Take a look at this article. Robert Parungao, a Canadian researcher and student of sociology at the University of British Columbia, decided to take a look at racism in video games. He bought a copy of Kung Fu, Warcraft 3, Shadow Warrior, and Grand Theft Auto 3. He played them for a total of 100 hours.

His conclusion? Well, his conclusion is exactly what you would expect it to be. Any researcher who starts researching with the intent of being offended is going to find something to be offended by. Video games are racist.

“Parungao, an avid gamer, says the games feature evil gangsters, all of them non-white, who ‘function as narrative obstacles to be overcome, mastered or ultimately blown to smithereens by the white hero’.”

Although I’m only familiar with two of the games (and I’m not positive “Kung Fu” even exists), I assume Parungao was referring to Grand Theft Auto 3. As far as I know, it’s the only one of those games that features gangsters as primary antagonists.

First of all, he’s wrong. And this isn’t an objective thing, either. It’s not just my opinion. He’s just plain wrong. The “primary narrative obstacles” in Grand Theft Auto 3 are a pastiche of various Italian-American mafia families who actually existed in New York City. While the Chinese Triads and the Japanese Yakuza are featured in the game, they don’t play a major antagonistic role. Oh, and let’s not forget that Parungau is missing perhaps the most obvious criminal of them all: The main character, a white American man, who kills more innocent people than the non-white NPCs could even dream of.

His inclusion of Warcraft III simply baffles me. Let’s forget for a moment that most of the characters aren’t even human. If one could argue that the Warcraft series has a main character, it would have to be Thrall, the Warchief of the New Horde. The Warcraft universe places us in the middle of a war between the Horde and the Alliance. One of the main themes of the Warcraft series is prejudice. At the end of Warcraft III, the Horde and the Alliance have put aside their differences to fight a common enemy. Thrall, an orc, and Jaina Proudmore, a human, sign a treaty to end the war. However, at the beginning of World of Warcraft, we find out that the Alliance couldn’t overcome their old hatred, and they began a new assault on the Horde. Thrall and Jaina manage to remain on good terms, however. The message here is that our differences don’t have to tear us apart. The whole point of Warcraft III is that prejudice leads to hate, and hate leads to war.

I remember the controversy when the first concept art of Sazh Katzroy, from Final Fantasy XIII, was released.

A black man with an afro. The horror. Most of the people actually complaining about his hairstyle were undeniably white bloggers overcome with indignation and eager to show people that they’re ‘…really not racist, I promise!’. In the end, all they’ve ended up doing is highlighting their own prejudice; they believe that there’s something offensive about a black man’s hair.

The controversy surrounding Sazh is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Barret Wallace, the first playable black character in the Final Fantasy series (Well, almost).

Barret is a big buff black guy with a machine gun. He yells a lot, isn’t shy with profanity, and his speech is patterned after Mr. T. He’s from the slums, and he’s got earrings. He’s the NAACP’s worst nightmare.

What people aren’t quick to point out, however, is that Barrett is one of the only positive father figures in the entire franchise. Barrett is absolutely devoted to his adopted daughter, Marlene. Everything he does is to secure a future for her. While many people look at video games like Final Fantasy VII as promoting racist stereotypes, I know at least one writer who understands the truth. As Shawn Bruckner, content manager at RPGamer explained, “…we have oversimplified the situation in an attempt to understand a very complex subject.” He goes on to say that yes, while Barret is a stereotype inspired by Mr. T., he teaches us an important lesson, that “…a black man speaking in “ebonics” is not something to fear.” He concludes that “Barret was a sensitive, caring man underneath his outer projection of strength and anger,” and that his portrayal is not racist, but “…a testament to the exact opposite.”

The most recent racial controversy in video games comes from Resident Evil 5. In the game, the player takes control of Chris Redfield, a former police officer, who must fight through hordes of zombies to save his life and the lives of his friends. Sounds okay, right? Well here’s the problem: Chris Redfield is white, and the game takes place in Africa, which means most of the zombies are black. Apparently portraying Africans as black is racist.

Are you laughing yet? I’d be laughing if I wasn’t so frustrated with the hypocrisy of people who are actually offended by the sixth installment of the popular series.

Apparently it’s perfectly legitimate to spend five games shooting zombified (mostly) white Americans and Spaniards.  But as soon as you move the game to Africa, those zombies instantly become a subconscious reflection of the developer’s hatred of all black people.

People are so eager to be offended they can’t even think logically. What is the solution to the racism “problem” in Resident Evil 5? Turn the main character, who was established five games ago, into a black man so that he is no longer a symbol of white oppression? Move the game to another continent inhabited primarily by white people? Think of the precedent these things set. This is not progress, this is forcing creativity to conform to the indignation of talk show pundits and message board warriors.

In order to ease some of the pressure, Capcom added a second playable character; a black woman. While this pacified a few people, it just fueled the fires of others who pointed out that she isn’t black enough. That’s not a joke. The black woman isn’t black enough. Maybe they should have given her an afro? Oh wait.

Think about the precedence this sets. Soon, in order to be safe, all video games will have to take place in Provo, all antagonists must be white upper-middle class males, and all heroes must be black women in wheelchairs with college degrees. No wonder minority and female characters are rare in video games; people are so sensitive about them that writers are most certainly afraid to use them.

I understand that creative media influences how we see the world. You all know how I feel about advertisements that portray all fathers as clumsy, stupid oafs. Or how the entire Lifetime channel is built around the idea that all men are time bombs waiting to beat and rape their wives. If the black-man-as-bad-guy motif were a trend in video games, I’d speak out against it. But the fact is, for every minority portrayed as a villain, there are a hundred evil white guys razing peasant villages and summoning meteors to destroy planets. And you know what? I don’t care. A story is a story, and a writer should be able to assign whatever race or gender they feel like.

Not exactly a paragon of righteousness.

This is especially troubling to me, as an aspiring writer. I shouldn’t have to walk on pins and needles when it comes to assigning a character a skin color. I try to avoid it, but sometimes I have such a clear picture in my head I can’t think of them any other way. If I decide one day to make a villain black, is that going to be the end of my career?

I’ve said it before, but here I am saying it again: We can’t move past racism as long as people continue to insist on making such a big fuss over the color of people’s skin.

I met Erik about ten years ago, when we were in eighth grade. I remember thinking that he was an alright guy, for an Xbox fan. He, Kevin Tuck, and I had Show Choir together. Oh, the wacky adventures we had.

He’s visited China a few times, but this is apparently the final move. We had a party to bid him farewell.

Almost all the major players were there, including Jake and Tigran…

Daniel and David…

Dorian and Paul…

Ariel and Hannah…

And all the rest…

Some of Erik’s World of Warcraft guildmates even drove up to see him off.

Here’s all of the main characters (sans Mia, Daniel and Ariel) about a year ago:

So good luck to Erik. Godspeed.

At some point, someone took control of my website and inserted a piece of code that had the potential to spread a trojan. Due to my site pulling information from a .ru domain, I can only assume the Russian mafia is, at this moment, attempting to hack my codes. Hack them hard.

(This is exactly what they’re seeing right now.)

After a bit of a struggle (which involved a pretty awesome car chase), I was able to get my website back. Unfortunately, in the process, I lost everything. Oh well. I hope you like the new theme.

As for content, there are a few vaguely interesting things coming up in my life. So I’ll probably take photographs.

Since I don’t like to talk about work, politics, or post samples of my writing, I sometimes wonder why I have a blog. I may have to resort to top ten lists. I’m sorry.

I’ll figure something out.