For anyone that doesn’t listen to the Orange show or isn’t already following me on twitter, then first of all, what the hell is wrong with you? (actually don’t answer that) But you may not have heard the comment I made to Lono concerning Resident Evil 5 and the topic of racism. For those that didn’t hear from the Podcast or aren’t digitally stalking me, here is my actual tweet;

“RE5 isn’t even the most racist game that Capcom have made this month. SFIV- Yoga Flame? That doesn’t even make sense”

See if we can make a bit for sense of it after the jump…

For those that don’t know me, let me explain something about myself – I’m color blind. Before people start saying stuff about ‘explaining a lot about my art style’, I don’t mean the actual ability to see colors. I mean that when it comes to people I don’t (or rather am completely unable) to make any judgement or assumptions about anyone based on their skin color or ethnic origin.

If I do have a failing it is that when I see people, I’m far more likely to make a snap decision based on someone’s attitude and how they present themselves to the world. Even that can be very short sighted but tends to be basic human nature. I can not explain or understand how someone can make sweeping (and usually amazingly dumb) assumptions based on their ethnic background. I care no more about the color of your skin, than I care about that of your hair.

My comment attracted some debate on my twitter feed, and perhaps rightly so, because despite the advantages of twitter as a social networking tool, it is disadvantaged in it only leaves you so much room to flesh out a thought and, as with many forms of quick text based communications, it is often difficult to express tone.

I was, hopefully obviously, being a bit comical and flippant when I made my comment, but it hides a more serious topic. The point I made is that Dhalsim is a cliched stereotype, with moves like the Yoga flame not making any sense – because it doesn’t! How does doing yoga mean that you can breathe fire? Simple answer – it doesn’t!  Not to mention the racial stereotype of an Indian man doing Yoga and having stretchy limbs.

The argument was put to me that all the other characters in Street Fighter are just as racist – E Honda being a Sumo wrestler and Ken being blond-haired & blue eyed. My counter argument was simple – so you agree with me then that Street Fighter IV is more racist than Resident Evil 5? The fact of the matter is, *it is* and it’s strange that people are paying more attention to having black people in game set in Africa, than having racist stereotypes beating each other up.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t think that SFIV is truly a racist game.

I wouldn’t want to belittle the feelings of people that felt the same way as N’Gai Croal, but I just can’t get my head round it. What exactly is the problem with having black zombies in a game in Africa? As someone already pointed out no one was complaining about white, Spanish people being singled out in RE4.

The other point that makes me scratch my head, is the way society as a whole reacts to stuff like this. It seems to me that regardless of anyone’s opinion, no one really came out and contradicted what Mr. Croal had to say on the matter. I’m not saying that he was right or wrong but someone out there had to disagree with him and no one, at least publicly and vocally enough to get much attention, did so. I hate the thought going through my head but I have to wonder if the situation would be different if it wasn’t for the color of the skin of the man complaining. If that’s the case, it may be a matter of positively discriminating against him, which still has the word discrimination in it and sits more uneasily with me, and is possibly more racist, than anything I saw from the supposed racism of Resident Evil 5.

The facts boil down to this, I do believe that every person and culture in the world has the right to be respected but if you start to over analyze how every little thing could offend someone, then you’re headed down a slippery slope. If you search hard enough you can find someone that is offended by anything. If a person of an ethnic minority says that they are ‘offended by the very existence of white people’, would all white people just happily fade out of existence? That is taking it to the extreme but it does seem that people these days are afraid to speak out for fear of being tarnished with the ‘they-are-a-racist’ brush.

Like racism itself, to me that just seems cowardly and dumb.
If you can’t have a black zombie in a horror game set in Africa but you can have a fat Sumo repeatedly sitting on the head of an stretchy anorexic firebreathing Indian, until he is knocked out, then what message are we spreading to society?

That racism is okay, as long as it’s funny?

Maybe this is more serious than I thought.