In newest Indiana Jones movie (I just barfed a little in my mouth saying that), we saw THE EXACT SAME THING! But it was South American zombies in traditional garb. No one cared.

We see a totally negative FAT person stereotype in the original FEAR game. (Complete with junk food wrappers everywhere the fat computer geek guy is found). No one cared.

We see Japanese games have monsters in traditional Japanese garb (samurai, etc), we see European games with monsters in traditional garb, (vikings, druids – heck the awesome movie “Hot Fuzz” makes European druids look stupid and evil), and no one cares.

We have a game like Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad totally degrade woman, no one cares.

We have Far Cry 2 which takes place during a war in Africa, and so logically you should fight mostly black skinned people, yet the game has you kill at least 50% whites that are all profiteering – the only nice white person in the whole game is the Jackal WHO IS THE MAIN VILLAIN! All charitable people are black. (In my opinion this game makes whites look evil). And no one cares.

RE5 takes place in Africa, of course they will bring out something authentically African. Guys in Adidas shirts and soccer shorts is not really African, its Imperial. If they were running around doing something stereotypical like in the game Postal (which got in trouble more for violence than Middle Eastern stereotypes ill add), like throwing melons or it was guys in black face then you’d have a case. But the fact is people were (and still ARE), dressed like this in Africa more recently than people were dressed as druids in Europe.

If you are openly gay in the US military you get fired. if you are openly black they do not mind. There are bigger concerns in the world right now than a character design in a cool game; lets get news articles going about those OTHER topics.

A video game in the hands of a normal gamer is a game. The game will not make you any different than you are to begin with. If you’re playing it becuase you like completing difficult tasks, then that’s why you will enjoy it. If you are a racist, then you may get something else from games.

Leave political correctness at the door. Let the crappy sales kill of offensive games. I loathe the idea of a group of do-gooders coming into my world and turning their noses up a say FPSs, so I lean away from the easily offended media whores.

1. I didn’t know the reason behind there were Africans with tribal masks and shields walking around was because they started to dress like the ancestors, I just thought they were some primitive villages.

I think this makes it worse, it’s basically saying the more primal and evil these people become the more “African” they are.

2. To Arthur’s comment about the Spanish Las Plagas doing “normal” things in RE 4.

The “normal” things they were doing when you walk into that first village was burning people at the stake in a giant fire in the middle of the village, that was kinda they cue to hey, shoot these guys.

And the bell was rung by Ada as a way to draw them away from you. When the bell rings, they leave, not attack you.

No one would care if we were blasting our way through a million stereo typed chinese zombies in some major metropolitan chinatown or a bunch of native americans on some dusty plain. This has only become an issue because the zombies are black.

I suppose that the root issue I would call out here would be that in America there are HUGE disparities between what is considered racist content when it’s about blacks or african americans versus what is acceptable when leveled at other minority groups or whites. For some reason it’s much more acceptable to say certain things about non-black minorities… a perfect example would be your previous podcast and some of the things you said about mexicans/hispanics. Had you said those things about black/african-americans you never would have posted that podcast and if you did you’d still be sorting through the hate mail.

RE5 takes place in Africa, it’s a tale about a man made viral infection that turns people (of all races equally) into zombies. Africa, at least most of it by any study I can find is filled with black people. Hence black zombies, if your guilty conscience can’t handle it, take a pass on the game. If you do find yourself incensed to the point of complaining, while you’re lamenting the enslavement of africans by early American settlers please don’t forget the Chinese immigrants on the west coast who were all but enslaved by the railroad companies and were forbidden from citizenship/voting ect. (see Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), or of course the systemic attempted genocide and relocations of the native peoples of this continent.

I suppose that anyone who finds deep racist images in RE5 must be the kind of person who can’t stand seeing Bruce Lee as Kato in the Green Hornet, or who’s hair stands on end when they see the Atlanta Braves fans performing the Tomohawk chop. They must be the kind of people that can’t watch any of the comedians on BET or listen to rap music where they talk about crackers.

Someone who is truly not racist would never really notice the color of characters in the game and just think of them as people not ‘White guy killing black guys’.

Sorry if this post is incoherent, I just wrote my immediate thoughts without taking time to structure my words

Do you think Cole Train’s character is.. a bit ridiculous? I always thought that could be considered racist. It seems like what they portray is a lack of education and articulation in that character. Of course, it’s totally reasonable that it’s supposed to only represent that character, in which case it wouldn’t be racist. Just as many people of other races are uneducated and inarticulate.

I don’t know, I am loathe to comment on the issue of racism, and posting about it here is against my better judgment.