Que Revolu.....

So after reading this article & posting it on facebook my boy Will hit me up with some thoughts on racism in Video Games.

Below is the article that sparked the dialogue & the convo that followed, feel free to share your thoughts.


Boston Globe
A no-win situation
The debate over stereotypes in video games has become a no-win situation

By Vanessa E. Jones Globe Staff
May 5, 2008
By the time Priester was a teenager, he had decided to limit his play to mentally challenging games such as SimCity and Intelligent Qube. The series NBA: The Life alienates Priester because it shows basketball players using their salaries to buy rims and other materialistic goods. "When you're younger," says Priester, now a Boston University sophomore, "you're not cognizant of these stereotypes. As you grow older it becomes more and more glaring." Video games have long had a bad rap for stereotyping women and promoting violence. Grand Theft Auto IV, released last week, is generating controversy for its focus on an Eastern European immigrant who goes on a car theft and murder rampage. But Priester is among a growing number of gamers and scholars criticizing the lack of diversity and high proportion of stereotypes in video games.

It's a sensitive issue. "The subject of racism and games is not really discussed," says Chris Mottes, CEO of the Denmark-based game developer Deadline Games. And when it is, game developers and some gamers usually denounce the complainers as overly sensitive; a common response to critics is that these are "only games."

But the subject continues to resurface as gamers find more reasons to take offense. In a February post on MTV Multiplayer, blogger Tracey John wrote about her experience playing Carnival Games. She could change her character's pants, shirts, shoes, and hairstyles, John wrote. "But when it came to skin color, it only offered different faces in one pale hue. In other words, as a minority (I'm a Chinese woman), I could not replicate my skin color for my avatar within Carnival Games (much less if I were African-American or Hispanic). I found that a bit offensive."

Last year, the trailer for the upcoming Resident Evil 5 depicted a white soldier shooting black zombies. A contributor to the blog Black Looks wrote: "This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, [and] the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing . . ." In March the website GameDaily posted an illustrated story about the "most allegedly racist games," which included Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, LocoRoco, Custer's Revenge, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin.

Karen Dill, a psychology professor at Lenoir-Rhyne College in North Carolina, told the congressional Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection in September that video games blatantly stereotype minorities. A recent study she co-wrote, "Playing With Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Videogames," analyzed the representation of minorities in photographs used to promote stories in the top video game magazines published in 2006. The study found black and Latino men were more likely to be portrayed as athletes or aggressors. Black men were less likely to wear protective armor or use technology than whites. Asians were often portrayed as intellectually superior but physically inferior.

Robert Simmons, 21, a Tufts University senior, spends about three hours a day playing video games. The majority are role playing games such as Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts and sports games such as the Madden football series. He's also delved into the Grand Theft Auto series, which generated heavy criticism in 2003 because characters in the Vice City edition encourage players to kill Haitians and Cubans. Simmons says the negative images in Grand Theft Auto leave him unmoved. "It doesn't encourage me to buy into the stereotypes," he says.

Dill said in an interview that she gets a lot of resistance from consumers and industry insiders about her findings. "No one wants to believe that the habit they have is harmful," says Dill. "A lot of people think we're saying you play a video game, you grab a gun and start shooting people. We're saying it instigates aggression. . . . This can manifest itself in different ways: a person is more insulting, a person shows someone else less respect in terms of the racial and gender issues. There's a real effect, but it's subtle."

Deadline Games CEO Mottes, a South African who worked in the anti-apartheid movement, took particular offense when his games Total Overdose and Chili Con Carnage were panned for their stereotypical depictions of Mexicans. Mottes's post on gamedaily.com last year delved into the issue of racism and the video game industry: "We have to find the nuances other than to accept that there's no place for these kind of stereotypes or storytelling methods." In an interview, Mottes defended the use of stereotypes as a form of comedy. "I can't think of a comedian or comic movie that doesn't play on stereotypes," he says.

To some, Mottes's argument for the use of stereotypes fails to provide the nuance he accuses his critics of lacking. Latoya Peterson, an avid gamer who wrote about Mottes's post on the blog Racialicious, doesn't think stereotypes can ever be seen as positive. "They say, 'Oh it's just a game, don't worry about it,' " Peterson says. "Wait a minute. The game also is a part of entertainment that . . . informs how you look at things and reinforces mindsets."

When 20-year-old Jonathan Priester was younger, his parents would talk to him about the lack of diversity in video games. They would examine the games he wanted to play. If one contained questionable content, they didn't refuse to buy it. Instead they asked him to justify the purchase.

"In making you talk about it - 'Is that something you would grow up to do? Is it something that's positive?' - you come to the conclusion yourself that maybe this isn't the best," Priester says. "This is how other people could possibly view you. Would you want to be viewed in this manner?"
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.


My initial post of this article was followed by the statement "Are some video games racist? yea,racism evolves with technology"

Here is the convo that followed:


Will: Yo ok so I've actually been thinking about this all day and I think the issue has tons of different facets to address. One question that I gotta ask you though. What exactly do you mean by "racism evolves with technology"? I think I get what you are trying to say but as stated I am missing the connection to the article you posted.

