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Left 4 Dead 2 is racist because 'several' zombies are black photo

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.


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207 comments | showing # 1 to 50

FawkAndSuck's Avatar
FawkAndSuck at 07/15/2009 15:04
There are never any chinese zombies.
covah's Avatar
covah at 07/15/2009 15:04
I KNEW "left 4 dead 2" and "racist" would be brought up in some way at some point.
FawkAndSuck's Avatar
FawkAndSuck at 07/15/2009 15:04
There are never any chinese zombies. I'm guessing were immune.
kauza's Avatar
kauza at 07/15/2009 15:05
Jefferson was also quoted as saying, "Look at me look at me look at me look at me LOOK AT ME!"
jackburnt's Avatar
jackburnt at 07/15/2009 15:05
Most race cards are played as "look at me" cards.
mikeyed's Avatar
mikeyed at 07/15/2009 15:07


"Why does the man always have to keep the black zombie down?"
Nic128's Avatar
Nic128 at 07/15/2009 15:07
Jefferson is racist. If you can't accept different people being a part of a whole, it's racism.
Cowboy TTop's Avatar
Cowboy TTop at 07/15/2009 15:08
Speaking as a black person, I agree with you Jim. Especially in the USA, this card is played for too often. Kneejerk thought of RE5 are flooding back already, and that was the same bs.

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.
kefkaesque's Avatar
kefkaesque at 07/15/2009 15:08
.....Wow.

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.
P3T3Y's Avatar
P3T3Y at 07/15/2009 15:09
What's next; a game that takes place in China that has *gasp* Chinese people! SCANDALOUS!

Also, maybe Jefferson should try doing some research on the reasons why the Civil War took place.
Bioautographical's Avatar
Bioautographical at 07/15/2009 15:10
There are Asian zombies, they just don't eat as much. It's how they keep their tiny figures!

/racism
The-Excel's Avatar
The-Excel at 07/15/2009 15:10
I'm Asian, therefore I'm required to be racist.
Aurion's Avatar
Aurion at 07/15/2009 15:10
That's absolute nonsense. How can someone get paid to write such ridiculous drivel?
Count Grishnack's Avatar
Count Grishnack at 07/15/2009 15:10
Also, no game in N.O. because of Katrina. NONE. Get this realism out of my games.
Monodi's Avatar
Monodi at 07/15/2009 15:10
Oh NOT THIS HORSESHIT AGAIN.
sicPOS's Avatar
sicPOS at 07/15/2009 15:11
I'm pretty sure it would only be racist if they didn't include any black zombies.
falinter's Avatar
falinter at 07/15/2009 15:11
The only way people are going to stop being racist is if we kill all other races except white.

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.
BS3 Owner's Avatar
BS3 Owner at 07/15/2009 15:11
The Game is set in New Orleans...
No More Discussion.
UglyDuck's Avatar
UglyDuck at 07/15/2009 15:12
He just wants page views... This is a man after your heart, Jim.
Black Nexus's Avatar
Black Nexus at 07/15/2009 15:12
Speaking as a black man,I gotta say this is the dummest thing I've heard in a while.
HarkanDeath's Avatar
HarkanDeath at 07/15/2009 15:13
wow... racism in a game...... AGAIN!!!........ im sorry to say this,.... but all the black people and white people that are to oversensitive..... SHUT THE FK UP!!!...... you want to have every good game with only white people in them, and only bad games with black people in the, or do you want to have a great game that has both white and black people in them. This isnt helping anything if they bullshit like this each time something like the re5 thing apears. and btw, i know from experience that black people(no offense ment) are more racist toward white people, then the other way around
Tdiddy9182's Avatar
Tdiddy9182 at 07/15/2009 15:13
wow, this is just sad
michaelb99's Avatar
michaelb99 at 07/15/2009 15:13
yah arent 2 of the main characters black anyway like srly all valve is doing is they trying to achieve a population of zombies that is similar to the area they are in. as if perhaps the resisdence of this area are now zombies. This game hasnt come out yet either .
this is gonna be re 5 again isnt it.
Monodi's Avatar
Monodi at 07/15/2009 15:13
I want a game where all the protagonists are black and only shoot white people. Let's see how they like that.
Bioautographical's Avatar
Bioautographical at 07/15/2009 15:14
@UglyDuck

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
saucycam's Avatar
saucycam at 07/15/2009 15:14
I understood the Resi 5 appears racist stuff I really did. But this is ridiculas. Maybe Left 4 dead 2 would be racist if you could bait the black zombies with fried chicken and water melons but you probably can't so fuck off.
Sir playedallot's Avatar
Sir playedallot at 07/15/2009 15:14
They should force all the develophers that there are no blacks allowed anymore in videogames! That whould sound muuuuuch more logic to me!!!!!
Tubatic's Avatar
Tubatic at 07/15/2009 15:15
See...

