On Racism

Resident Evil 5 comes out on Friday. I might-ish have a pre-order for it (the release date snuck up on me and I didn't realize it until pre-orders had closed) in the sense that one of the many awesome people at the Union Square Play n' Trade said he was pretty sure he'd have a copy of the game for me, and hopefully will call tomorrow to confirm so I can get it at midnight. Play n' Trade fucking rocks. Had I gone to a gamestop, they'd tell me I was too late, then demand I sell them my games for a dollar apiece so that I could preorder something else instead of, you know, what I want.

(Edit: Showed up at midnight, had a copy of the game with my name on it sitting in the box of preorders. Seriously, Play n' Trade fucking rocks.)

But i digress. What i really wanted to talk about was controversy, because nowadays it seems like no game can be released without some kind of big issue being broached by, well, idiots. The hot button issue for RE5? Racism. Wait, fucking what? Racism? Are you fucking kidding me? You kill zombies and fight an evil corporation who is evil for the sake of being evil. Pretty standard fare for an installment in the Resident Evil series.

Oh wait, back up: Did I mention the game is set in Africa? Did the "uninformed media schlock" alarm just go off in your brains? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yes, people are accusing the game of being racist because you kill black people. In Africa. Say, wasn't that the name of the continent where like, there are a fuck ton of black people? Hell, there were so many of them that out of the goodness of our hearts we took them to America to live on biiiiig plantations so that they could chill and get out of the desert. Of course, then Abraham Lincoln kicked them all off of the plantations and they had to get jobs. At least, that's my knowledge of the situation based off what I skimmed on Wikipedia. My point, however, is that the game is set in Africa. You know what I would find a lot more jarring? A game set in Africa where there was nary a black zombie to be found (incidentally, if Rob Zombie and the guy from In Living Color teamed up, they should totally call their band Black Zombie). Shooting zombies that happen to be black because the infection hit in fucking Africa isn't racist, it's the plot of a fucking videogame.

I found an article on the Wall Street Journal via Joystiq that seems to sum up the problems with the allegations of racism in one particularly poignant line:

"the zombies hardly seem zombie-like when they control machine gun turrets and steer watercraft. Aside from when their faces open up and turn into tentacles, the zombies look like everyday African people, albeit ones that are trying to kill you"

Let's look at this a little closer, hmmm? "aside from when their faces open up and turn into tentacles"? Aside from? That seems like a pretty big detail to simply cast to the side when you're asking whether a game that's been in the works for years is denegrating an entire race. Also, if they look like Africans who are trying to kill you, wouldn't you be remiss if you didn't shoot them in the face? Also, I know Africa isn't the greatest place in the world to live, but if even the majority of citizens resembled the zombies in this game, then Africa would have been foresaken as a lost cause long ago. Christ, the spaniards didn't throw this much of a temper tantrum with RE4. Is the moral of the story that places that aren't predominantly white aren't allowed to be in videogames because if bad things happen to minorities it automatically means its racist? Hell if that was the case all crimes against minorities would have to be classified as hate crimes even if the crime had nothing to do with race, but that'd be sill... what? oh shit.