If you follow Left 4 Dead news like I do, you know about douchebag blogger Willie Jefferson, who apparently has nothing of real interest or merit write about in order to generate page views, and his recent douchebag article on racism in video games. In the article, he criticizes forthcoming Valve title Left 4 Dead 2 for its racism, due to having 'several black zombies'. Because, apparently, there are no black people in New Orleans. Go figure. Guess Hurricane Katrina wiped 'em all out, huh? But hey, enough digression.

While I believe that Left 4 Dead does contain racism, it is not for the same reasons Jefferson noted in his blog. The racism in the Left 4 Dead games lies not within its gameplay or story, but within some of its players. Its crackbrained, ignorant, insecure players. With headsets.

When it comes to L4D 2, I am one of the minority that got excited about it (I'm black, too, so that makes me a double minority... or Minority Prime). But I have to keep it 100 with you guys; discovering that the game would take place in New Orleans made me a little queasy. Why? Well, for one, black folks make up a large part of New Orleans' population, which leads me to my second point. The racism that I encounter in the current Left 4 Dead is already ridiculous (I have seen people kill Louis just so that there "wouldn't be a n***er on their team"), and I knew full well that giving these idiots the chance to kill a bunch of black folks was going to make it even worse on my ears. So you know I almost had an ulcer when I heard about two of the four playable characters being black. You should have heard some of the comments I've heard people say about it while playing a L4D campaign. "I wanna buy L4D 2, but it's full of n***ers." But hey, now that I think about it, it might keep those kinds of idiots offended by an abundance of dark skinned people at bay.

But even if it doesn't... should I get mad and never play again? No. I'm the kind of guy that believes that going up in arms over someone calling me something disrespectful means letting the terrorists win (take that Osama). That, and the fact that if Left 4 Dead, 1 or 2, had zero black folks in it, the racism would still be there. I'd still hear the N-word getting spammed every ten seconds by a fourteen year old sore loser. I'd still get kicked out of games due to the color of my avatar's skin—strange, I know. Especially in 2009. But it happens. As a black gamer—as a black MAN—I have come to grips with the fact that racism is just a part of certain people. And always will be. So, I either suck it up and perhaps do something about it, or whine every time I see a confederate flag or a couple of black people get killed in a video game.

Jefferson needs to be thankful for Left 4 Dead to be honest. Valve could have portrayed us as really bad stereotypes in their new playable characters, but they haven't from what I've seen. They could have had black zombies swaggering down the street with 40s in their hands instead of attacking the Survivors like everyone else. And what the hell is he doing playing Call of Juarez anyway? The game sucks.

Also, an interesting sidenote. When I first played L4D, one of the first things I said was: "Oh, so there ain't no black zombies in this city?"