African women's blog upset over Resident Evil 5

Im from south africa, john and this is just one misconception i hate about some foreigners when they visit, that all african ppl r nt educated. That woman/women who wrote the blog is a misinformed idiot.

wowJUSTwow

Actually your wrong. Maybe you should read about a fellow named Nelson Mandela, and see what saw white people do to black people who protested the apartheid***.

*here's a hint, he was lucky to make it out alive.

As i said before, you dont know and you don't care to learn.That's a big problem with Americans, regardless of race. We have an opinion on things that we dont know about, and we care to learn about. I'm still not saying she's right, just that I understand why she feels the way she does.

"and see what saw white people do to black people who protested the apartheid***."

that should read: and see what he saw. sorry

LMFAO

I always thought that the goal for Black people was to be seen as equal, to be seen as a person, not a black person. How can this be achieved when they keep pulling the race card? This should be seen as a video game character killing zombies or infected people. Not a white character killing black zombies or what ever.

Just wanted to mention that we are all one race. This isn't hippie talk, it's the scientific view of things. Our DNA is simply to similar for us to be different races, unlike different types of dogs for example.

Wow. The zombies happen to be black and the whole world decides to freak out? We already know there is racism EVERYWHERE, it isn't just the whites, I know for a fact that black people are just as racist as any other colored skin.

You all just think black people get an exception because of slavery, well, guess what. Black people weren't the only fucking slaves in the world. Way back when, Yugoslavians were faced with even worst slavery and stuff like it than the blacks. Do some research. I think this game will be a HUGE success and I don't give a crap what color skin any character has in the game, it's a game.

I swear I just walked into a land of ignorance.

Let's stop with the bullshit argument of self-defense that no kid gets their hand on a M game, I was at Comic-Con in 2004 and I cringed when I saw Resident Evil 4 being demoed out in the open at the Nintendo booth (so much for that 'kiddie' reputation) on a massive screen that was clearly visible from maybe up to 50 feet behind, damn near adjacent to Pokemon miscellanea and various other titles aimed at a different demographics and many children gathered to watch and many of those children winded up with the GameCube controller in their hands. (Nintendo realized the stupidity of this and changed their tune for successive Comic-Cons. This year, Capcom displayed their forthcoming mature titles, DMC4 and RE:UC, in closed section. At least, companies are seeming to take the initiative. This also is indicative of the trend that those not old enough for M games prefer Western M games to Japanese M games.)

Traditional Japanese culture places heavy emphasis on pride, and sadly in modern Japanese society this pride has prominently taken the form of arrogance and ignorance and/or apathy. This is the reason for the country's poor mental health care and stigmatization of mental illness, which is the reason for the disgusting suicide epidemic in Japan. While developers of Resident Evil 5 have no intention of portraying black Africans in a light other than the zombies in the locale of the latest entry in this series about zombies, the seeming anti-cosmopolitanism that the Japanese society promotes leaves them oblivious to the controversy that this depiction could cause. There is no intentions of racism, just a lot of societal obliviousness. However, RE5 would never depict had a black man who killing Japanese zombies, because of the number of fanatical, hypersensitive Japanese who would instantly threaten those at Capcom because of a supposed depiction that taints the Japanese people.

Just making Chris Redfield black would solve all future non-fanboy controversy. I think fanboy complaints would be idiotic, as I definitely don't play the series for the plot, rather than atmosphere. The plot is damn near inane compared the most prevalent zombie media as it lacks any sort of sociopolitical undertones (something it will probably lack, unless somehow Suda gets his hands on this one).

Looking to BET as an indication of "black culture" is nonsensical, culture is not a byproduct of focus groups and market research; culture is genuine and authentic.

Still I'm looking forward to RE5. The trailer looked pretty damn awesome.

See, this is beyond disgraceful. And, no I'm not talking about the game. Tensions between the many Earthly races are still so tight that we can't even have screen shots of a game that isn't even on the market yet and people view it as a chance to embark on all manner of finger pointing.

It's high time people recognize their natural kinship with each other.The whole concept of race as it pertains to individual cultures and lineages is fine, and I would argue, wonderful. But so long as we view things in terms of black and white, us and them, bigot and righteous, this nonsense will continue. And frankly it's taking up space where we could be enjoying a nice conversation about..iunno, GAMES! Stop viewing issues int erms of "black problems", stop feuling racist remarks with your own brand of it. When any member of humanity is acosted and treated as anything less than human, it harms us all. We all look like shit and we all pay the price. Race my ass.

If you were truly, 100% not racist you would even realize that they are of different colour. You'd just see a human killing human zombies. Simple

little typo there, would = wouldn't

Seriously, if us normal non-racist people want to play this game, we must stand up for ourselves. Our very freedom is at stake here. How can it be ok to shoot Spanish villagers, but not African? Its positive racism, and its outragous. Get ready to fight for your rights here, stand up and defend this game.

