

Journalism at its best? Not so sure.

potato92

@Solidusian Fury: "Lets takes FF7 vs FF13. In 7 your black guy is a Mr. T ripoff with a machine gun, in 12 he is an entirely original character with a pet baby chocobo and respectable personality."

So FF13 has a black guy with a pet chicken. I don't call that progress, but it is wacky.

afrosheen

@(zombie) buddhathing: Wait a second, so a game set in a country full of black people would have black zombies? That's crazy talk! What was Capcom thinking?

And funny how nobody flinched when you blasted Spaniards the whole way through RE4. This world is getting so PC it's disgusting.

afrosheen

What I find interesting is that this guy is perfectly willing to bayonet Germans or roast the Japanese, but Our Boys are sacrosanct-- their lives have more worth, even in polygonal form.

I'm a white Southerner, and I hate the Confederacy and what it represented. Jefferson Davis and most of his cabinet should've been strung up. I think that for the most part the South's arrogance brought destruction upon itself. That said, the ex-Confederate soldier-- disenchanted, or on the run-- is a common character in Westerns. Even Firefly tweaked the concept a bit, appropriately enough.

As for Left 4 Dead 2, the notion that a certain locale should be spared from all but the most positive of artistic depictions because it suffered tragedy is ludicrous.

Bakeroo

I clearly don't agree with this guy but it's good to see him sharing his views about games in general. I want games to be able to stand up to real scrutiny and even weakly constructed ones like this. I call this weak because though there are some strong subject matter involved with these worlds created by the games that relate to racially heated topics in our history, the connections to the motivation behind the games themselves are clumsy. It'll be nice if people who cared enough can write a well thought out rebuttal to his piece if they strongly disagree with it. This is a perfect opportunity for someone to present their view in a less traditional forum.

@jayislost: I haven't finished the game, but so far no, there have been no racist comments whatsoever. The only way you'd even tell that the brothers are Confederates is by the color of their uniforms in the opening levels.

There's been one mention of slaves, neither pro- or anti-. Just a brief, passing mention of their existence. If that's something to get riled up about nowadays, well, I don't even have anything to say...

QualityJeverage

Bravo Kotaku!

You've just given this idiot about 100,000 more views than he deserved.

His argument is flimsy at the best of times, but with 1000 people directing hate mail at him for daring to criticise video games however poorly, you've probably emboldened him to write more bullshit.

@The Amazing Exploding-Man: Yeah, Owen loves to bring politics into Crecente's blog. Obviously the failure of an emergency response team that has never been tested is fueled purely by the coincidental demographics of an area that was hit by an even more coincidental storm.

Yep Owen, its all because of those damn knuckle-dragging redneck Republican wingnuts isn't it?

Make your own political blog and throw your Kanye West ideals over there asshole.

A zombie game being released four years after Katrina that happens to have a New Orleans esque level is racist bigotry? Valve should have "spared" them? Come on people, don't even give this attention-seeking amateur the time of day. Headline-grabbing trash journalism has already created too much hysteria on this site anyhow.

uncle_paul

@gold163 (° д° ): "MY GOD! PC STANDS FOR PERSONAL COMPUTER! I JUST NOW GOT THAT!"

@Cogito: In terms of government I'm certainly all for more evidence-based policy and debate. It would eliminate quite a lot of bad law that has been passed in recent decades. Anything can be taken too far though. Mankind's diversity of thought is one of our greatest strengths. It causes plenty of trouble too, but I think we should be very wary of anything that tries to take it from us or suppress it. Sometimes the right answer is the one that defies our intelligence.

In terms of whether the internet will head down that path too it's honestly something I can't see that happening, but time will tell.

Point taken about Copernicus too. When I was going through school there were still those advocating the myth of the flat earth. Copernicus was one of those said to have helped dispel the idea, but I was forgetting that had all been debunked.

What a fucking idiot. The game very clearly made the south look evil. The McCalls run away from the confederate army to save their family farm, and they get chased down by their colonel after the war ends. There are tons of parts where the guy says stuff like "Sub human monsters fornicate with our women, blah blah blah i dont like black people" It's pretty fucking obvious that the south is evil in this game. I have a lot of respect for my grandpa who fought in WWII, but i dont cry and drop the controller when im on the German team in COD 5. What a fucking asshole

@chaos_isnt_here: I think sexism from people who play video games is a bigger issue.

SacGamer

@Officer_Rickey: Someone failed 8th grade history ....

RockyRan

Being a man who has huge respect for turtles and their ninjitsu prowess, I almost dropped my controller while playing Mario. The senseless and brutal slaughter of reptiles in video games needs to stop.

Ignited_Impulse

you know, its a story, it could have very well have happened, the confederates were people too, they had families, i thijnk that guy is someone whos a bit too egotistical and prude to just make believe here and there,


not to mention, lincoln didnt exactly free the slaves, he thought that the slaves wouldnt be able to survive on their own and come crawling back to the masters to take care of them, so he said if we whites cant tell these blacks they suck, ill just let them prove it, turns out they turned out all right and managed to live, surprising to him, BUT his actual greatness lies within the fact he said, wow they are able to live like us, well, they deserve it if they can do it., and let them be afterwards

His blatant historical myopia is pathetic, the holes in his argument and disjunctures in his logic are as eggregious as our last President's speaking abilities--I vote we let him stew in his own idiocy.

Why is it only okay to shoot whities?

@MattB: I see your point, but to use any other system is to put someone in charge of it. From there we devolve into an argument of what system of government is better than another, and before you know it, we're arguing politics instead of issues. After all, any system is only strong or effective so long as the people in charge of it are competent.

Perhaps an "internet mute button" would have been a better analogy.

