Association for American Indian Development calls for Gun boycott [Update 1]
The Association for American Indian Development has
drawn up a petition to boycott Activision's free-roaming Wild West title, Gun. The organization is outraged at
the game's depiction of the Apache people, including "the slaughtering of the 'Renegade' Apaches, the atrocity of
'Indian Scalping' and the mis-information of Indian traditions of 'killing' sacred white animals." The petition
requests that Activision remove all "derogatory, harmful, and inaccurate depictions of American Indians" from
Gun and reissue the game. In the event that Activision is unwilling to do so, the petition demands a recall.Should the games industry—and the entire entertainment industry—be held to certain ethical standards? What should be done about games (and media) that exploit and perpetuate negative stereotypes associated with racial/ethnic groups? Should we consider that the education system does a poor job of teaching the opposite?
Commenters: keep it clean and relevant!
UPDATE: GamerGod explores this issue further [Thanks, jkdove]
[Thanks, Karsten]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
TRUEPATRIOT @ Feb 1st 2006 11:17AM
omg indians still exist?!
anyways why do people always protest games that are terrible?seems to me people dont even attempt to play the games.
Scythe @ Feb 1st 2006 11:20AM
WTF! It's a game that would be like all the Blacks calling for a recall because GTA:SA showed them as gang members and Killers and Drug Dealers. Come on people get over it, it's a game.
Informed @ Feb 1st 2006 11:22AM
If anybody really gave a damn about these supposedly unethical depictions, they wouldn't buy the game and it would have been publicized other than by these political groups trying to create attention for themselves. The game is not racist. Get over it.
MosquitoControl @ Feb 1st 2006 11:22AM
First off, it's fiction. Fiction need not be accurate... hence being fiction.
Secondly, it's a story about character development. The "hero" realizes the error of his ways and joins with the Native Americans to help fight the white man. Which, I might add, makes up for the majority of the killings and the scalpings. Sure, you kill some Native Americans, but you kill thousands of white men, many of which are common criminals, some of which are innocent.
Lastly... your character is half native, and Native Americans end up being portrayed in a very positive light.
Of course, you don't get headlines for commenting on that, only for complaining. Like I said, though, it's about character development, which often means a character needs to start on the bottom. Isn't Hollywood full of "bad guys" that realize the error of their ways and save the day?
me @ Feb 1st 2006 11:24AM
i really dont think that the gaming industry should have to follow a bunch of rules to make games politically correct. gaming is one of the last places i can go to avoid that. im sure that activision or any other company did not have the intention of upsetting a group, but rather making a great game.
if this nonsense continues, you will have to see every ethnicity getting the same screen time, and being portrayed as best friends.
Dman @ Feb 1st 2006 11:25AM
Should games be historically accurate? Just like cinema and books, it depends on whether its fiction or not. Even then, there is always someone on the other side that is offended.
I remember Disney's Aladdin had a similar response. Next.
Informed @ Feb 1st 2006 11:25AM
In fact, I'm going to go buy the game today just because of this. I saw it on sale for $25. Activision deserves my $25 for riling political race-baiters like these folks.
pennywise969 @ Feb 1st 2006 11:25AM
I think the American Association of White People should demand a recall because we dont want to be featured in such a shitty game at all.
ChronicLogic @ Feb 1st 2006 11:26AM
Yeah, I'm a jew and I don't like the way we are depicted in the bible. I want all the 'less flattering' passages taken out, or I want all the bibles recalled.
Every group of people with serious problems like Native Americans wants to blame 'white people' for their problems. The videogames is fictional and the atrocities within don't even compare to what native americans do in their real modern lives.
As a race they have serious problems with alcoholism, gambling, rape, and suicide. Maybe a lot of that is the fault of 'white people' but I don't think that a videogame that shows scalping is making their lives any worse.
ps: and what about how they used to portray native americans in cartoons, that was way more demeaning
ryan @ Feb 1st 2006 11:28AM
I'm german and I dont complain everytime a new call of duty game comes out. Guess some people just have more time than I do.
fawazr @ Feb 1st 2006 11:32AM
Yeah, games are way too vapid and inconsequential to be held to ANY standards and most of the people who play said games don't matter to any discernable degree, so the falsehoods, gratuitous content, or inequities that these games purport won't be making anyone 'worse off', so to speak. Think of it as feeding bacon to swine. Trust me, that's a far more decent thing to do than to demand that pearls be cast before them.
logikil @ Feb 1st 2006 11:33AM
This is just another example of our PC culture gone mad. Anything and everything anyone says or does anymore is going to upset someone. People seem to think that anyone who plays games is a blithering idiot incapable of coming to conclusions about anything.
