Clearly no one Black worked on [Resident Evil 5]

[Doom Marine]

Clearly no one black has worked on this game.

Judging from the RE5 trailer alone, it's basically a white dude killing a bunch of black people. I guess the Japanese don't know anything about cultural sensitivity.

[Planky]

Cultural Sensitivity goes out the window when theres zombies to be killed. Anyway, it's based in Africa, so a lot of blacks makes sense.

I'll play it when it comes out, it looks like fun.

[kristus]

They've come a long way this last year, since their last trailer of a white guy killing bunch of blacks.

Yahtzee's video about RE 5 Trailer of african genocide

[Patrick]

Heh. making something accurate is politically incorrect.

[Butts]

...alright.

[Doom Marine]

Patrick Pineda said:

Heh. making something accurate is politically incorrect.

What are you talking about?

Planky said:

Cultural Sensitivity goes out the window when theres zombies to be killed. Anyway, it's based in Africa, so a lot of blacks makes sense.

Capcom could've created a black male protagonist, or avoided the African theme altogether. Having a white man going into Africa killing black people (the zombie argument is unacceptable; they're still black people) while "getting" the black woman is just rude.

[Ralphis]

The only way to overcome racism is to stop viewing everything as racist.

Nobody had a problem until black zombies showed up. Don't you believe in equal opportunity?

[Patrick]

i mean that, in a part of the world where the population is primarily black, it would make sense that a population of primarily black people would become ... black zombies.

this seems to be accurate.

[AirRaid]

Haven't most of the resident evil sequels been about white people killing ethnic minorites? Or so I've been led to believe by Yahtzee and his ZP reviews.

[kristus]

No, Just this and 4.

[Doom Marine]

And when you have a white man going into Africa and killing black people, it just carries a certain "connotation."

[Bashe]

OH NOES UR KILLAN BLAK PEEPLE SO RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't see the big deal here. You're in AFRICA, so you'd likely be killing AFRICAN zombies. If people somehow view this as racist just because the main character is white, that's their problem.

[Maes]

Bashe said:

OH NOES UR KILLAN BLAK PEEPLE SO RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't see the big deal here. You're in AFRICA, so you'd likely be killing AFRICAN zombies. If people somehow view this as racist just because the main character is white, that's their problem.

Maybe they should have placed the game's plot in South_Africa and you would only kill Afrikaner zombies, in line with post-Apartheid political correctness.

Bah, screw that, I'm gonna play Ethnic Cleansing.

[Death-Destiny]

I don't believe there's anything racial about this. The series is not intended to be racist. Most had the player killing generic Caucasian zombies, the forth had the player killing Hispanic zombies, and this one has the player killing African zombies. It's just for realism. It'd be pretty silly for the story to take place in South Africa fighting Causcasian zombies. Non-black zombies had their turn getting killed in the other games, so the setting is just being moved around. True that humanity's history had more racism in it than would be preferable, but every depiction of people of different races fighting is not necessarily about racism, and Resident Evil is about killing zombies anyway, who are already "dead."

As for the protagonist, Chris Redfield is a recurring character, so his role in the game also seems to make sense.

[Richo Rosai]

The idea that the premise is racist is idiotic, as has been pointed out.

But maybe they'll come back and have the natives throwing spears at the protagonist or boiling him in a pot and prove us all wrong. Jappos can be extremely racist bastards, for sure (see the persistence of "Little Black Sambo", etc.).

[Zaldron]

It's OK to kill thousands of white enemies but not any other ethnicity.

Your stupid viewpoint is what foments racism and the never ending spiral of euphemisms and political correctness.

[Shaikoten]

Do you complain in WWII games where you kill Germans or Japanese? Do you complain in games where you kill Russians? I don't see a thread about Army of Two, a game that was blatantly racist; congratulating each other on the genocide they just comitted with high fives, fist bumps, and the enemies calling you "bro fucking infidels." Just because you're in Africa, killing black zombies, doesn't make the game racist. If I saw correctly, your sidekick is even black.

Personally, I want a Venture Bros spinoff game: Jefferson Twilight, Blacula Hunter. My blood eye tingles just thinking about it.

[geekmarine]

Setting the game on a particular continent is racist?

[kristus]

Shaikoten said:

If I saw correctly, your sidekick is even black.

Token black guy always die first. :p

[Death-Destiny]

Shaikoten said:

If I saw correctly, your sidekick is even black.

kristus said:

Token black guy always die first. :p

Nah. I expect that the black lady is sweet. She'll probably be whooping butt in this game.