Even better yet, I just wish that people with intelligent, well-thought out, informed opinions based on actual fact would be the ones that get attention and become lauded. The current environment (at least in the US) rewards instead those who are the loudest, have the most money, or complain the most frequently. I realize I am describing an intellectual utopia, but such a thing can be created on at least a smaller scale (kotaku, for example). To think that someday the rest of the internet might follow suit isn't too far-fetched.

EDIT: Also, Copernicus postulated the idea of a helio-centric universe (the Earth revolves around the sun) as opposed to the church-backed geo-centric vision (the Earth is at the center of the universe). People had at least believed (if not been able to prove) that the Earth was round all the way back in ancient Greece.

Yeah, look at all the early Michael Bay films.

Zero-D

@Jennacide: I have also played the entire game, multiple times through, and I'd have to disagree with you. That tribal gear was explained in a diary of a kid that lived in the area, and I thought it was a legitimate explanation. I mean think of RE4, remember what happened there? You end up going through a giant castle and have guards carrying shields and swinging maces wearing hooded robes. How accurate is that? About as accurate as the africans wearing tribal gear.

To try and pull anything out of either case is just nonsensical.

supo

@bluetom00: You do realize he's being sarcastic and cynical in his oversimplification, no?

dry-roasted-peanuts, you are understood here.

Polterg3ist: BURN HARDER!

@bluetom00: I'm oversimplifying it intentionally because I think boiling any sort of human conflict down to a single issue is something I find silly at best and monstrously dehumanizing at worst.

As far as the term "evil"? It's an easy way of demonizing opposing viewpoints. Look at what Willie said in his post: "I can not stand the Confederate flag -- I resist the urge to burn every last one that I see. To me, the flag represents hate -- and offends me and many others to no end. And to play a game, where I don't have a choice to be on the losing side -- and one I detest -- made me wonder how much research Ubisoft did for this game." To him, the flag is hate. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no argument that someone could use to justify their beliefs (such as you used with the predominantly white contemporary view of race at the time). It's all based on hate. Whites hated blacks and enslaved them because of it. I do not see how an argument presented in that way can be called anything but "evil".

Now, I just threw some other examples out there that took that same logic, a hateful viewpoint that drove an action, and put it in a few different examples.

Looking at his post, I think he is making an EXCEEDINGLY black-and-white argument, and in his desire to maintain a stereotypical view he is operating in the same mindset as those he is rallying against. He is judging the individual based on the stereotype of the group.

dry-roasted-peanuts

@frostcircus: Not many have called out RE5 as racist. It was the original trailer that went out to tease RE5 that caused controversy, and there was a lot more meat on that bone than there appears to be in CoJ or L4D. Very few games are overtly racist, it's just not good business. Now, there are some questionable stereotypes in games, but to call CoJ racist? What about Civil War reenactment?

(zombie) buddhathing

Is there an actual racist moment in this game or is the guy simply upset over the fact that the characters are Confederate soldiers? Do the brothers ever let rip racial epithets? I haven't played the game (and I'm too lazy to Google the article since the link is brokenish), but my guess is that they don't. I think the blogger just extrapolated racism from the game's setting. That's sensationalism.

And, please, let's not pretend that racism and slavery only existed in the South, that abolition erased all of black Americans struggles, or that the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery. It's simplistic and misleading. It's likely that, if the game had featured a pair of Union soldiers, he would still have been controlling a couple of (supposed) bigots.

I wonder if he's played those History Channel Civil War games?

@FISSIONMAILEDGF: Defending their family name...by murdering fellow Americans and possibly getting themselves killed in the process, leaving their family to suffer? Retarded much?

SacGamer

@The Amazing Exploding-Man: The federal response was a big problem as well. And institutional racism is a pretty good description of why the federal response was lacking. It was ultimately an extension of the Republican Party's so-called Southern Strategy. It's not that George Bush didn't care about black people per se, but that his party apparatus did not see black people as constituents; they had long ago been written off as being worthwhile to pursue as potential voters. And unfortunately, under Bush more than other presidents of both parties, the emergency response apparatus was operated by political hacks and not engineers, scientists and other non-political experts. The racism was baked into the institutions, even though the individuals involved were not motivated by racism.

(zombie) buddhathing

@neozealot: Regardless, as far as I'm concerned whoever started the war is evil because of all the death it caused.

SacGamer

@Cogito: Who decides what's intelligent and what's not though? Popular opinion? There's many things the general public believes that are outright wrong or based on flimsy evidence.

Take Copernicus for example suggesting the world wasn't actually flat. If the internet and the system you describe existed back then he'd have been kicked off it for sure.

@Jennacide: Oh please. RE5 was not racist.

SacGamer

We finally get a war game that ISN'T WWII and somebody still finds a problem with it...

I'm ok with it....to be honest I care so little about racism in video games that I'll probably forget I posted this comment.

gaiking

It sounds like this Willie Jefferson guy is either suffering from some White Guilt, or is trying to impress someone.

Any way you slice it, this is a blog entry. This guy is no different than any troll on any messageboard. His soapbox just happens to be bigger.

IvanDashSmith

@FISSIONMAILEDGF: Typical that the person who loses a war is always on the wrong side.

No, really. Just look at history.

Kicken

@FISSIONMAILEDGF:
Guess what: Not everyone on the Union side was anti-slavery!

Hell, maybe even most of them weren't. :o

Kicken

I'm sympathetic to the position. There is a bit of values dissonance for the "Confederates are the good guys! Yay!" But I think this is less outright racism, more insensitivity...which is pretty well always the problem with racism in games.

@Officer_Rickey:
Yeah... ummm... I don't think you know what you are talking about. It started over States Rights and that was the main reason for the Confederates to fight.

Considering the MAJORITY, as in 90% of Confederates, didn't own Slaves and would not fight to keep them in the hands of the rich men... There had to be other reasons then just slavery...