PEOPLE the vast majority of gamers are not developing their social identities by what they see in a video game. They aren't that important. This is just as stupid as people arguing to get rid of college and high school mascots that happen to have names relating to American Indians.
As to poster 1 though, your first comment is exactly what gives arguments like the ones the ACLU and those hiding behind PC rules water. It was a stupid thing to say.
My 2 cents. Peace.
FineFine @ Feb 1st 2006 11:38AM
Decent ethics is engrained into our daily lives. Everything we do can be looked at from an 'ethical' standpoint. We don't steal food, we're nice to our nieghbors, we don't beat the kids, we don't litter, we don't tell lies, we don't hurt people.
Ethics, by and large, can be boiled down to the question of whether or not a specific action or set of actions makes the world a better place, or a worse place.
There are a lot of Computer Games out there that potentially make the world a worse place. I'm not saying we should judge and ban and send lawsuits and all that (because, ethically, that might make the world a worse place)
But I do think we should expect a little more introspection from our game publishers.
There are no taboo subjects. The tools of Satire and Historical-Accuracy can tackle pretty much anything without making the world a worse place.
Thomas Crymes @ Feb 1st 2006 11:40AM
Notice that those cartoons are nowhere to be found nowadays.
The issue here isn't mere political correctness. The groups involved are saying that the portrayal of Native Americans in Gun is akin to showing a black people in a game and having them all eating fried chicken and playing basketball while using ebonics.
If you are doing that for satirical reasons or you are making a statement, that is one thing. But it's when developers put these depictions in games (or any media) not because they are making a point, but because they didn't take the time to check on the facts, merely relying on known stereotypes for the game.
Imagine if Gun were a movie. Would its depiction of Native Americans be acceptable? Fight your knee jerk reaction that the PC police are out in force and consider their point.
Coda @ Feb 1st 2006 11:41AM
It's funny how the previous posts above me were made by four white guys and a Jew talking about racial stereotyping in an American game.
No offense, but how can you even begin to understand what it's like to grow up as a minority with constant stereotyping being smashed into you by all the media you see from an early age? Exactly. You don't.
GTA: San Andreas isn't a valid ground for pointing fingers about stereotypes because the majority of the game's characters are black, and voiced by popular black celebrities. And they don't do insulting or uninformed things like dance soft shoe while munching on watermleons. In a game like Gun it becomes a problem because of misguided cultural perceptions of Indians having "sacred animal hunting rites", and the depiction of the Great White Man chasing off the evil Apaches who attack towns like Dodge City with no apparent motive but evil.
Maybe if you saw a game with a huge nosed Hassidic Jew rubbing his hands together and licking pennies you'd think otherwise Chronic.
Logicus @ Feb 1st 2006 11:44AM
I think most of the effort by the AAID to block the game is to emphasize that activision's depiction of natives is part and parcel of the malicious rewriting of native-american colonialism, or, at least to emphasize that activision through 'Gun' is complicit in that fact. Of course they know Activision isn't going to pull the game, unless the public really gets behind them, which is a slim to none shot. What they hope however is that they will provide some semblance of opposition to that ignorant depiction of natives in 'Gun'.
Also, the social problems natives face have little to do with the outcry...stay relevant or at least sensible
MosquitoControl @ Feb 1st 2006 11:49AM
"The groups involved are saying that the portrayal of Native Americans in Gun is akin to showing a black people in a game and having them all eating fried chicken and playing basketball while using ebonics."
First off, not every Native was depicted the same way. Some were savage murderers. Some were honorable and noble men. This is exactly as the whites were depicted.
Second of all, did you even play San Andreas? Pretty much just basketball playing, fried chicken eating, ebonics speaking black men.
How about Mafia? Pretty much all spaghetti and Italian accents murdering each other.
Or Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Every German in that game was trying to fight America and experimenting on humans in an attempt to save Hitler's brain.
Or are the last two stereotypes not a problem because they're not minorities. You know, the general public can understand stereotypes about the white man but are too dumb to understand stereotypes about minorities?