Playing Chili Con Carnage on the PSP made me feel bad for killing Mexicans ... I bet I'll feel the same way about this game

I have a perfect solution to this whole race argument.

From this moment on we should start genetic manipulation, experimentation and modification on humans. We should strive to modify ourselves to the point at which we are indistinguishable from each other while simultaneously making ourselves superior to our current form in every way possible...

We could pick a nice out of the way town to build our test center, preferably underground... Somewhere that our... Failures... Can be easily contained if need be.

When our project is completed we will bask in our own glory and forget our petty differences, uniting in a common goal... Cleansing the world of anyone who doesn't willfully submit to our genetic upgrade program...

. o * MuhaHA! HA HA HA HAAaaaaAaaa...a.a.a.aaaaaa.... * o .

Who's with me ?! Come on! We CAN make it work this time! We'll float the company on the stock market... We'll all be share holders!

As a black woman who actually grew up playing Resident Evil (you know the one with the white Zombies), I don't think RE5 set in Africa is racist. I think that it may have a slight resemblence to the current and historic plight of Africans, but this fifth installment is just carrying on the original story. I don't think that when Capcom made the first RE that were thinking "oh yea, after the people get used to killing white American Zombies, we'll set it in Africa where it was really meant to be!" I'm not knocking the blogger's opinions or feeling, I fully repect her for having to courage to speak her mind and exercise her right to free speech. I do however recognize that although the game itself is not racist, some of the comments that came from people in support of this game are. I hope that Capcom decides to put the game out on the market. I think that it is only fitting that as they decide to branch out that they move to other continents. From North America to Europe to Africa. Who knows the next one could be set in Japan herself! We'll all just have to see wont we!?

Wow that was sort of ignorant!

I'm half Haitian, half African-American and don't take any offense from RE5. I mean, Haiti is a pretty logical setting for a zombie-killing game, with the prevalence of voudou and all that. It's just a video game, and zombies don't feel anything, especially not discrimination.

An excellent response, found on a forum (NOTE I DID NOT WRITE THIS MYSELF):

"Think of it this way.

Say the Wii comes out with a game called "Little Witch Hunter." And in that game, you have a town where all of the pre-teen girls have turned into evil witches. But the transformation is not visible at all. To the naked eye, they just look like little anime girls.

To defeat the "witches" you must use the Wiimote to strip them naked, then insert a magic wand into their vaginas. Which, the game explains, on little witch girls is their "evil hole." Each time you do this, the little "witch" moans with pleasure and says, "Thank you, mister!!! That was great!"

Now, I think it's safe to say everyone in this thread would be made uncomfortable by that game.

But why? We're not molesting girls! We're defeating little witches! Context is everything!

And yet... that backstory doesn't eliminate the creepiness of what we're doing. Why? Because there is, in the real world, such a thing as child molestation. And there is such a thing as people who are aroused by fantasies that involve naked, violated children. You must take those social factors into account. The game was not made in a vaccuum. It was made in the real world.

This little clip of video game was not made in a vaccuum. It was made in a world where Africans, real Africans, are maimed and slaughtered by the tens of thousands. Sometimes by other Africans, too often by well-armed white men like the one portrayed in the trailer.

To let me play a computer simulation of a clean, muscular white man mowing down crowds of African savages CANNOT be dismissed with, "But they're really ZOMBIES. It's nothing!" any more than my aforementioned child molestation game can be written off as "but they're WITCHES!"

In both cases you're touching on something that is deeply offensive - and rightfully so - to large groups of often non-retarded people."

Why can't everybody just shut up about this already? I'm black, and I'm telling you that it is not racist. Everyone is so damn touchy about race because of what celebrities say and we hear about it on the news, and it all gets blown out of proportion. It's a game, not a cultural disaster. Everybody just stop.

The game isn't racist, that much is obvious. Chris is killing them because they're zombies, not because they're black people. What the game DOES do is highlight the racism thats in society. When people see a white guy killing black guys... it could remind you of racism you've experienced yourself, or racism you've seen inflicted on others. Or I dunno, racism you've comitted, if you're a racist person. I guess that last one is the most dangerous.

I don't think its a forgone conclusion that developers should be immune to this controversy. In fact I believe they would put out the scenes KNOWING it would create a stink. Any publicity is good publicity for such a game.

Shrug, I'm not saying they should rewrite the game. I'm just saying they should get into trouble for releasing a trailer that is quite obviously ON PURPOSE devoid of context. I mean they're obviously zombies but it isn't explained in the trailer. If you stop your nerd rage for a moment you can quite easily understand how people could get upset over it. Non-gamers obviously.

