Video games and the usual amount of racism

by guest contributor Andrea Rubenstein, originally published on OfficialShrub.com

For day three of International Blog Against Racism Week, I want to look specifically why games, such as many of the prior Resident Evil ones, haven’t received as much criticism as, say, Resident Evil 5 has.

So, why aren’t critiques of the prior Resident Evil games easy to find? Well, there are a few reasons. As discussed in my previous post, gaming as a field of study is still in its infancy. Gaming blogs discussing issues like race are still few and far between. Despite the re-release for Gamecube, the previous games are (in internet terms) rather old.

And, finally, the last reason I can easily think of, which is what I will be discussing here: The previous games didn’t gather much discussion because they had only the usual amount of racism in them. What do I mean by that? Well, keep reading to find out.

I. The “usual amount of racism”? WTF?

When someone first mentioned this, i was disgusted that humankind could possibly feel there were racist overtones to the game.

[From Resident Evil 5 is a tool for racism!! by Big Stu]

Given the general state of the gaming blogsphere — which can be rightly called, if I’m being charitable, ignorant on matters of race — most people stumbling onto this blog will probably have a defensive reaction. “Games aren’t racist!”, “How dare she attack my beloved Resident Evil with her bleeding heart liberal lies!”… and probably worse, if I go on some of the actual responses to the issue (the one quoted above is one of the nicer ones, really).

The trailer of Resident Evil 5 (which can be seen here) is what sparked calls of racism. The main reason for the strong reaction is that the game is set in Africa but the protagonist is a white American. The trailer shows him killing hordes of black zombies. Further discussion on race in Resident Evil 5, which includes links to relevant posts, can be found here.

So, if Resident Evil 5 gathered controversy because it exceeds “the usual amount of racism”, then what defines “the usual amount”?

It starts with a primarily white universe*. If you really look at the worlds that the majority of games, even today, are set in, you’ll most likely notice a pattern: protagonists, antagonists, and random NPCs will tend to be white more often than not. You can read more about this trend, which is not confined to video games, in the post Why is the Universe full of White people? over at Angry Black Woman Blog.

The usual amount of racism doesn’t stop with the relative invisiblity of non-white characters, though. It extends to the concept that every non-white character that exists does so in a marked (versus the unmarked white) state. The marking of a character can be through comments drawing attention to the character’s race and/or through the use of clear racial stereotypes. See On Indigo Prophecy, Part 2: So Bad, It’s Racist for an example of this.

Ultimately, the “usual amount of racism” is things that, when viewed as separate entities, don’t seem that bad. Because of this criticism can be easily countered, and typical arguments include “there’s a good reason that the protagonist is white”, or “but the use of [racial stereotype] is done in a way that makes the character look cool, so it’s actually a good thing!“, or even, “why can’t you just be happy that the character was included at all?”

II. So why isn’t there any discussion?

With all the recent FPS’s set in the middle east, no one is saying anything about islam haters in games.

[From Resident Evil 5 Trailer, comment by Kuaz Omega]

This question comes in many forms, the most typical of which are “why aren’t you discussing white-on-white violence?” or “why aren’t you discussing [x minority] on white violence”.

Page 1 of 2 | Next page