[Kira]

Oh damn in Resident Evil 2 I remember there were a bunch of Americans to kill. I guess the Japanese don't know anything about cultural sensitivity.

[Creaphis]

The current unwritten rule that it's okay to kill white people in games but not black people is ridiculous, and this game only appears racially insensitive because it doesn't follow that usual double standard. There is nothing mocking or unfair in this game's portrayal of a zombie-infested African location. It is not racist.

The modern tendency to view everything as racist is getting out of hand.

[Doom Marine]

Creaphis said:

The current unwritten rule that it's okay to kill white people in games but not black people is ridiculous, and this game only appears racially insensitive because it doesn't follow that usual double standard. There is nothing mocking or unfair in this game's portrayal of a zombie-infested African location. It is not racist.

The modern tendency to view everything as racist is getting out of hand.

The game designers likely never intended RE5 to be racist; it coincidentally just turned out so. I'm pretty sure Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemina were marketing products, not some deliberate attempt to reinforce any racial stereotype; but that doesn't make it right.

Furthermore about the unwritten rule, having a white hero killing minorities carries with it a certain connotation that isn't found the other way around.

The argument that "white people gets killed all the time in video game, so minorities should get killed too it's only fair," is akin to "black people get black history month, so white people should get white history month, it's only fair." The answer is that white history month is like every month that's not black history month. The group in power has that certain immunity from having to be reminded of their oppressed past.

[geekmarine]

Um, no... Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima were deliberately based on racist stereotypes. Believe me, I am well aware that racism is very much alive in our culture today - however, simply having the setting of the game be in Africa does not constitute racism. No stereotypes are invoked here.

[Jodwin]

Quoting the most trustworthy source of knowledge on the planet (read: Wikipedia):

The single largest ethnic group on the planet by far is Han Chinese, which represents 19.73% of the global population. For comparison 6.06% of the planet's population is of full or partial Spanish ancestry, and on a wider scale 14.2% of earth's population is of Sub-Saharan descent (those identifying as 'Black').

I don't know, but blacks don't really feel like a minority to me. Especially not in fucking Africa where they're a huge majority.

[Death-Destiny]

I do agree with that to some extent. In Unreal II: The Awakening, The protagonist, John Dalton, was black and all his human enemies, coincidentally enough, were white. However, the issue of racism probably didn't even cross anyone's mind. I see what you're saying that a white protagonist (who by the way, Agent Redfield is a recurring character) killing black enemies could be misconstured as racism. But I also believe that this is because of this unspoken double standard and past racism, not the other way around. I think it's a good move to make settings like this because, the more people break away from this double standard, the less it will be seen as racist, thereby eliminating an entire racist concept entirely.

[Mogul]

Doom Marine said:

What are you talking about?

Capcom could've created a black male protagonist, or avoided the African theme altogether. Having a white man going into Africa killing black people (the zombie argument is unacceptable; they're still black people) while "getting" the black woman is just rude.

Wow, you're really a moron. Someone is inspired to expand the RE universe into Africa. That brings along with it the various flavors of Africa, which I am sure they are trying to capture. Part of that is featuring a fuck ton of black people, since, guess what, there are black people in Africa.

The statement about "making it accurate" by portraying a lot of black dudes is for the most part true. What, am I supposed to go crying "RACIST!" when the next basketball game comes out and there are way more black people that white in it? No, that would be fucking retarded, for one, because it's an accurate portrayal.

And to expand upon another idea that's been in this thread, why doesn't it bother you that in every other RE, you've killed thousands of white dudes with barely any blacks to be found? In fact, RE4 was (if I recall correctly) set in South America. Where is your thread about how the main character in that game killed untold numbers of latinos? In my book, you're the only one here causing a rift between white and black. The racism door swings both (all) ways.

Sort of reminds me of the Clint Eastwood vs. Spike Lee shoutmatch back-and-forth concerning Eastwood's lack of black portrayal in his history-based films.

[Bank]

Death-Destiny said:

Nah. I expect that the black lady is sweet. She'll probably be whooping butt in this game.

Now all they have to do is give her big afro and call her Cleopatra Jones.

[myk]

I like how people jump at these things immediately saying "it's not racist" when they haven't even played the game, or as if they were experts on racism (which isn't even a simple subject). If perhaps some people can be said to be "racism zombies", jumping at anything that seems remotely racist, on the other hand you have "video game industry zombies" that always overreact when games are painted badly in any morally related way.

I'd have to play the game to conclude what racist elements it may have and how severe they are depending on how the game plays, but it does seem to have some promise :p

[Kira]

Oh and don't forget, there are perhaps black survivors that you'll have to help, heh.