Life is short and there's games to be played. So quickly to the thick of things.

Kotaku in this article right here has pointed out that "Sambo", an old derogatory racial term for black people in America, appears in Scribblenauts. And it spawns a watermelon.

I'll give you a minute to freak out, knee-jerk, breakout your stock race card rhetoric and cool things to say like "I'm black and I don't have a problem with this" "Negro is the spanish term for black" "This again? Really?" "Would you rather it spawn a black person?" or, my personal favorite "Why are they pulling the race card?"



You done?

OK good. So, with that out of your system, I do encourage you to check out Kotaku's article and what they do right . Instead of leaving it "We found this, no one has been reached for clarification. We'll have more on this later", the fine gents at Kotaku have laid down some sick JOURNALISM, and done a few, in my opinion, very good things.

For one, they got the word on this from Jeremiah Slackza, the creative director for Scribblenauts. He notes that the inclusion is appropriate, because of the fruit that bears that name in Latin America, which looks pretty close to the watermelon. Well, aside from being spotted. And white on the inside...



Further, Kotaku goes on to kindly explain the racial term's origins and connotations. This, I feel, is above and beyond the status quo for gaming blogs that will touch on this subject, and really does a great service to its readers. I'm surprised, impressed, and actually very appreciative of the effort they put into explaining facts surrounding the issue, essentially equipping the gamers in their readership with knowledge about the subject, should someone outside of this rational gamer circle question the situation. Certainly, there's a risk of informing gamers of cute new phrase throw around Xbox Live. But, truly, you can't not sell eggs because some punk kid is probably going to egg somebody's house.

The comments, naturally, turned into more or less the same ruffled feather scuttlebutt that bubbles out of most gamers in reaction to the threat of slight against their hobby and the incredulous reactions of people that just don't want to consider the blessing that is having unique cultures in the world. I don't want to go off on a rant here, but, I think Kotaku's been doing some interesting and responsible things so far as covering controversy and "touchy" subjects. I'm hoping that going the extra step to inform readers on a factual leve is a trend that gets picked up by most gamey newsy sites out there.