Lincoln refused for years to make the war about slavery and even stated that he would free every black person or keep them all in chains to keep the Union.

As a matter of fact, it would only seem the only reason Lincoln freed the slaves was too keep Brittain and France for coming in on the side of the Confederates and ending the war by force.

LCOS

@gold163 (° д° ): He may well be more racist. Unfortunately I think there is much racism today being disguised as speech against racism. It seems that to some of those bashing games for perceived racism won't be happy until all the bad guys in games are blue-collar white males.

It's not so much that I'm offended by that outlook, but it saddens me that these people are in effect falling into some of the same conceptual traps that have led to racial persecution in the past. Encouraging division or special treatment for specific ethnic groups will never eliminate racism.

...now..i..ugh
come the fuck on man. i'm surprised ya'll paid any attention to this bullshit article full of fuckry and bumbaclaat nonsense.

see, now i'm revealing my jamaican rage. 'scuse me, i gotta to bite the heads off of fox cubs to appease my anger.

the hell are ya'll doing even considering this foolishness for Kotaku attention?

p.s.
can anything be done about that "click outside the text box and bye bye birdy!" business?

@dry-roasted-peanuts:

Definitely agree, I don't think the civil war was really a good vs. evil conflict.

It's all about state's rights baby.

He must hate Gone With the Wind.

@I_Hate_This_Place: Blasphemy! That would be totally unethical!

In truth, it is a little of everything which raised tensions. Except slavery. The North didn't even have the slightest inclination to make slaves free until after the Civil War started. Perhaps it could best be described as "Northern Douchbaggery" which caused Southern states to break off. The first fights of the Civil War were territorial disputes, and could be construed as either right or wrong depending on if you believe the South should have been allowed to secede.

Kicken

@Cogito: The Good Fight: Badass Robot Battle

Because you have to have a 'badass' subtitle.

@supo: The arguement about RE5 being racist was stupid, BEFORE THE GAME CAME OUT. Having played it, it is very racist. Capcom made a horrible decision in rationalizing that it made them go tribal and wear ancient tribal gear. That was in very bad taste.

As for L4D2 or Bound in Blood, that's just stupid to think either is racist. Fucking media these days is so overboard.

Jennacide

@Cogito: I almost thought you meant "blocking access to real life", not just "shutting people up when they should shut up". That would be scary. A genocide against stupid people. O_o

@Sonira - bettah zan Mama!: You mean the one Topher Grace couldn't stop talking about? Uhmm..

@Solidusian Fury: Actually, fighting games have given the option for alternate colors as far back as I can remember. It's less of a way of addressing racism than a novelty, in my opinion. Plus, it's kind of funny to see all the colors that you can put your favorite characters in. Besides, many of these characters are canonically of a certain skin color anyway. Watching a bright orange Potemkin jump around just makes me laugh.

@Primed & Everyone Else:
Yea, pretty much, what is taught in the modern public school system is a very skewed view of the Civil War. It would not be an overstatement to say that most High School students believe that the Civil War was fought because of slavery.

Though, I wonder what many of them would say when asked why the Civil War began...

Something along the lines of "(Insert Southern State) Didn't like the North because they didn't have/like slaves, so they started a war!" would not surprise me.

Kicken

@RedStar - Workers of The World Unite: What change of pace? Just about every game character is white and male when they aren't being white, female and hawt. EDIT: And if you aren't white, then you are Sheva from RE5 (you know, the racist game) and are a minority that looks and sounds white. Sheva does qualify as hawt, but it's hawt according to white standards of beauty.

If the South rises again, they will enslave your ass. Enjoy.

@Cygnoid: In fairness I'd argue that Jewish people are still easily provoked when it comes to the Holocaust. If there was a game where you played a Nazi officer with a sympathetic take on rounding up Jews (or worse) I am sure there would be uproar.

It's one thing to place a story in it's historical context with an accurate representation of views at the time (i.e. as movies do), but something quite different to ask the player to wear those views as part of a gameplay experience. I know I always feel uncomfortable when a game forces me down a certain moral path when it differs from my mindset of the character I'm meant to be playing (be they good, bad or neutral).

@Solidusian Fury: I disagree about the Suds character. I had a long conversation about this with my girlfriend yesterday after the article on games 'catered for' girls. I brought up the fact that Final Fantasy 13 may be taking a step forward by having a female lead (or one of two leads), but is also taking a step back by how they are characterizing the black guy.
After watching all of the trailers, it seems like he is there only for comedic support, while every other character voices a strong opinion as to why they are fighting the LaCie (sp?) or whomever.
And after the fight against the blade scorpion, when the space-train is about to explode, what happens? Suds acts to withhold Lightning who HAS motivation, which only serves to show how determined/cool they are in the player's eyes, and how much Suds' character is just a baseline. Even when Lightning jumps gracefully off the train and lands on both feet, we see Suds bumble over himself and crash on the ground, orchestra in tow.
I'm not saying he, as a character, should not add humor to the story, but I can't see his actions as anything other than stereotyping a black character, much like Barret was in 7.
Re-watch the trailers and notice how Suds always has an odd look on his face, or questions the main characters, showing no motivation what-so-ever on his part for what his reasons are for fighting. (Is he a magic-user? Is he a normal person who isn't influenced by the cocoon rulers?) Notice when Snow is going into some building, and Suds asks, "You're going to meet with them?" and Snow responds, "Well I'm not just going to stand here and wait around!" Where is the sense of being for Suds? I think he is being stereotyped.

I wonder how the blogger is going to react to the Jonah Hex movie, seeing as Hex is a former confederate soldier turned bounty hunter.

@Morithain: The way you put it makes that blogger seem more racist than he makes the game out to be.

Haha, "fuck Lincoln in the ass so he can get back to his freaking plantation".