Tim Childree @ Feb 1st 2006 11:49AM
Anyone else amused by the fact that protestors always latch on to something a gamer CAN do in a game and say that the gamer HAS to do it in a game? I remember this same argument being made because gamers HAD to pick up hookers in GTA to restore health, and they HAD to kill the hookers to get their money back, and they HAD to beat corpses in the street, and they HAD to pimp hookers out. In the interest of being an open-ended game, Rockstar ALLOWED people to do all these things, but none of them were required at all, and I'm willing to bet that there are people who have played through the entire GTA series who never once realized that they could pick up hookers.
Just because Neversoft ALLOWS gamers to scalp both Native and Immigrant Americans doesn't mean that they HAVE to. In fact, I don't recall EVER using the scalping knife on the Natives in the game.
SuicideNinja @ Feb 1st 2006 11:58AM
I haven't played the game, and don't plan to. The Old West is not a time I find interesting.
What, did the lawyers forget the long legal statements at the beginning of the game? You know, the text that says it is fiction, and characters potrayed are not blah blah blah blah blah you can't do anything if you don't like it? Sure, no one ever reads that, but it's put there for a reason.
As the first poster suggests, people have to buy the game in order to be submitted to its misrepresentation.
Do they really have to start making all characters in games ORANGE or PURPLE? Nah, they'll still figure out some way to make it "racist".
logikil @ Feb 1st 2006 12:01PM
Coda:
I certainly hope you did some research when you were referring to the posts above you because i am in fact Puerto Rican, not white. I have also been the victim of stereotypes. I was pulled over in florida while on vacation because the police officers "believed" i looked like some guy that was breaking into cars in the area. I've been followed around stores and such as a kid. So trust me i know what it feels like to be discriminated against. That being said, I still don't think that games are a place to point at regarding social commentary. ALL THE GTA GAMES....ALL OF THEM...make every race involved look shitty. But i can play those games and see the humor. Games like Gun, or wolfenstein, or the myriad of others mentioned are going to have characters both good and evil, of diifferent races and such which are going to piss folks off. But come on, get some thicker skin folks.
I do not sit and now look at American Indians as savage. And there were plenty of depictions of savage indians prior to this game. Give people credit.
SP @ Feb 1st 2006 12:01PM
Hey, we already killed 95% of their population. Why can't we relive that great experience? I don't understand why a group of people that had genocide committed against them would be angered. I've met so few that maybe they're not even real people and its some vast left-wing conspiracy to make us feel bad.
ck @ Feb 1st 2006 12:07PM
I can't believe that every comment has sided against this issue (except for 12). Sure, I do agree with some points. Sure, games are works of pure fiction (for the most part), but to say that games do not influence our culture is a complete lie. I'm not saying that the kids who play Gun are going to have these stereotypes of Native Americans/Indians/Whatever you want to call them, but I think there's a subtle underlying prejudice here.
I think people have got the point of the American Indian Association wrong. It's not about making things "accurate," it's about wrongly portraying the Indians and further influencing our culture's negative attitude towards this minority. I mean, the textbooks we read in school are all wrong, and movies like Disney's Pocohontas and games like Gun certainly don't help to change the way we percieve the Indians and how they were treated over the past 300 years.
And the arguments from other comments that it's like saying the Jews should be upset over the bible or the Germans should be mad at the Call of Duty games are just as stupid as the #1's comments. This is a cultural issue that is relevant now and has been ingrained into our American society since we first crossed the ocean. It's not like Americans see German tourists and completely stereotype them as Nazis. But stereotypes of the old Indian and even the modern Indian (casino-loving moochers) are still very real.
Like I said, the point is not to be historically accurate, but to promote a better understanding of American Indians, and certainly Gun isn't helping the cause.
Whether they should recall the game, I don't know. But I think at least an apology from the developer would help somewhat.
TRUEPATRIOT @ Feb 1st 2006 12:12PM
um #12 its called a um....whats that thing called thats sometimes followed by laughter..oh yeah a JOKE.maybe it wasnt that funny but still lighten up.im part taino indian(yes i can trace it)
MosquitoControl @ Feb 1st 2006 12:14PM
GUN wasn't trying to promote a better understanding of anything.
It was trying to pay homage to 1930s-1950s Westerns and to entertain the player.
As for negative stereotypes no longer existing for Jews or Germans but existing for Native Americans... you're kidding, right?
