Resident Evil 5. Is it racist? This blogger thinks so.

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wing zero alpha
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razgriz wrote:but jango fett was offed by a black guy, a badm-f-ing black guy at that :twisted: whats so offensive about him? they practically threw temura morrison a bone by making him basically half of the entire clone/stormtropper force for all of star wars and giving him the personality of boba fett? hehe i kinda feel bad for the guy that originally played him in '83
He looked "latino" and he got his head chopped off, you do the math. And yes, it's very much ridiculous. :roll:

Either way, the result was Hispanic communities from here to California going up in arms about it. The only other Star Wars characters that offended people on a higher level was Jar Jar Binks and Watto; the Jewish communities didn't take well to the latter for some reason.
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razgriz
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lol but he wasnt even latino he was maori aka new zealander, oy vey people give me a break :roll:
setsuna: I AM A GUNDAM!!!
graham: I AM A FLAG!!!
(setsuna giggling)
graham: NO!! i said FLLLAG!
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wing zero alpha
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razgriz wrote:lol but he wasnt even latino he was maori aka new zealander, oy vey people give me a break :roll:
Doesn't matter, he looked latino enough. I know it's idiotic, but these people don't follow logic and reasoning, and when you call them on it they claim you're just as "racist". Just like this blogger and others like him/her have done with people that tried to explain that they're overreacting to RE5.
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razgriz
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eh i guess i can understand that, im filipino myself but i look latin enough for people to try and talk to me in spanish and then give me a dirty look when i cant respond to them in kind
setsuna: I AM A GUNDAM!!!
graham: I AM A FLAG!!!
(setsuna giggling)
graham: NO!! i said FLLLAG!
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Well, I'm black....and although I wouldn't say it's racist, I can't lie, the thought of this game does bother me just a tad bit. Still, if it was a black person (of whatever native nationality) going around killing Africans, I'm willing to bet there'd be a number of complaints about it as well.
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People seem to forget that this is a game being made by Japanese, most of who are unaware of the nature of the relationship between black and whites. If this was made by Americans, I could understand the criticisms. Of course, when looking at this game, it's easy to see a white guy killing black people as racist. Yet, at the same time, it's ironically racist to point this out, as it was fine in RE4 when they had an American mowing down thousands of "infected" Hispanics. The only difference (in my European) opinion here is, that the difference in ethnicity is much more apparent, due to the (near) opposite skin colors. I suppose it also doesn't help that blacks and whites have such an antagonistic history. Though again, I believe the Japanese developers are probably largely unaware of that.

For the record, Hispanic can properly refer to anyone or anything originating from the Iberian peninsula, including Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar and Portugal, who make up the peninsula. The word "Hispanic" originating from the term "Hispania" which is what the romans used to refer to the Iberian peninsula.
DAG101
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wow. this is stupid. I doubt that the game was created as 'Interesting levels, with new atmosphere and Black Zombies', as if they wanted the game to be about shooting up black zombies, they could have just set it in the brooklyn getto
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Aegis
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I don't think that all the developers were unaware of the antagonistic history between blacks and whites as much as the fact that the Japanese in certain areas of their culture are more carefree, and in merely setting the story in Africa for the sake of story, ended up stepping on some cultural toes once again. Afterall, some of us live in a continent in which religious symbols and certain words are looked down upon. :P
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valkyriepilot
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This post on that blog takes the cake:
All races should have an equal opportunity to be zombies. Not allowing blacks to be zombies is racism

Posted by: ThinkForAChange at August 1, 2007 11:24 AM
Seriously, it says it all! :P
supperrfreek
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well isn't being a zombie more of a misfortune? (I hope this already hasn't been stated but...) having no control of your body probably sucks even if your not conscious it probably is bad for everyone in your immediate vicinity so what's the big deal?
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wing zero alpha
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Phantomexe87 wrote:Of course, when looking at this game, it's easy to see a white guy killing black people as racist.
On first glance only; if you actually do research into the subject matter, you can tell that the game isn't racial and treats all zombies the same way in spite of skin coloring.
Yet, at the same time, it's ironically racist to point this out, as it was fine in RE4 when they had an American mowing down thousands of "infected" Hispanics. The only difference (in my European) opinion here is, that the difference in ethnicity is much more apparent, due to the (near) opposite skin colors.
And that no Hispanic minorities (holy crap on that one) complained about mowing down said Spaniards.
I suppose it also doesn't help that blacks and whites have such an antagonistic history. Though again, I believe the Japanese developers are probably largely unaware of that.
No, they're aware of it (it's hard not to when the whole world knows), they just care about it as much as we care about the racial tension between them, Koreans and Chinese. Not like they can suffer for it, since they're largely out of reach for American minorities to slap a law suit on.
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J-Lead
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This particular comment really strikes me as the most relevant to the big picture.
A commenter wrote:It seems whenever a black man is depicted in video games they take flack.