@Sonira - bettah zan Mama!: How about "The Good Fight"?

"...with robots."

@frank0127: This should be promoted

stalin23

@gold163 (° д° ): *shrugs*
I think it's essentially the exact same thing as patapon's definition.

Also its not really priority over theirs, I was just quicker on the draw.

omgwtflolbbqbye

@KillerBee: +1

This is just utter nonsense. I mean, the argument for RE5 being racist was stupid enough, but this?

Attention whore, anyone?

supo

Shooting black zombies isn't racist. Shooting black people because they are black is racist. Shooting black zombies is just survival.

DocBacca

@lolgreg isn't serious: I thought the article was about the poor education system in the U.S. I don't know where he learned that everyone on the southern side of the civil war was a racist. Or that the whole war was about slavery. If it's your own civil war, at least learn what the hell it was started over, and not just the simple reason. Simplifying the reason for the bloodiest war in U.S. history and then dishonoring the memory of anyone who fought in it (both sides were Americans) is just dumb. It's especially bad that he is using it to further his idiotic and poor arguments about racism in games.
It's guys like him that are the reason we can't have discourse in the U.S. They come in with a half-assed understanding and form opinions from there.

DocBacca

I'm more offended as a historian at the blogger's horrible understanding of US History.

@Atheist Jew: I know you're being (kind of) facetious, but it's a really interesting point, and one I've mulled over for quite some time.

People frequently say how much they liked the Kotaku comment system when only select people were invited, and comments had to be approved. How awesome would that be for the entire internet? Instead of this hack tossing up tripe and calling it groundbreaking, we could just ban his right to speak. "Sorry, your account has been banned. You have to make an intelligent statement to post on the internet. Try again when you're not blowing shit out of proportion and reeking of general douchebaggery."

Of course, the next logical step would be real life. Oh, how many times I've wished I could shut my customers mouths...or ban them from the store...

But that's just wishful thinking :)

@omgwtflolbbqbye: I can't believe that this comment gets priority over the one that gives me a serious answer... Yet in some ways I am so, so glad. XD

This is getting ridiculous.......

@dry-roasted-peanuts: What I get a kick out of is all of the people who admire Lincoln for abolishing slavery in the US, seeing how he did it in order to gain an advantage in the war...

@dry-roasted-peanuts: Bravo Peanuts. It's amazing how situations aren't so cut and dried when you drown out the clamour of personal agenda's and deep-rooted bias.
Racism, bias, intolerance & ignorance can go both ways folks...

@RedStar - Workers of The World Unite: Maybe he's white, which is actually the most multicultural race since it covers every aspect of the spectrum.

omgwtflolbbqbye

@dry-roasted-peanuts: You're oversimplifying. The reality is, if this game is portraying ex-Confederate soldiers, then it's portraying racists. The ex-Union troops, however, were racists too. Hell, to an extent, Abraham Lincoln was a racist. White Americans across the board believed in the inferiority of black Americans. Even if, like Lincoln, they fought for abolition, they did not believe that blacks were the equal of whites in all physical and intellectual respects. And so it's not unrealistic to say that "every single person who fought for the Confederacy was a racist"-- while it's a bit simplistic, it actually makes a good deal of sense. We can't escape our intellectual and cultural climates. We can criticize, but we can only fault them so much for being unable to think outside of the proverbial box.

Now where you simplify these things too much is in using the word "evil." Where did that come from? When did racists become "evil"? Shit, when did "commies" become "evil"? Or terrorists for that matter. That's a pretty black-and-white way of looking at the world, far more so than that of which you're accusing this dude.

@gold163 (° д° ): If looked at in modern terms Lincoln would most definitely be considered a racist, but that's a revisionist view and like everyone he was a product of his time. Considering blacks and whites as truly being equal was not a view that would have flown with mainstream society at the time.

As to whether or not any stance against the Union is racist or not I think we have to keep in mind that history is written by the victors.

And you want a really big example of Video Game Racism being "The New Norm"?

Madden.

Just look at the screenshots for the new Madden game. Where are the whites? Where are the asians? Where are the irish? Where are the latinos? Where are the indo/chinese? Where are the homosexuals? Where are the bi-racial/post-op transexual/furries? WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?!?

Hmmmmmm? Where is the diversity! MY GOD! The majority of people on the field are the same color! THAT IS RACIST!!!! Reality be damned, we need equality!

...

I need a hug.

dry-roasted-peanuts

@frostcircus:

Nice point, and I agree, but save it for the posts that deserve it, like all of the negatively framed articles about anti-video game studies and all of the positively framed articles about pro-video game studies.

BigManMalone

OMG Kotaku, can you keep such retarded politics as blaming Katrina on racism out of the game news? Oh and by the way, the slow response was caused by an idiot governor, not racism.

The Amazing Exploding-Man

@PuppyGuarder: Why did I just imagine "Gonna fly high now" playing on the background?

@dry-roasted-peanuts: I can agree with those points. You'd be hard pressed to find a group (army, nation, rebel force, whatever) that honestly thinks of itself as "the wrong side." If they did, they would likely be on the other side, or noncombatants. Nearly everyone who takes up arms agrees at least partly with the side they're taking up arms for. (I say nearly to account for those forced into service, and for the odd strange example).

Now, that being said, there are still some subjects that are just too sensitive to touch, either because it's too soon, it was much too violent/horrible/etc., or because it might offend a massive portion of your audience.
Call of Juarez doesn't seem like that in the slightest, even though this hack of a blogger seems to think so.

Did he really drop the controller because he played as a rebel soldier? Honestly? I wonder what his thoughts were at that time...he has probably convinced himself that his thoughts were: "How inconcievable! What an outrage! This is racism!" When in reality his thoughts were probably more along the lines of: "Hey, I'm a confederate. With a little creative spinning this could be the blog post of the century! And I get to be on the moral high ground, to boot!"

