A Criticism of Race Portrayal in Games

Joystiq points out (and comments incitefully on) a two-part examination of African-American roles in videogames on the site Black Voice News. Series author Richard Jones takes the videogame industry to task for the numerous poor images that young black people have to compare themselves to. He singles out Carl Johnson, the protagonist of GTA: San Andreas as an example. Jones also acknowledges that 'the video game industry is all about money', pointing out the unfortunate lack of black designers and illustrators in the industry to sway the creative choices of publisheres and developers. He gives a call to arms to black players, saying they should focus some of their passion on the skills required to make games. They'd get rich, he says, and work to reverse some of the negative stereotypes that non-whites are subject to in games. The Opposable Thumbs blog takes a critical look at his argument, offering up another side to the story. While it's obvious that Mr. Jones doesn't have a great grasp on the games industry itself, he would seem to make a few valid points as well.

Comments

Fo' shizzle

[Anonymous Coward]

First pizzle

Suck it!

Love Always,
News For Turds

Re:There's no such thing as race.

[TomHandy]

That is completely ridiculous. If you're referring to affirmative action, etc. - it isn't based around the idea that certain races are inferior and need special rights and privileges to succeed at an equal level. It is based on the knowledge that the white majority race historically doesn't give minorities a fair shot (i.e. white managers will tend to hire white employees over equally qualified minority employees).

Really, I'm sick of reading stuff like this where people try and twist affirmative action into something else, in order to try and portray proponents of it as racists, and to get the people who make it necessary off the hook.

So again; at least for the most part, affirmative action has NOTHING to do with a belief that minorities are inferior and need special privileges to compete on equal footing. The only people I know who believe this are generally affirmative action opponents who DO believe that that is its main purpose, to help make sure that inferior minorities will get hired over superior white people.