Lastly, it's interesting to see the GamerGod editor claim, in defense of his article, that "You can't please everyone all the time." Perhaps he should allow Activision and Neversoft to adopt the same motto.
ck @ Feb 1st 2006 12:15PM
Well, I started writing my previous post 15 minutes ago, but I see some people do agree with me. And I meant post #13, not #12. Oops.
logikil @ Feb 1st 2006 12:16PM
Well hell let's see then:
I want recalls of movies like Scarface, Carlito's Way, and the like. The portray Hispanics as Drug Dealing thugs. Oh and while we are at it, let's get rid of anything by Cheech and Chong, more drug ties. Completely sanitize any portrayals of hispanics in entertainment mediums. Doesn't anyone else see how stupid that is?? Obviously not all hispanics are drug dealing thugs. Shit, I'm a college grad working in the computer industry. I can watch those aforementioned movies and separate the negative conotations from the reality of the world.
Is that so damn hard for people to do?
Travis @ Feb 1st 2006 12:21PM
#1 your an idiot, They still exist, IM am a Native American Im part of the Lumbee Tribe, google it. BTW are any of yall Native Americans? No didnt think so, so you shouldnt be llokin at our view point of things? How would u feel if people called yall the white devil that only wants money and power? I dont think the game should be recalled at all though, its fiction. Im not gonna buy it though, waste of $60 bones. Besides the Native American Community has been screwed so many time its not even funny, only thing we get in return is Casinos and its easier/cheaper for us to get into college, thats about it.
TRUEPATRIOT @ Feb 1st 2006 12:30PM
travis your a dumbass ITS A JOKE.im part indian!its a joke fuck i didnt know so many dumb people read joystiq.
also why take something some random guy says on a post so seriously?
ck @ Feb 1st 2006 12:32PM
MosquitoControl:
I never said that Jew and German stereotypes no longer exist. It's just not as prevalent (Although somehow making fun of Jews is vastly rampant in pop culture) or socially acceptable.
Oscar @ Feb 1st 2006 12:37PM
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral game. Games are well designed, or badly designed. That is all.
LaughingTarget @ Feb 1st 2006 12:57PM
"How would u feel if people called yall the white devil that only wants money and power?"
It happens all the time. If anyone with a light skin tone even utters the name of any other race, it is immediately assumed to be racism. Racial stereotyping runs both ways, and in this day and age, the anti-white stereotype is far more common than all the others. There is a reason why people like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle make millions, and it isn't because of their politically correct and family friendly orientation that breaks the color barrier. The only real difference is the "white devil" is at the point where he can just ignore it because he knows none of it is true; and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what someone like that says. This day and age, it is hard to find individuals with any real significant power over your life that acts on such stereotyping because to do so would end up destroying all of that influence.
So Gun allows the players to scalp Native tribesmen, so what? Like said above, you don't ever have to do that. It is all up to the gamer. We have to understand that video games don't cause stereotyping to spread. We get more of that out of our daily newspaper and watching The Chappelle Show.
Sad fact is that was how things went down back then. The American immigrant population was mostly convinced that the native populations were evil and had to be exterminated. Gun does a better job of telling the story of someone who sees through the bull and acts on what is right. Shouldn't the AAID be promoting that?
The ultimate problem, though, is there happens to be an AAID. Stop thinking you're some other nationality and just realize you're an American citizen, not a member of the Lumbee or some other tribe. I don't run around in my Murray clan kilt and sing the praises of my ancestor Andrew de Moray for his slaughter of Englisman because I live under the stars and stripes, not in some castle in Scotland. It is about time these groups do the same. It is far easier to get respect if you're an American instead of a native who is trying to hang onto a way of life that died out over 150 years go.
Akbar @ Feb 1st 2006 1:03PM
Despite my handle, I'm in fact 100% white-bread.
As for Travis (#26):
How would u feel if people called yall the white devil that only wants money and power?