@dry-roasted-peanuts: The victors write the history books. It's sad.

[ZTF]NSF Operative

@gold163 (° д° ): politicly correct...

Unless this guy's a mac lover that is...

@Buttah: The Delicious One: that was obnoxious.

@gold163 (° д° ): Probably Castrated

omgwtflolbbqbye

@frostcircus:

Also it boggles the mind that people still think the problem with RE5 was "the zombies are black so you shoot the black zombies." It appears we gamers have the perceptive skills of a breeze block.

@BigManMalone: Ah yes. I remember reading that somewhere, thanks a lot. :D

@Hey_Blinkon: That game should be made... and they should have an immense arsenal of weapons to fight a giant robot army. And they should constantly shout one-liners.

But what will it be named?

Does he also insta-hate all the citizens of Mississippi because the confederate flag is still displayed on our State Flag? 'Cuz that seems like an equally absurd thing to get angry about and claim as racist.

Kanji08

@Ferkner: What does PC stand for?

The link to the article doesn't work. Not that this matters, of course; Owen was kind enough to tell us what to think about it.

@FreakyFavabean: Exactly. Don't they know, if we do that, the terrorists win.

DocBacca

@Boom-Chicka-Ah: The WWF? You want them to piledrive Mario into the ground?

frank0127

Give me a fucking break. Seriously. This is why people are sick of mainstream media.

@PuppyGuarder: Truly amazing.

@gold163 (° д° ):

Lincoln's main goal was keeping the United States united, slavery came later, as evidenced by his comments in the Lincoln-Douglas debates:

(What follows is essentially required reading for people who don't want the purified, glossed over version of history. Also note that I'm not trying to bash Lincoln, I'm just trying to point out that he said (and maybe believed, but come on, he was a politician) commendable and not so commendable things.

"I have no purpose either directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery where it exists. I believe I have no legal right to do so. Nor do I wish to do so. I do not wish to propose political and social equality between the white and black races.

"But there is no reason in the world why Negroes should not have all the natural rights listed in the Declaration of Independence. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"I agree with Judge Douglas that the Negro is not my equal in many ways -- certainly not in color, perhaps not mentally or morally. But in the right to eat the bread that his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

BigManMalone

@Comban will Ban you.: I'd like to make a disclaimer that any actions stated above, undertaken by Mr Wendt are entirely fictional.
I do not wish to hear from his lawyers again regarding potential litigation as a result of comments made on the internet regarding past actions that could be interpreted as racist that could, or could not exist from the individual mentioned.

@Officer_Rickey: Sorry, research some more. The Civil War was mainly fought over state's rights, which slavery was one of those rights the South wanted to maintan. Do you also believe Lincoln freed the slaves out of the kindess of his heart, or the real reason. Which was to break the Southern economy, as is well documented and written by Lincoln himself.

@Comban will Ban you.: Wow, that was quite the story.

FISSIONMAILEDGF

I think there is alot to say about the forward movement of the portrayal of african americans in games. Lets takes FF7 vs FF13. In 7 your black guy is a Mr. T ripoff with a machine gun, in 12 he is an entirely original character with a pet baby chocobo and respectable personality.

In Valkyria Chronicles issues of racism are directly addressed. Anti Semitic attitudes are confronted and the player is pulled into an interesting thought provoking story dealing with race.

Also, making available African skin tones on any character in BlazBlue is another example of choice of representation of race for any character.

World of Warcraft allows you to skin tone your character as you see fit.

Solidusian Fury

I'm loving the delicious irony of complaining about some other writer's ridiculous thoughts on racism in gaming and then going right ahead with spewing some asinine rhetoric regarding Hurricane Katrina.

SujalaOffspring

The bad guys are the new good guys? Hmm..no sir, I dont like it!

Bkore

@spannu:

Im on the left.

RedStar - Workers of The World Unite

Yet another PC idiot.

Ferkner

Yes, because we all know that slavery was the single, solitary issue that the US Civil War was fought over. Nothing else. Slavery. Just that. The South was full of evil racists who wanted to subjigate an entire group of people just bercause they had more pigment. Yep. That was all. Every single person who fought for the Confederacy was a racist and that is the ONLY reason they fought.

Just like every German who fought in WW2 was an evil anti-Semite.

Just like every Vietnamese who fought in Nam was an evil Commie.

Just like every Iraqi who fought in the Iraq war was an evil terrorist.

Just like every Brit who fought in the US Revolutionary War was an evil imperialist stooge who hated freedom.

Yep. There is no possible reason a person could use to justify their position in what is perceived by the majority to be the "wrong side".

If you are on the "wrong side", you are doing it because you adhere to and support with your dieing breath the worst example available that your side accepts.

dry-roasted-peanuts

Seriously, how dare they acknowledge the fact that the soldiers of the confederacy were also humans? SO RACIST.

@Morithain: No, it doesn't matter who made it. It's all the same, it's not racist. Just because you're playing on the Confederate side does NOT mean that you're supporting slavery. Yeah, I mean even though the Confederates as a whole had wrong intentions, not everyone fighting for the Confederate side was "pro-slavery." Some were just trying to be patriotic, defending their family names, and others just wanted to support their friends and the whole South. This just seems to be a view from the South, to say this game is preaching Slavery is ridiculous, this editor just wants to pick a fight for no reason.

FISSIONMAILEDGF

The whole Resident Evil 5 thing was just outrageously stupid. People in this world are too sensitive about everything. For crying out loud, PETA got mad at Obama for squatting a fly. I'm sure if the game was set in China and you were killing Chinese zombies, no one would say squat.

