This is unbelievable. I've seen people try and find racist undertones in harmless entertainment before, but The Houston Chronicle's Willie Jefferson takes home the prize for making the most ridiculous and convoluted racism link in history. According to him, Left 4 Dead 2 is "disturbing" because "several" of the zombies are African-American. Yep, that's right -- you can't even have ONE black zombie without somebody crying racism.
"I am disturbed by the growing trend of racist undertones that are cropping up in video games," writes Jefferson. "One of the games that comes to mind is Left 4 Dead 2 ... Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies - with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath."
So let me get this straight ... Valve is now wrong to include a single black zombie in the game? I literally cannot believe I just read that someone is upset over "several" black zombies -- not an entire army of black ones, just several black ones amidst a bunch of white ones. Has society really gone so f*cking stupid that we can't do anything anymore without the race card being played?
Jefferson also attacks Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood for daring to feature a Confederate officer as the main hero: "The Confederacy, as far as I am concerned, wanted to keep their cheap slave labor and the like. I can not stand the Confederate flag... To me, the flag represents hate -- and offends me and many others to no end. [It] made me wonder how much research Ubisoft did for this game ..."
I think society has really gone too far with these pathetic attempts to find racism in everything. When you're saying L4D2 is racist because some black people happen to be IN it, and when you're saying a game is racist for not automatically portraying every single Confederate soldier as a babyraping Nazi (which is, itself, a rather bigoted viewpoint), then you've lost your grip on reality.
Jefferson ought to be ashamed of himself for obscuring real issues of racism with this "cry wolf" nonsense.
Contest:
3:00 PM on 07.15.2009
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"Why does the man always have to keep the black zombie down?"
If you include black characters, you are wrong and if you don't you are wrong. Its a man trap from the get go. Those who set it up should do better research and calm the fuck down. Everyone is not their enemy.
So I guess that Dead Rising was racist too then because that had black zombies. I mean they were all in a mall too, and everyone knows that that was really saying that black people are all just slaves to man and consumerism. And hell, all the black zombies were doing nothing but hunting down the white survivors! Not a single one of the black zombies was portrayed as a good person even!
Simply unforgivable.
Also, maybe Jefferson should try doing some research on the reasons why the Civil War took place.
/racism
OBVIOUSLY. I think thats really their goal here. The easily racial offended are really super racists pretending to hate racism to force us down the path of genocide.
Really thats the only way I can believe a sane person can think multiple zombies in a fucking horde of zombies can't be black.
No More Discussion.
this is gonna be re 5 again isnt it.
But Jim's pageviews are better than Idiot Racist-Man's pageviews because it's better to scoff at stupidity than to actually espouse stupidity.
/pageview racism
With Resi5, your "zombies" look like normal dudes to start. contextless perception is that those are normal dudes. Until their heads flip open. Which thy didn't in the early trailers.
This? THIS is bullshit.
Flame on, Mr. Sterling. Flame On.
If L4D2 wanted to be racist they would have made the Tank black with watermelons for hands...
Otherwise, all you had were people freaking out over nothing because, oh my fucking GOD, white people have guns and black people are on the other end of them.
Stop it. There was absolutely no cause to empathize with such stupidity. At all.
I also can't beieve he decries L4D2 for being set in New Orleans. Apparently being victim to a horrendous natural disaster means we should never, ever, dare set an unrelated video game in the city. How does that make any sense? It is in no way insulting to the city. I could understand it if there was a related event in the game, that might be a bit close to the bone for some, but in this case I think this guy is one (or more!) of the following:
(a) An attention whore.
(b) A complete moron.
(c) A racist.
So, a game should ALWAYS feature ONLY the leanest of whites with no discolourings? I call MORE than the original claim of racism.
At the very least, this is racist against whites and people that can actually think.
Ugh. I am so sorry for raging, but I am sick to death of people inventing drama where there is none. This makes no sense and is indefensible. And frankly, I think he's being a little racist. What about all the white zombies? Did no white people die or suffer during Hurricane Katrina? Why are black people so much more special? Why should they be handled with kid gloves, in games? Honestly, grow the fuck up, Willie. Grow the fuck up.
But if Valve released Left4Dead 2 without a single black zombie in it the same writer would have an article about how Valve failed to include black zombies in a game based in New Orleans. Its a catch 22 because the writer wants it to be.
He also goes on to talk about how "The Confederacy, as far as I am concerned, wanted to keep their cheap slave labor and the like.". Whereas any educated person would know that the main issue of the civil war was whether the South had the right to secede from the union or not. The North even gave the border states the right to keep their slaves when they freed the Souths. So to criticize Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood for having a Confederate soldier as the main lead is a huge assumption that the soldier is automatically is a bad guy because he is a confederate. The writer is showing prejudice attitudes towards Southerners while complaining about the "racism" in Left4Dead 2.
That truly is the Pot calling the Kettle black...............or rather African American.
And has anyone ever actually seen a horror movie? The black guy is usually the among the first to die. So why is it so unheard of that L4D2 would be any different.
And about the Katrina reference... are we not aloud to be in any worlds that anything bad has ever happened? Nobody complains about the mass amounts of WW2 games out there. Are we not aloud to use NY anymore either because of 9-11?
Moral of the story... people really need to stop crying wolf about this sort of thing, or else people are going to be able to walk around and say whatever they want... to whomever they want, and there wont be squat they can say about it.... almost sounds nice doesn't it?
THIS IS BULLSHIT!!
I'm tired of killing black zombies, i wanna kill the real negros.
This is getting boring.
[/sarcasm]
Are you implying that someone should do research before yelling RACE CARD RACE CARD LOOK AT ME? Pshaw, good sir.