Racial Issues Alleged In GTA San Andreas, Other Games

Thanks to the New York Times (free reg. req.) for its article exploring possible racial stereotyping inherent in many videogames. The article alleges: "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas... underscores what some critics consider a disturbing trend: popular video games that play on racial stereotypes, including images of black youths committing and reveling in violent street crime." Partially, though not wholly related to a recently discussed article on 'street' videogames, it's also argued: "The issue, critics say, is not that the games' representation of racial and ethnic minorities is as blatantly threatening as the sort found at hate sites on the Web, where players are asked to gun down virtual black or Jewish characters. Rather, the racial and ethnic depictions and story lines are more subtle, and therefore, some say, more insidious."

Comments

Terrible, terrible distortion of reality

[iainl]

Don't these people at DMA know that LA gangs of the early nineties were uniformly white?

Oh. Never mind.

Re:Whatever.

[slungsolow]

They've been making hockey games for years. I haven't heard a black person complain about that yet.

Only in videogames...

[trueneutral]

I'm just glad that movies and television don't have racial steriotypes. It's good to see that every other form of media has progressed beyond that.