Having once worked on the set of Cheers as a day labourer I think you would find discrimination is rife from "Norm", aka George Wendt. In order to get the job initially I had to go through the task of presenting myself as an immigrant to Mr Wendt, and even applied heavy special effects make up in order to convince him that I was indeed from a foreign country.
The competition I faced was quite severe and often those chosen were done so as their race acted as a signal to their poor economic background, and in turn a lower wage they were willing to work for.
This resulted in quite the incident one day when I accidentally fed the sets cat, who notoriously suffered from constipation, far too much laxatives in order to relieve it from its pain.
Within a few minutes the felines anus was literally leaking out fecal matter across the set as it lept around in confusion from its erratic bowel movements.
Mr Wendt was sleeping in an arm chair half drunk from a day of shooting and upon the cat racing across his chest and over his face, left his shirt and face looking like a white road with a brown line down the middle.
Having seen the enraged Mr Wendt out for blood for the men responsible for not only keeping a resident constipated cat on set, but also for having fed it far too much laxative and as a result having his face fecally road striped, I had to think quickly in order to keep my job.
As a result I ducked into the back room and removed all the makeup I had applied each day and returned to my normal caucasian appearance and regular name.
Mr Wendt blamed the cats actions upon all the immigrant workers and as a result fired everyone of them. Having seen this, I confessed I was the one who gave the cat far too much laxative.
Upon seeing this he told the others they weren't fired, but seeing that a young white male was the one who caused the incident, decided not to fire me. Whereas he had fired poor Diego, Juarez, Alfonso and Juan without hesitation just moments earlier.
This caused me to conclude that if I had kept the makeup on, as well as used my fake name Gonzalez El Salvador, I would surely have been fired along with the rest of my coworkers without any hesitation from Mr. Wendt.

As you can see, Norm is more then a suitable word in many ways for saying "Video Game Racism is The New Norm" due to Wendt's racist tendencies, whether intended or not I found it quite hilarious.


Do you find the smell of burning tires relaxing as well?

@TheWon: Wow, your convoluted post is almost as bad as what the article said. You're arguing for the sake of arguing. A game can take place in New Orleans with Zombies without being Racist, come on now, please tell me you're joking. And in previous GTA games (before 9/11) you could take a plane and crash it into any building your heart desired. Some games can be racist, but none of the "racist" games that you're making up.

FISSIONMAILEDGF

The point is there can be and are games that are racially insensitive. The New Left 4 Dead game for example. Zombies of people in New Orleans. What are Zombies? Dead People. What happen in New Orleans recently. Hmmm Katrina. People died and are now Zombies. So ya I can see someone who view the game. Feeling really f*** up about it. That someone is shooting somebody that resembles their family member. How many Airplane Terrorist games we have seen based in New York after 911. Hmm None. It's a subject that people seem to avoid. Why? If gaming is a art, and we should take everything they do with just being a expression. Then I want my plane game where I can fly anywhere, and I want crash it into anything I want to.
GTA 4 is in Liberty City Aka New York City. You can do anything. Kill, hookers, and Drugs. Yet you can't steal a plane and fly it. The deemed that going to far, but we can have a game in New Orleans with Zombies walking around in swamps after a disaster. So in other words be like Mel Brooks any and everything goes. He'll tell a Black joke at the same time making fun of the white guy. It's easy to not care about how a group feel. When that group isn't necessary to your overall survival. At least that's how they feel aka Game Developers.

@Officer_Rickey: Yeah, some people seem to say that it's all because of the North's "tariff raising" but of course, the main issue was slavery. This guy's argument seems like blaming soldiers for the Vietnam war, they didn't necessarily support what they were doing, and it wasn't necessarily what they were fighting for, they were just trying to be patriotic. Ugh.

FISSIONMAILEDGF

@Officer_Rickey: Are you and b33eazy cheating off each other? Bleh. :/

@Kobun: Can't we just burn it? It's not like anyone would notice, or care.

@RedStar - Workers of The World Unite: Now you've piqued my interest. Which color? Is it blue? I hope it's blue. My favorite color is blue.

spannu

He does realize this game was made by a Polish developer and from a French publisher right?

It didn't occur to him at all that *maybe* you can just suspend your disbelief while playing it? I seriously think this game would only barely warrant the discussion he's trying to start if it were made by Americans, but again, barely. Even then it's not like the focal point of the game is to kill as many Union soldiers as possible, the objective is that the dude's trying to save his brother, not kill the entire Union army and fuck Lincoln in the ass so he can get back to his freaking plantation.

Ugh...idiot.

Morithain

Some people make a hobby out of this stuff; they are just trained to scan everything for insidious intent. Regardless, specifically concerning this game, one could craft a story sympathetic to the Confederacy and/or its soldiers while still maintaining an anti-slavery stance. Oh wait, I forgot, things like this get polarized over the course of time to the point were they are symbols instead of actual people and causes toward which one can be ambivalent.

BigManMalone

@Boom-Chicka-Ah:

PuppyGuarder

I was appalled when I saw Mario was stepping on those turtles. And then kicking their shells when they were down? That's inhumane! I call this animal cruelty everybody. And you should join in too! Lets all contact the WWF and the Humane Society to save our pixelated species of turtles. If no one doesn't do anything than this species will slowly die and be deleted.

Well, it's not surprising. There are some Americans who think the civil war started over cotton, etc; however, the civil war started because of slavery. But some people can't come to grasps with that. Both the north and south were greedy individuals, though. Back on topic, it probably would be more acceptable for people to be more forgiving of the civil war because of the passage of time. People are more sympathetic of people and events as time passes.

b33eazy

castlevania is still racist against vampires.

@chaos_isnt_here:

Tits or GTFO!

Buttah: The Delicious One

@Kevin Flynn: Because by pointing at false racism, these paranoid folks like to prove that they're the ones who are still living in the past.

