Hello my bitches and ho’s (you know I mean that affectionately) and anyway it’s hip hop speak so acceptable. Today we’re here, not to look at gender, which I’ve done to death these last few weeks, today we’re looking at another destructive force in the realm of gaming and one that is often overlooked, yes my homies it’s time to look at racism and racial stereotyping in your favourite pastime that's fo’ shizzle.

Separatism Makes Us Stronger... not...
I recently read an interesting series of posts by someone who wanted to start a website only for gamers of African decent, because he felt that other websites did this for the other downtrodden sector of the games industry, that of women. Whilst the gent had a point, I couldn’t help but feel it was demolished by this pulling back from ‘the masses’ only to cocoon themselves from the very industry they want a voice in. On speaking to our very own Thumb Bandits site owner I realised the ethos here is inclusivity and without sounding pretentious, feel Thumb Bandits is going about this the right way. If we were a ‘female only’ site, filtering out the guys who wished to mix with female gamers, what use would that be? The same with this guy, what’s the point of an exclusive community when your lead argument is you feel “black developers are kept out of the limelight”, well won’t that be more so when you all revert to participating in the all black community, leaving those mixed communities you feel you don’t have a voice in? Not to mention cutting others out, the way you feel cut out yourself?

As smart guy Rich Leader points out in his blog on this subject “The true meaning of colorblind and genderless (within gaming) is that everyone is considered potentially white and male by default; that is not equality or diversity, by any stretch of the imagination”. Rich seems to be onto something here that we can’t ignore, but it can’t purely be aimed at the games industry since Hollywood and other big money industries are just as guilty, if not more so as they still won’t swim in the same pool as Dorothy Dandridge. It is a disgrace.

Only white dudes game ...
Gamers themselves are guilty of surprise at the ‘shocking’ realization a fellow online gamer is black or of ethnic origin, God forbid anyone other than middle class white boys pick up a joypad. Black and ethnic gamers appear to have the same complaint as female gamers and it comes down to invisibility or lack of positive representation in games. How often have you been given the opportunity to choose a black character in a game? Add to this how often have you been able to choose a black character that isn’t a gang banger, thug, criminal etc. I’m not going to harp on at the GTA titles since they take racial stereotyping to the extreme, it’s pointless but it needs to be registered when gamers are playing these titles that this is the case, it's all a bit sad isn't it.

Pop a cap in my ass ...
Let me end by saying this, not ALL ‘white’ people are racist, even if we are made to feel so by default at times. My use of the term ‘Homie’ and other ‘gangsta speak’ will be taken as such by someone, despite this being nothing more than a silly dig at the racism prevalent in our society. I for one have had a gutful of the way this planet is going, we’re all brothers and sisters and it is eyes and not our skin that make this not the case, because we judge upon seeing another being and this goes BOTH ways my sistaz and brovaz. As gaming continues to f_ck over the female gamer with a lack of sustainable lead characters, don’t forget to think about the lack of black, latino, arab, asian characters available. If you’re a black latino woman you might as well kiss your own ass as find a playable games character unless it’s a game that allows genetic characterization (skin color, hair styles, features etc), or a secondary hooker or victim. Add to this the problem of ‘gangbanger’ mentality brought forth by certain members of the black community and it must be even more frustrating! When ‘Fiddy’ releases his upcoming videogame he’ll be popping caps in peoples asses, because that’s a great representation of the black man… give me a break.

Fragging in a Sari ...
Addendum: Oooh big word, not done one of these before. I wanted to add this from one of our readers, one ‘Alvin’, who kindly wrote about my rantings and had some very valid points regarding race. When I read this email it was strange because I’d already decided on the subject for this next gamerlogue, so for that reason alone it deserves mention for Alvins Jedi mind tricks had surely worked a treat. Alvin states “I also have a lot of resentment to various areas of the gaming industry, positive ethnic role models being few and far between” and “I mean when was the last time someone got their ass kicked by someone in a sari? If we could get gamers to realise that there are other things out there other than themselves”. This is just the sort of thing I’m trying to get at here, though obviously Alvin was far more succinct than I could ever hope to be. Face it, this particular gamerlogue could go on for months, it’s such a huge area. As always send in your thoughts and we’ll get them out there (the remains of Alvins msg will appear in the mailbag).

Editor Note: There is a positive black role model in the game fahrenheit which Thumb Bandits reviewed HERE. It's a start!