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.
Jetz's Avatar
Jetz at 07/15/2009 15:16
Isn't being racist just looking at the zombies and going "look there is a black zombie"? If he really isn't racist then he would have seen them as just zombies and not categories them as black and white zombies.
metroid fetus's Avatar
metroid fetus at 07/15/2009 15:17
The race card gets played way too often. People just need to get it into their head that no race is better than any other race.

If L4D2 wanted to be racist they would have made the Tank black with watermelons for hands...
Char Aznable's Avatar
Char Aznable at 07/15/2009 15:18
Italics.
VWGTI's Avatar
VWGTI at 07/15/2009 15:18
So pathetic.
Nitex's Avatar
Nitex at 07/15/2009 15:19
Wouldn't excluding black zombies be more racist than not? I mean not having them would be saying they aren't good enough to be a zombie! The fact that this man pointed out it's racist to have black zombies clearly shows he is indeed racist himself.

Ha! I just thought of this. What if all the zombies were white and the survivors were all black (which most are). Think he'd be yelling racist then?
Daxelman's Avatar
Daxelman at 07/15/2009 15:19
I'm going to start being racist towards idiots. See how much flak I get.
Bioautographical's Avatar
Bioautographical at 07/15/2009 15:20
Oh, my God, no. No no no no. How do you actually "understand the RE5 coup"? What's to understand? That a bunch of literate, English-speaking Americans ACTUALLY watched a trailer and had no knowledge that it was 1) a trailer for a videogame and 2) that videogame is one in a series of videogames about zombie infestation? Because that is the only way I'll buy that ANYONE was offended at the RE5 trailer; if they were feral cat-children who lived in holes and had NEVER heard of Resident Evil in order to understand that the Resident Evil franchise is all about killing hordes of flesh-eating zombies.

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.
saucycam's Avatar
saucycam at 07/15/2009 15:20
To be fair Resi 5 did play into some weird stereotypes.
Davram's Avatar
Davram at 07/15/2009 15:20
And people like this get writing jobs. That's the sick part. The racism bit is just a sidenote for this article imo.
AlienGuy18's Avatar
AlienGuy18 at 07/15/2009 15:20
Thriller is racist. REALLY IT'S TRUE. THERE'S A BLACK GUY WHO IS A ZOMBIE AND STUFFS SO ITS RACIST, I SWEAR.
CALkulon's Avatar
CALkulon at 07/15/2009 15:21
Not this again...

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.
ThunderHeartXI's Avatar
ThunderHeartXI at 07/15/2009 15:21
Shooting white folk is a-okay!
AgentMOO's Avatar
AgentMOO at 07/15/2009 15:22
Does anyone even understand what racism is anymore?
Havoc Fang's Avatar
Havoc Fang at 07/15/2009 15:23
This is almost as ridiculous as The Sun's "Niko is about to stalk this woman" article.

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.
Sharpless's Avatar
Sharpless at 07/15/2009 15:23
This man is a fucking, goddamn moron. A flaming, retarded idiot. There are no words to describe how far this man has his head stuck up his own ass. How batshit fucking insane do you honestly have to be to make this argument? People should be crying about racism when there ISN'T diversity in games. The game is set in Louisiana, so of course there are fucking black people in the goddamn game, you alarmist jackass.

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.
Super Drybones's Avatar
Super Drybones at 07/15/2009 15:24
Some people insist on turning everything they see into a caricature of what they expect it to be. Left4Dead 2 takes place in New Orleans and has some zombies, who in their former lives(yes former because they are dead) were African American. This to some people automatically means the game must be racist. Why..................because they do not care to think beyond what they already believe. That all depictions of African Americans in gaming or entertainment in general must be racist for the sole reason that they have black people in them.
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.
Luke Barnard's Avatar
Luke Barnard at 07/15/2009 15:26
fucking tribalism. why can't we just be people?
Psychoholic420's Avatar
Psychoholic420 at 07/15/2009 15:26
Forgive me if I'm wrong... but wouldn't it be racist NOT to have black zombies? It would be like saying that black people taste so bad that not even zombies would eat them. Or is it that the brains they have just aren't worthy of eating. I mean, it's ridicules. Ever since the emancipation proclamation... Black people have the RIGHT to be zombies.
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?
Tron's Avatar
Tron at 07/15/2009 15:27
I think its racist that all zombies are required to be white.
aaronf's Avatar
aaronf at 07/15/2009 15:27
I think people like this guy like to perpetuate racism because it gives them a reason to make a bunch of noise and get lots of attention. It's the same thing with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Perpetuating racism is a business to them, and they get to make some money and feed their egos. It's disgusting, and when other blacks support these charlatans, they are only hurting themselves.
trunxkam45's Avatar
trunxkam45 at 07/15/2009 15:27
At least people seem to understand that it's only like a few people making this claim and that they don't represent the Black community.
HEL105's Avatar
HEL105 at 07/15/2009 15:27
Unless all the black zombies are carrying around 40's and watermelon rinds, I don't see how this could possibly offend me.
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