PuppyGuarder

This seems so much like overgeneralization for me. Not all Confederate soldiers were slave-supporters and not all Union soldiers were trying to end slavery. That's just the context of the characters in this setting. I guess he'd have no problem if Ray was a Union officer, whose brother was pinned by Confederate soldiers.

puresewas1de

@gold163 (° д° ): Yeah, I mean even though the Confederate's as a whole had wrong intentions, not everyone fighting for the Confederate side was "pro-slavery." Some were just trying to be patriotic, defending their family names, and others just wanted to support their friends and the whole South. This just seems to be a view from the South. To make an assumption that this game is preaching Slavery is outrageous and stupid, this editor just wants to pick a fight for no reason.

FISSIONMAILEDGF

world war ii games that condone killing japanese and german soldiers who were as brainwashed as the americans are just fine

six days in fallujah is a praiseworthy idea for an expose of modern-day war

but putting a character on the wrong side of the civil war, lord help us

it's just too soon

Cygnoid

*sigh*

I...this guy...he...ugh.

Can we strip him of his access to the internet, somehow? I think that would be a very good thing.

edit: Also, Owen, your Source link is malformed. Oh it works, it just links back to this article.

Well, it's not surprising. There are some Americans who think the civil war started over cotton, etc; however, the civil war started because of slavery. But some people can't come to grasps with that. Both the north and south were greedy individuals, though. Back on topic, it probably would be more acceptable for people to be more forgiving of the civil war because of the passage of time. People are more sympathetic of people and events as time passes.

As a person of color, i actually enjoyed playing a confederate soldier. It was a good change of pace to play what i guess would be called the "bad side".

The South shall rise Again!

RedStar - Workers of The World Unite

@JAGJEET: I believe that's Mr. John Goodman. It was never told how he managed to find his way back to America, but I've heard rumors of a fantastical journey involving flying zebras with piano keys as wings.

PuppyGuarder

Sigh. Just because it is a story about Confederate soldiers doesn't make it racist. Everything these days is racist I guees.

From now on all protagonists in games need to be ivy league educated women of african desent who are bisexual and have adopted children of all other races. That should make us safe.

Hey_Blinkon

So, any book or movie that details the American Civil War from the perspective of a Confederate soldier, who might even have been forced into their situation... is against the Union and by default, racist? I always thought that Lincoln saw slavery as more of a political problem than anything. Maybe Lincoln was a racist himself; I don't know.

Yeah, I mean even though the Confederate army had wrong intentions, not everyone fighting for the Confederate side was "pro-slavery." Some were just trying to be patriotic, defending their family names, and others just wanted to support their friends and the whole South. This just seems to be a view from the South, this game isn't necessarily preaching Slavery, this editor just wants to pick a fight for no reason.

FISSIONMAILEDGF

But this sort of rumination seems to me to be picking a fight where none exists.

Sensationalism works. Even in your objection, you are contributing to the piece by giving it what the writer(s) wants -- publicity. That the paper is highlighting the most vulgar and extreme comments only validates the point.

File under "Journalism Is Dead."

I have to say that everytime I see articles like this, the hope that games will ever be percieved as a serious media outlet by the general populace grows smaller.

-MasterDex-

Video game racism has been looked at too hard in recent years. I do not actually believe there is any real hatred behind all of this that the developers want to express. There are many clearer examples of racism than this. Why not focus on them instead?

Read this earlier today.

I raged. So hard.

isn't that the guy in Michael Jackson's Black white video, and ends up landing in Africa?

If someone WANTS to see controversy in a video game, they'll find it. They'll twist words and events to make it seem like it's part of a racist picture when it isn't.

Equally ignorant people will agree and start bashing. Level-headed people will see it and be confused why someone could have such a skewed sense of reality.

Actually, if you think about it, it's the blog poster that is racist, not the games. The games themselves weren't meant to be racist. If he played the games and saw controversy when there wasn't, he's the one with the his head in the racism gutter, not the video game developers.

RockyRan

I read that yesterday, such a stupid article. I wouldn't call it an artcle about racism. I would call it an article about him wanting some sort of attention.

Hows Life Treating ya Mr Racism?

Sam: How's life treatin' ya, Norm?

Norm: It's a zombie eat human world Sammy, and I'm wearing brains underwear.

PuppyGuarder

NOOORRRRMMMMM

SwKninja

what about sexism in video games?

@ShadowOdin isn't american:

And I think that belief exists only if there is the potential for racism to just disappear...when it's not like that at all. We are only starting to understand the effects on nearly every level of society that racism has affected.

To mention it doesn't keep it going. People who do racist things do. That it's been baked into our culture at nearly every level provides for it's sustenance, not someone pointing it out, which is what I said with my post above.

CommittedToExcellence

@SeraphX2:

This is the most offensive thing I've read with regards to slavery...I mean, be grateful that some foreign people came and beat/killed/maimed and raped you into submission, put you on a boat, took you across the seas to a foreign land, exposed you to diseases (which often killed due to the lack of effective medicine), and all for the privilege of working until you died, to have your family split up amongst the winds at someone else's whim, and when the generations of that end, then to be treated as second class citizens who are somehow "ingrateful" for "lingering" on a past that has shaped the present.

Really, you should be ashamed of that ignorant drivel that you just spit on your keyboard.

CommittedToExcellence

@dd528: I was more stating how things are rather than giving an opinion, but I agree completely. In the cases where that tension is used well it can be very effective. At other times it feel like poor game design, but there's always going to be titles that miss their mark. As you say though preventing designers from exploring controversial topics would lead to a less interesting world.

@GoonerVance:
I think that I've just encouraged this tangential discussion which was really the opposite of my intent. I fear you may've won by TKO.

@badSamurai:

" tried to tear America part over free labor and entitlement."

Do you really know anything about American history or the Civil War or are just spewing garbage to over compensate for your own racism?

zyphe

@CommittedToExcellence: You do a good job at putting words in people's mouths.