I mean look at Manhunt, Postal, Carmageddon, etc. These were all utterly crap games. And they all benefited from bad publicity, they sold bucketloads as a result of it. Well ok Manhunt isnt too bad but its not by any means a great game. People are stupid to get upset over it, but you can't deny the developers milk this stuff to high heaven.

i think she's taken this a little too far

You bring up some good points (like the target audience) but I think the lady's right as far as it being offensive. Why couldn't Capcom just have made the hero another african guy or a black guy or something like that did they really have to make it a white guy? This wasn't innocent, it was intentional. I'm not saying that it was intentionally racist (or even that it's necessarily racist), but Capcom knew what they were doing. I believe they did this to generate hype for the game: "Any publicity is good publicity."

And nobody's complaining that all the people you kill in mgs4 are middle eastern? Or about the parallels it has with the current Iraq war? Not that I'm complaining about It at all, I'm just surprised nobody's jumped on that complain train.

Fucking cry.

I just wanted to say that I for one think it would be racist to not include black zombies. You want equality, you got it. I mean really, if I was black I'd be like geez they're so racist never letting me kill black zombies too. Can a black zombie get some representation here?
Next time, throw some Asian zombies in Africa, yeah right... Who cares what race the freakin zombie is?

As an American it makes me sad to say this wouldn't even be a discussion in another country. It's a video game for gods sake. It's ignorance like this that blames teenage killings on video games. Teenage violence and racism come from the same place... poor parenting.

Since she closed comments for her blog, I'll post what I have to say about that here...

That is just freaking stupid. I myself am an African American female, and I see nothing wrong with this. You can CLEARLY see them ganging up on the guy, and two of them are holding what looks to be machettes...seriously. Resident Evil 1-4 was killing white/spanish people. Was that considered racist? No. But suddenly it involves blacks and it's racist? Come on. If he was killing them BECAUSE they were black, not that they were ZOMBIES, then, and only then, would it be racist.

Think of it this way - If, in the real world, there were to be a zombie outbreak, do you think it would be just white people? I don't, because african americans would have just as much risk as becoming a zombie as the whites.

And as for this - "this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young ... fearing, hating, and destroying Black people." ...that's just complete bull. The game, I can only assume, will have the same rating as the previous games in the franchise - Mature, 17+. Sure, 17 is still young, but the games are definitely NOT marketed towards children, no matter how many kids may end up owning it.

The most effective line in the article:
"the Japanese developed Resident Evil"

When games are created by international faceless companies, it becomes a HUGE stretch to apply the old 1960's American rules for who the bad guy is.

I like how she convienintly ignored the fact the africans were actively trying to kill the main character, or did she miss the strangulations and throwing axes flying everywhere?

Is it cos ais Black?


Wow, every time a section of people 'defend' themselves because they think they are exploited, it just makes it worse... it basically invents racism where there is none to start with.

The makers of this game are not white!
They are japanese (yellow) and they did not choose this setting cause the people here are black they chose it cause it seemed like a good setting for an adventure!
The people who are against this game are pussies that need to get a life!
See my video that supports the game!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WxYo3eh2uHU

freedom of speech, what the hell happened to that?? Who cares what is in a game, its a game. I bet the black guys in grand theft auto shooting white cops is okay, but god forbid if a white character shoots some blacks. GET A LIFE!!!

Racism?

I dont think that would cross the game designer's mind, and i'm judging them, by the last 13 titles in its lineup.

The game designer has most centainly thought that a major outbreak would probably be in africa, due to the imense crouded areas, towns, cities, where goverment doesnt give a damm what happens with the public.
Such an outbreak would be disastrous.
How did the virus get to africa? Who imported it? Where did it originate? Etc..

That is called story line, that is put into gameplay... not Racism.

If we all take this as racism, better remember Blade, Nazi Germans, Slavery, etc...

Because then, its better for the film productions and game designers to stop delivering entertainments to the public, such as BLADE, CALL OF DUTY 1-2-3, HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL, JUNGLE FEVER, some of it its even based in history.

If people talk about racism, at some point everyone in the entire world is at least a little racist... thats the truth.
It doesnt matter if you are Black, White, Asian, etc...
At some point, when you are walking, driving, running, talking with someone, you will think bad about someone that crossed your way that was different or even the same race.

But that doesnt mean that everything people do is racism.

Racism is part of life, thats why people who believe in God, know that God deliberately devided races around the world.

So live with it, its part of everyones lives.

It takes place in HAITI you dumb shits NOT Africa.

besides its the Japanese that has the problem with black people. OBVIOUSLY.
..there should be a edit button here...

This is one of the worst articles I've ever seen, as well as some of the most ignorant comments ever shown on a board. What a joke.

Resident evil 5 is not racist and here is proof!
White zombies in Resident evil 5!
Proof that the zombies in resident evil 5 are not all black!
Proof that resident evil 5 is not racist!
Resident evil 5 is racist? Yeah right!

THE GAME DOES CONTAIN A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT RACES!
Watch this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WPDOTAawT5c