I wouldn't really care. If you said it as a joke, it'd be funny. If you took it seriously, well then I'd feel sorry for you, but I still think you've got every right to think I am, and to say that I am. That's all there is to it. As Voltaire once said I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
At any rate, I think hitting closer to home for alot of these white guys (myself included, mind you) are the nerd stereotypes. You know, the guy that has tape on his glasses and a pocket protector? You still see that everywhere. You can still see lots of pop-culture jokes at our expense. We're not all that guy. Do we demand that everyone apologize or recall products which do so? (well, someone probably has at some point, but they're an overzealous pedantic too)
That's just my 2 copper pieces. Proceed to flame me if you'd like (it's ok, I'm not a minority, I won't sue)
Akbar @ Feb 1st 2006 1:07PM
aww... I had a little arrow saying that the last () was a joke in #30, but it stripped it thinking it was a tag. My mistake. Anyway, the sue line really was a joke, before anyone decides to flame me on {that} particular line. I'm done now :)
Eric @ Feb 1st 2006 1:11PM
"The ultimate problem, though, is there happens to be an AAID. Stop thinking you're some other nationality and just realize you're an American citizen, not a member of the Lumbee or some other tribe. I don't run around in my Murray clan kilt and sing the praises of my ancestor Andrew de Moray for his slaughter of Englisman because I live under the stars and stripes, not in some castle in Scotland. It is about time these groups do the same. It is far easier to get respect if you're an American instead of a native who is trying to hang onto a way of life that died out over 150 years go."
... that is so wrong.
What, just because you're an American you should completely abandon your ethnic culture, heritage and history?
Glad I live up in Canada if that's the way it is then.
Gman @ Feb 1st 2006 1:21PM
travis you should DEFINITELY move to canada...natives here dont pay any taxes...at all..ever. No sales tax, property tax, income tax...none. They get free post secondary schooling and get a stipend for going to high school at all. Basically making it so their life is MADE for them. Pretty decent treatment considering the acts that started everything took place hundreds of years ago. Are the Italians paying the Greeks for all the shit that went down in ancient rome? Reparations are great but when is the debt settled? So everyone else has to pay forever for shit that went down in history...why can't people just leave games alone?!?!
Don Jose @ Feb 1st 2006 1:28PM
Aw, man! I beat that game on gamecube a month and a half ago (rented it). Now that someone's protesting it, I've got to actually go and BUY it to help sales. Contoversy breeds interest, you know. Besides, it'll probably look way better on my 360 anyway.
Starsmashed @ Feb 1st 2006 1:29PM
I didnt find tha game offensive. Just like the GTA series, I took it all as just fun. By the way Im Paiute. Maybe since I'm not Apache I didnt care...maybe? Maybe I did have a little too much fun scalpingwhite people and laughing meniacally. Meh...moving on.
Corey @ Feb 1st 2006 1:30PM
in the words of Atom and his Package in the song "If You Own The Washington Redskins, You're a Cock"
"And you'll go 'wah wah wah, you're so pc!'/And I will say 'hey wait, my my my how have the tables turned/ that being a f*cking prick is a desirable trait"
Basically, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be nice, and there shouldn't be any pride in saying you're not PC.
RP @ Feb 1st 2006 1:36PM
It's disappointing that so many commenters have such brutal knee-jerk reactions to this.
Videogames are really the last bastion of archetypal bad stereotypes, and little is being done to remedy this. So many people have absolutely no grasp of what it's like to be a minority in the U.S., and they don't want to know. Instead of thinking about the portrayal of American Indians in Gun, they go right off the deep end.
Sure, the game might have been a paean to movies of the past, but it's possible to do that without making the mistakes of the past--all it would take is a developer who's willing to show both sides of the story.
Charles @ Feb 1st 2006 1:36PM
We should recall every game that promotes anti-white sterotypes. Games that have evil white businessmen would be on the top of the list.
macro @ Feb 1st 2006 1:39PM
Apache and Blackfeet are in the game. Neither gambles or drinks excessively. Beat stereotypes without censoring depictions of history.
Akbar @ Feb 1st 2006 1:54PM
to #36:
RP, it's not that we (or at least I) want stereotypes in games or don't want stereotypes in games. There are a few problems with this for me.
1) Stereotypes are prevalent, and most likely always will be, all over the place. Our biggest outlet now is the great counter-PC comics. Someone has already mentioned Rock & Chapelle. They use stereotypes all of the time, and if it's not them, it'll be someone. They'll be here, and I don't think human nature will let you ditch them alltogether (but I could be wrong on that one)
2) More importantly for me, their petition {demands} that the game be changed and {demands} that Activision recall the game otherwise. You know what? If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Lot's of people are already not buying it, you'll be in good company. But to {demand} diddly squat from someone else just because it offends you seems arrogant to me. I don't agree with lots of people in the country. I don't agree with neo-nazis, for example, but I don't {demand} that they close up shop. It's their right to say what they want, and it's my right to not deal with them. You can't just start forcing people to do things that upset you. Sure, boycott the game, but don't demand that it be recalled... that's just silly.