Tito: So I guess what I meant by that is that as new forms of technology evolve (i.e. video games) & racism does too, in that it takes form & is deployed in various ways within these new mediums. As of right now the majority of video game makers & developers are white males, so the games will reflect that accordingly. As video become more & more a staple of American culture, they will reflect the culture as such. So video games are a form of media that also serves as a representation of American culture & values. Take our army/war games, its always American soldiers killing foreigners, often middle easterners. From Zombies to thugs, African American & Latinos are also represented in a negative light in many games.

I don't think all games are racist, but GTA clearly takes the cake on its inclusion of racial stereotypes, so I think its going to be interesting to look at the new version. Basically, I think that this discussion of racism in video games is one that has yet to really be explored & as video games continue to be a profitable industry in American society, we should expect to see more & more games that reflect the values of their creators. The article I posted talks about a study that found that people of color tend to be represented more negatively than whites in many games (i.e as criminals, weaker, etc) so I think that study illustrates the ways in which Racism has manifested itself into another medium of popular culture, in video games. I would argue that American youth, particularly male youth represent a huge market for the video game industry & most guys I know from little kids to college-aged play & have played video games, so these games are reaching a large audience, so its important to take note of the messages & ideologies that are being subverted into the games.

I also posted this video on youtube, which I found interesting as an additional to our discussion.


Will: I think I have a bit of a different take on this. But all in all we same to be on the same page, that games like this are bad. But, there are several things that cloud this argument/debate/issue.

For one the use of the word "racism" is often made incorrectly, both in that video and in general and it bothers me to no end. I would say that the majority of the games referenced are not racist. Racism (which I often mispell, if it happens here I apologize) is one of those words that gets used incorrectly alot and is used as a synonym for bigotry, prejudice and stereotyping. When in reality those words all mean distinctly different things.

This is important because the issue of racial and cultural injustice and insensitivity - as you know - is quite complicated. And it is my opinion that when we diminish the complexity of this issue we risk losing the subtleties of those "messages and ideologies that are being subverted into games" (is it weird to quote someone you just poke with). And therefore we risk misunderstanding the capacity to which this issue can affect people.

The only game I can see as out in out racist is "Ethnic Cleansing". That was the game made by the klan or skinheads or hitler youth (not sure which). I mean that thing discriminates against minorities, it infers and directly states that white people should be the ones in charge, and it is heavy on the "hatred and intolerance" of other races. In that game you actually have to embody the character of a racist homicidal maniac. Coincidently though the game is garbage, I mean the message is shit, the graphics are shit and it looks like the gameplay is shit, which brings me to my next point.

Most games that rely heavily on stereotypes and culturally insensitive imagery are usually awful. Think of that fifty cent game where you are killing middle easterners or GTA (I don’t care what anyone says that game is awful… tell Ax I’m sorry). For the most part the poorly made games use offensive content (depictions of racially insensitive characters, violent and sexual acts, etc…) to make them marketable. In reality these are are sub standard games that try and garner sales through gimmicks. These gimmicks have a high shock value that gets the games heavy media coverage*. That coverage in turn creates free buzz for the game and undoubtedly boosts sales.

Now I may be splitting hairs here but I think this is an issue of racial exploitation than it is an issue of racism. Exploitation for the purpose of making turning a profit, that result in flooding the market with ignorant and free-thought killing materials**. The question is thus, how do these games affect minority (youths and adults).

And finally I am left wondering was my initial thesis wrong. Video games could be considered racist only if you look at the bad ones beings made. You could argue that the collection of those works is a system that works to disseminate images of minorities as inferior beings. This inferiority is shown through either a lack of mental or physical ability that places them below the ability of the average member of the majority. Looking at just the racially insensitive ones -which are usually bad as well- it would appear that yes video games are in fact a racist device. But in actuality I think they are not and in order to prove they were you would have to gather enough other video games to show the whites are being depicted in grandiose manner with minorities being used as their foils and depicted as incompetent fools. *think “hot coffee” in GTA III **think Lupe Fiasco’s “dumb it down”

Tito: I agree that the title of racism is often misused, but also think that racial exploitation is a product of racism. Racism is the overarching force or ideology that is just being deployed in a variety of ways. The conversation for me changes when you are talking about race vs. ethnicity (i.e. the treatment of Italian-Americans in GTA vs. Black people) because I think that racism & prejudice are different things & the thing that separates racism for me is that it functions as a system of power.

I don't think all video games are racist or even most, but the reality is that some are and in the example of GTA or the 50 Cent game, although you may think that the games themselves are bad, they are incredibly popular (millions of copies sold within the U.S. alone). So I think racist ideology or even the deployment of race in certain video games must be analyzed & addressed.


So as you can see from the convo above there is a lot that can be said about the role that race/racism plays in video games, i'm curious to see where this discussion goes as video games become more popular aspects of American culture.