1. Black man who speaks ebonics: racist.
2. Black man shooting whites: feeding on white fears of black crime!
3. Black man shooting blacks: promoting black on black crime!
4. Black man shot by white man: promoting racial cleansing!
5. No black man in game: exclusion.
6. Black man as an educated, proper English speaking character: token.

WTF, I give up, no more blacks in video games. Let's just make all game characters purple and call it a day.
It pretty much sums up my feelings as well. A lot of people (by my experiance, mostly white people for some reason, who have no real right or duty to do so in the first place,) seem to love pointing out nonexistant racial undertones in various media. It's not only aggrivating to those who can see the real problems when they do appear, it actually helps fan the flames of racial tension. It's ludicrous!
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wing zero alpha
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J-Lead wrote:It pretty much sums up my feelings as well. A lot of people (by my experiance, mostly white people for some reason, who have no real right or duty to do so in the first place,) seem to love pointing out nonexistant racial undertones in various media. It's not only aggrivating to those who can see the real problems when they do appear, it actually helps fan the flames of racial tension. It's ludicrous!
As far as I can tell from my experience, white people do it because it's the "cool" thing, makes them think they're fighting the power and promoting equality for all mankind (hah). Otherwise they're just being reverse-racists, which is still racist, and therefore full of crap.
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ZeBaron
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wing zero alpha wrote:As far as I can tell from my experience, white people do it because it's the "cool" thing, makes them think they're fighting the power and promoting equality for all mankind (hah). Otherwise they're just being reverse-racists, which is still racist, and therefore full of crap.
Would this be the same mentality that has white suburbanites promoting "ghetto fab" culture and wearing starched shirts and pants at their ankles to emulate "thug life?"

And WTF is a reverse-racist?
Well f*** my a**...IT'S A DECEPTACON!!!
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wing zero alpha
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ZeBaron wrote:Would this be the same mentality that has white suburbanites promoting "ghetto fab" culture and wearing starched shirts and pants at their ankles to emulate "thug life?"
You mean the "wannabe-black" mentality? Not always; most of the crowd I've seen were just ultra-liberal that think their own race (whites) are the scum of the universe.
And WTF is a reverse-racist?
Reverse racism is the mentality that a specific minority is better or deserves better than everyone else. Therefore, a reverse racist is a person that thinks blacks/hispanics/jews/etc. should have an exclusive set of rights just for the fact that they're a minority and have a checkered history in the US, whether be it money and college scholarships because certain black families were under slavery over a hundred years ago or a Spanish translation of the National Anthem for the immigrants (legal and non) that don't speak English.

And before anyone asks, no I'm not exaggerating on that last one; a few Mexican communities (illegals mostly) are pushing for a Spanish rendition of the National Anthem as well as making Cinco de Mayo a national holiday. But I digress, that's not the topic at hand and I don't want to go too deep into politics here.
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Aegis
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J-Lead wrote:
A commenter wrote: WTF, I give up, no more blacks in video games. Let's just make all game characters purple and call it a day.
I'd go with purple myself, but then there'd be complaints about racism against purple people. :P Seriously, though, you can't win with some of these people here.
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Didn't RE4 not having Zombies though? Just crazy druids?

I'm guessing zombies are back in RE5.

But yeah, I also remembered when FFVII came out 10 years ago, there was some number of people complaining that Barrett acted like a stereotypical black man by making him swear and by giving him a gun.
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Scyron
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They aren't zombies, but it much easier calling them that since in all intents and purposes they act pretty much like crazy mindless killing machines.
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J-Lead
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ParaParaJMo wrote:But yeah, I also remembered when FFVII came out 10 years ago, there was some number of people complaining that Barrett acted like a stereotypical black man by making him swear and by giving him a gun.

Yup, the poopie hit the fan then too. In fact, one of my friends (well, not anymore) happened to be one of the people complaining.
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And from what I also heard, Barrett never really cussed or used any censor symbols in the Japanese version :lol:
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