Derbeste @ Feb 1st 2006 1:59PM
Confucious say:
If you take offense where offense is not intended, You're a fool.
If you take offense where offense IS intended, You're a fool.
Either you misjudged someone by jumping to a conclusion, or it was their INTENTION to get you riled up and they got you.
Feel free to support awareness. We could all use a little more of that. But to react in an antagonistic fashion does not win sympathy. It encourages resistance.
SuicideNinja @ Feb 1st 2006 2:36PM
I'm a minority. And don't care. 2 out of 6 people in my house are "white". Whether you're Korean, African American, Filipino, Chinese, Apache, or Caucasian, it really doesn't matter.
The more of a "big deal" is made out of it, the more ridiculous it will become. I've decided some day that Aliens are going to come to our planet and be pissed that our games feature us melting them with lasers.
LaughingTarget @ Feb 1st 2006 2:44PM
Eric-
There is a significant difference between abandoning your heritage and identifying the priorities. Sure, I show up every year to the Highland Games in town and compete in the various games, wear my kilt, and eat my haggis. That doesn't mean I have to be that way all year round, hang out only with other Scots, and ardently refuse that I am part of a greater culture of America.
Other ethnicities need to identify they are American first THEN add the ethnic spice from their heritage. America isn't about hundreds of little groups coordoning themselves off from one another, doing everything in their power to make sure they are different and the others are outsiders. It is a nation about brotherhood with fellow countrymen and brining in spices from your own past.
I can regail friends and acquaintances (or even total strangers) with the aspects of my heritage, but I never once forget that I do not live in an "us vs them" world, but remember they are my fellow countrymen.
Joe @ Feb 1st 2006 2:44PM
It's a little shocking to see so many people okay with Gun. I was forced to buy it as part of an XBox 360 bundle. The game play was absolute crap. The plot seemed to promote controversy for controversy's sake. The fact that you are required to kill stereotypical natives was the last straw for me to shut off the game and never take it off the shelf again.
The game's plot takes place at a time in American history when we were invading and settling in a foriegn country (the Apache nation, among others.) It is your goal in this game to shoot people trying to defend their home from invasion.
Now imagine another video game where you were playing a similar role in a different war: a Nazi at Auschwitz, a European invading Africa then sending the tribesmen off to slavery in America, a Hutu soldier committing genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. Would any of these be acceptable?
I don't think anyone should be legally stopped from making or playing this game, but Gun is in horrible taste. If Activision hurts in the pocket because of it, I won't shed a tear.
Fearless Freep @ Feb 1st 2006 2:57PM
PC [read that as "left-wing mind control"] advocates always seem to overlook that there's nothing in the Bill of Rights that guarantees anybody the right not to be offended.
You're free to criticize any art [or game] you find fault with. You're also free not to buy it if you don't like it. And I'm free not to listen to your spouts of verborrhea.
WedgeTalon @ Feb 1st 2006 3:17PM
In other news:
Hot on the heels of their announcement about their boycott of the video game "Gun", the AAID called today for a boycott of Atari's "Custer's Revenge" unless it, like the Activision title "Gun", is changed or recalled.
Says the AAID spokesperson when questioned about the validity of their charges: "Well if they refuse, then I'll just hold my breath. Some may even throw temper-tantrums or cry like babies. That'll show 'em."
"One can only hope that [the situation] doesn't degress so far."
ThePete @ Feb 1st 2006 3:36PM
Why not let any Native Americans who want to buy the game pay with disease-ridden blankets?
I think that would be fair.
Hey, we wiped out their nation pretty much, I say we give them whatever the hell they want.
You can't compare it to racism in other games because we didn't slaughter most of Italy or Africa.
The Native Americans who are alive today are damn lucky to be alive because back in the day, millions of them were slaughtered wholesale as though it were nothing. It was not the Native Americans who were the savages. Pick up "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn and read about American history from the losers' point of view--the Native American point of view.
Writing something that is fictional and also racist is little excuse when you are effectively pointing out that the slaughter of a race/nation of people was justified (or could seem justified) by their savagery.
I haven't played the game and don't intend to--but in the end it comes down to this: There's a handful of Native Americans alive today. Let them have what they want since we already have what we want. I don't think they're going to ask for anything we can't afford to give them. And if one lousy game goes away because of it, I think American culture will survive.
