Watch the E3 trailer below from Resident Evil 5.
Done watching? Ok, good. Now what do you think, is it promoting racism?Read about the controversy after the jump. While most gamers saw this as just another Resident Evil game with a different setting, several black organizations saw it as pure racist hate mongering. Kym Platt from Black Looks, a blog dedicated to exploring issues concerning African women, had this to say:
This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.
Really? Since when is Resident Evil marketed towards children? She makes it sound like this game was made solely for the purpose of creating an army of black-hating children.
Also, last time I checked we’re not living in the 19th century. I may be a huge optimist on this, but I would like to think that in this day and age the human civilization has made huge progress toward being color-blind when it comes to a person’s skin color. I fully believe that this wouldn’t even be a big concern if certain organizations weren’t making a huge deal out of it.
Am I in the minority on this one? Let me know in the comments or forums.
Click here for the rest of Sarcastic Gamer’s Top 100 Gaming Moments from 2007 all in one place!
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12 responses so far ↓
1 lwelyk // Dec 31, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Your not.
Remember kids it’s not racism or sexism if there’s a white male involved. The white male is always wrong. And all black people are called African-Americans despite the fact that they may not be from Africa at all. White people from africa aren’t african-americans and if you’re from england you can’t all yourself an english-american, that’d be weird.
2 Habadasher // Dec 31, 2007 at 12:33 pm
That’s just ridiculous, I mean the same thing was happening to white people in the last game!
I gotta say that as a white male I feel like I have less and less rights every day
3 Harag // Dec 31, 2007 at 1:11 pm
People will latch on to any excuse they can to grab attention from the media there is one common thing about every organizeation they need a cause
it dosent have to be a good one either just a cause
resident evil has given them somthing to cry about
no one hates black people in this video game im sure racism still happens in the world but his game is not promoting it. it would be the same thing if it was in mexico or afganistan or any where else apparently all video games should be black freedom fighters or terrorists killing white americans that would shut the rest of the world up except then americans would cry wolf
4 irish boy90 // Dec 31, 2007 at 1:32 pm
one of the good guys in the second resident evil films is white and there are no black zombies in it (i think)
I wonder if they decided yeah it is racist we should make every zombie a white person would they be happy? then it wouldn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’t be racist it would just mean everyone in Africa is white.
5 Ezekiel06 // Dec 31, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Being a black male myself, I can understand where these black organizations are coming from. Now when I personally saw the trailer for the first time, the thought cam to mind, but I didn’t think anything of it because I knew that it was just another Resident Evil game. But if you look at it from the organization’s point of view:
I’m an organization with little to no gaming experience, and I see a trailer with a white guy shooting and beating the crap out of hundreds of Africans. That would make me concerned.
So try not to get too upset with them. Even though we do live in the 21st century, color racial issues are still here and active. I mean take a look at “Jena6″ and that happened THIS YEAR 2007. (Google it if you don’t know it)
6 commander121 // Dec 31, 2007 at 7:38 pm
how come its not racist to kill white zombies but when there black thats a whole other story.
this is taking it to far and is just attracting negative attention to the black rights groups
7 Zantinga // Dec 31, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Oh my God! What is wrong with these people. First off, he’s in africa. there aren’t many white people in africa. Second, there are white people/zombies in the other resident evil games. And last, relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax, it’s just a game. If they really want to complain, they should go after the KKK, not a gaming company.
8 David // Dec 31, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I at first thought this organization was just being crazy, but Ezekiel, I do get your point.
There are a lot of people who haven\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’t played Resident Evil, so they would have no idea what the trailer is about. You see a white guy beating the crap out of a bunch of black guys. BAM that\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’s all you remember. You don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’t go \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
9 David // Dec 31, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Dang, my comment got messed up…after all the time I spent on it too…
10 hentai2021 // Dec 31, 2007 at 9:35 pm
ill go ahead and say this, its what i said when i read that a while ago.its okay if they kill hispanics, but all of a sudden im racist for liking this game cause they kill blacks now. im hispanic by the way and i didnt care cause i thought game not racism. plus, what child is going to play resident evil. his unmitigated hate towards games is killing me inside. it isnt about race its about killing……kinda worse but okay.
11 Josh545454 // Jan 1, 2008 at 2:59 am
Ezekiel06
The first two paragraphs of your comment are correct the third is exactly what you were writing about above. The “jenna 6″ are a group of kids who broke the law and were not prosecuted differently. Some organizations saw it as something to defend and then ppl like you who do not mean harm defend them but chreat a problem almost as bad as racism you automatically think people are being racist if they put colored people in a posistion that is not desirable, like being shot in a video game, or being prosecuted for breaking the law.
12 Ezekiel06 // Jan 2, 2008 at 4:52 am
Josh my man… Misunderstanding. I’m not defending them for breaking the law. You break the law you pay the price. What I meant when mentioning the Jenna 6 is that the High School kids where trailed as adults, one of them got locked up when there was clearly no evidence he was involved in the act, and the crimes that was performed against the other black citizens where left unanswered. Example, a white guy pulls a gun out on some black teens. the teens fight and wrestle the gun away from him and run away, and guess who gets the penalty. The teens, and the white guy gets a warning. These are the kind of acts that I speak of, and that was the whole point of the rally at Jenna (I was there). It was not because the kids broke the law, but the unjustness that they received, and for what… beating up another kid. C’mon.
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