"People are not saying that blacks are owed something, outside equality."
I could tear that statement apart rather easily, giving you examples of why it's more than just that. But, since you would misconstrue what I'm saying and put words in my mouth, I won't even go there.

If you can't understand the core of what I'm saying, there's no point in even talking to you.

@SeraphX2:

It's still offensive to say that blacks should be grateful that a group of people enslaved them, else they wouldn't have the benefits of western culture. It implies a cultural bias, and yes, more than a hint of racism. It's a nicer way of saying "these people would be savages without slavery."

It's the crux of some of the white pride hate groups ideology. They justify it in the same way you did, that blacks traded blacks in Africa, so it's all peachy keen that it happened, and besides, it was generations ago, there's absolutely no way that the pervasive effects of race based slavery could still be affecting people NOW in THIS day and age, right? Wrong.

People are not saying that blacks are owed something, outside equality. The only people that get defensive about equality are people that stand to lose some kind of advantage from it...who could that be in America? If minorities achieve true equality, that means the privileges that most take for granted are gone, and by golly that's just not gonna stand. Getting something for simply being of an ethnic background has long been reserved for whites, so it stings when other peoples get some of the same advantages. If we actually had true equality, there would be no need.

CommittedToExcellence

@CommittedToExcellence: It seems to me you have reading comprehension problems. I said they should be grateful THEY are here, not that their forefathers were enslaved. They aren't the ones who suffered from Slavery. But because of it, they have a better life than running around in loin clothes and throwing spears at each other.

And it is proven fact that as much as the slave traders got the people themselves, their own tribes would also sell them off to us. So their own people were just as sick as the people doing the enslaving.

My point is, this has nothing to do with today's generation and they need to step off and live their own lives and stop thinking they are owed them something for what people did 6, 7 and 8 generations ago.

Yes, slavery is evil, and yes racism is evil. I hate the concepts of both even existing. So, if you would kindly learn to read and not put words in people's mouths, it would be greatly appreciated.

@SeraphX2:

You're being pedantic. It's cause and effect, where the effect is what you're saying to celebrate, while you ask people to not "linger" on the cause. It's still outright offensive.

Since we're being pedantic, Africa is not a country, it's a continent, there are not widespread huts and grass skirts and spear chucking as you insinuated. This is why I find it hard to believe your context argument, because you're saying very offensive things, and insinuating very offensive things then claiming I'm reading them out of context. You have insinuated in this thread that:

- Blacks should be happy we're here, because the alternative is a grass hut and a spear in Africa

- Blacks feel like they're owed something.

- Racism only exists if people think about it...like it's some kind of Peter Pan fairy or something.

Do you see why it's easy to disagree?

CommittedToExcellence

@CommittedToExcellence: "grateful they are where they are today" is exactly what I said, not: grateful their ancestors were enslaved. Instead of lingering on the past, be grateful they have a chance to make a good life for themselves. That's what I mean, and that's what I said.

And yes, they should be happy. Where would you rather live? The back-reaches of Africa, or America? Everyone, white or black, should be grateful they live in America. Things are way better here than in a lot of countries.

I have yet to deny that racism exists, and I have made it abundantly clear that I think it is evil.

It's ridiculous that you can take comparing a life in America to that of one in some other country where people still live in villages and huts, and saying they should be grateful and make the most of what they have in America as offensive.

The reason I find it stupid to talk to you is you continue to put words in the wrong context. You fail to read what surrounds a specific word that you pick out, and twist what I'm saying even though the words are plainly there in your face. You're telling me I'm saying things that aren't in my sentences even though I plainly say what I mean. Sorry that you can't comprehend what you read real well, but that's not my problem.

@SeraphX2:

From your first post:

"Nonetheless, if we hadn't had slavery, Black people, specifically, would not even be here. In a way, they might be grateful they are where they are today instead of lingering on what happened in the past and what they had no control over."

See the word grateful? Read your full sentence. The jist of what you are saying is: Black people would not be here without slavery, so they should be grateful that it happened, or else they likely wouldn't be here in America. See how that works? You type words and people read them. If that's not what you're trying to say, then clarify it further. No one is dwelling on the past, I've never heard one person go anywhere and say "oh jeez, I can't do this because my ancestors were enslaved," however, I have seen personally a shift from blacks being second class citizens, to maligned "equals" and even now, there are wide chasms in everything from pay, to schools, job opportunities...and most of it, whether you acknowledge it or not, is through institutional racism.

"...they need to step off and live their own lives and stop thinking they are owed them something"

From your second post. I didn't put anything anywhere, you just posted that and I responded accordingly.

The only problem I have with your post is that you insinuated that blacks should be grateful that they are here, or else they'd be "running around in loin cloths and throwing spears at each other."

If you can't see that you're posting some seriously offensive stuff, then I'm pretty glad that you don't see the point in continuing.

CommittedToExcellence

This writer for the Houston Chronicle is so brave. To bring up these social issues makes me want to discuss a problem I have with video games and society for years.
Why must we kill Orcs? Time and time again, every fantasy game has us slaughtering our green brothers to which I say NO MORE!

@ShyamalimaGaloof: No you see, you're looking at it the wrong way. If a game involves black people, it's automatically racist no matter what. Only things involving black people can ever be racist.

NachoDudeX

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Did anyone complain about killing Arabs in CoD4? Or the Chinese in Battlefield Modern Warfare? Why is it only okay to kill certain groups in video games? No one complains when you're a black guy in GTA San Andreas killing other black guys in gang shootings, which is actually possible to do in the real world, but shoot a black person in Africa playing a white guy in a fictional setting and suddenly you've gone too far. And The Civil War ended a loooong time ago, personally I welcome a game that isn't WWII based.

Deathbearer