Litefoot @ Feb 1st 2006 3:54PM
Amazing...But then again is it? It is very obvious why so many of you make ignorant remarks and are only able to grasp the very surface level of what is wrong with this game. Those of you who are of ethnic persuasion and draw comparisons to being a jew and the bible or being black and GTA have so lost touch with how this compares to us. Lets take it to that place that begins to be comparable to what GUN does for the original people of this continent. Instead of the Bible - my Jewish friends lets say Hitler and the ovens...Make you feel a little uncomfortable that some sick mind might come up with a game allowing the player to feel empowered from the sick brutalization of your people reducing you to a hiccup in history. As for black people...how convenient the analogy to GTA...Get real, this isn't a game about modern day stereotypes of American Indian people (ie:the player robbing an Indian casino or how many bottles of liquor can you steal from the drunk Indian) this about the clouded history of our past, which has yet to be told accurately in any history book to this day...(thus the abundant amount of completely ignorant posts here on this page), It would be far more accurate, my African American friend- to compare GUN- to the game that is in development, which pits you the slave owner against the savage native Africans you recently purchased and encourages you to deal with them (thus accumulating points in the game) by finding a tree and a rope and lettin' em fly high. Or you could be more "pc" and just whip them or better yet put a bullet through their skull. How many people who walked a mile during the civil rights marches when black people were still being LYNCHED, would have a real problem with that game. Would Mrs. King who just died yesterday...if still alive...allow for the legacy of her husbands fight against inequality and racism be remembered that way? No of course not... nor would several million black people in the United States either. So where are we not communicating what is wrong with this game accurately? WHERE...are you not seeing the correllations accurately? Is it because you have been raised with and taught a lack of the truth (ie:ignorance) regarding American Indian people and now you must embrace it- for it is all that you know? AAID is not trying take your video games away from you. AAID is not trying to come into your homes and tell you what you can and cannot do. We are asking you to remember that even though you may feel comfortable in the final military defeat of our people roughly 100 years ago - that we are still living on OUR homelands and though that no one is asking for you to not be American or to live in a "castle to embrace your Scottish roots"...At least today you could go to Scotland and stay in a castle or see that which your ancestors knew. No one is asking you go pick grapes in Italy or be a gladiator in the colliseum...but you could go there and still to this day see it and embrace those that are still there in your country. You sir, no matter how much it galls your gut or burns your spirit(and by the way it's okay...I'm not blaming you for this), are living everyday in a country built on top of thousands of little "Italys" and "Scotlands" each with their own unique customs, languages and beliefs. You are living in a country who knowingly used "Germ Warfare" (ie:smallpox) on American Indians and I won't get into the Pandoras box there. But point being...If you as a caring citizen of this country and really knew what it took to give you the life you have now and If history was taught that way - it wouldn't sell very good here in the USA would it? Sure, wouldn't do much for the war in Iraq, (isn't the murdering of innocent people through biological and chemical weapons- one of the reasons "why" we went to war with them?) So the more you are "dumbed down" and the more ignorant you are - all the better for everybody! And you say, and I summize..."Why can't you just be happy that we killed your people and gave you this great new way to live" and I say to you sir..."Most of us had no problem with how it was before and it has only been a daily struggle since. All we ask is...Do not mistake our experience in this land -for that of yours." If you read the comments above we even have ones of our own who embrace this and do not have the heart to stand up(ie: the ignorant person who said what happens in GUN was happening to Apaches and he is Paiute - so it didn't bother him. How painfully embarrassing to your ancestors.) So to all the comments above... for the most part...Great job you are a wonderful part of the system and doing your job 100%! Stay "dumbed down"- because thats how they justify all the things that they do...with your co-sign. However, there are several people who read what ignorance you write above and leave this site without the desire to become an active contributor to it on any level. I feel that I have overstayed my time here as well.
Last thing...The real problem here... at the bottom of it all is that this is not how the Creator would have us be or treat each other. So on any level...just stop no matter how good it can be explained away. If it causes anyone to hurt...just don't do it. One last thing - and something that this game does as one more way of promoting ignorance harmful to our religious beliefs...we don't hunt "White Buffalos" we protect and honor them as they are sacred to us. Again, I'm not blaming anyone- Really, How would you ever know that?
Blessings and strength.