@GuitarAtomik I know who he is and what he was commenting about it does not in anyway what so ever have any remote effect on what he said. Just cause someone ate eggs for breakfast doesn't explain why that someone shot a person in the head. A persons whole life does not play under any context to a moment of stupidity.

@GuitarAtomik
Bravo, I'm glad someone here actually read the article. I would stick around and help you enlighten(endarken?)the masses, but it's pointless when they don't understand what they're attacking....

So many zombie games in production.... Must start a charity to help the zombies.... no matter what colour!!!!


STOP SHOOTING ZOMBIES

This has been said a million times, but if it's okay to play as a black character who kills white characters that aren't even zombies(GTA:SanAndreas) then I don't see why it's not okay to play as a white character who kills black characters who ARE zombies. I don't care about "history" or any stupid arguments like that. Anyone who thinks that people should be treated on different standards based on the history of their race is a racist and can go to hell.

Then what would we blog about

Maybe N'gai Croal works for Capcom's advertising division? You never know.

I hope zombies raise from their grave enraged by this whole "killing them" thing, they only want brains, come on!

I thought this was all over with. Oh well, guess I'll be seeing more of it as the launch draws closer.

Haha, except GuitarAtomik's blog served Sterling about 4 months ago.

Having traditionally racially sensitive imagery =/= a racist game

There's only been one person to claim it was a racist game and shock horror, she's got no context for the series, which is exactly what Croal and GuitarAtomik were saying. If anything, by being so obtuse, Sterling et al are coming across as being willfully ignorant of the issue in general. When a person that has no context for the game sees the game in motion, of course the embedded stereotypes and images are going to come to the forefront, it's not something that's easy to avoid at all.

So, again, context is everything, if you remove the knowledge of the game (as in the public at large), then you will have reactions based on the sensitive material. It's not rocket science, it's not another case of people bashing games, it's not playing "the race card," it is what it is. Sensitive imagery that evokes a reaction based on it's weight.

Soooo...Sterling takes another L on this subject, then in typical Sterling fashion, turns a blind eye to it, then will wait and take a passive-aggressive swipe at people who disagree with him.

GuitarAtomik has illustrated , to a fucking T, the problem with this whole thing.

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING.

"So, again, context is everything, if you remove the knowledge of the game (as in the public at large), then you will have reactions based on the sensitive material. It's not rocket science, it's not another case of people bashing games, it's not playing "the race card," it is what it is. Sensitive imagery that evokes a reaction based on it's weight."

How is it NOT "the race card"? When someone flat out SAYS, "Obviously, no BLACK people worked on this game" after watching the trailer (insinuating that ONLY black people would have any real ability to be sensitive to any issues it raised), how is that NOT pulling race? Forget about his later comments where he backpedaled like crazy, how the hell does one justify "No black people worked on this game" without it coming back to race?

Sand, head out of, plz.

Context is ultimately nothing, especially because we can make our own context, and draw our own conclusions, no matter how stupid or weird they are.

Just for context, let me grab some examples.

Tinki Winki- THe purple teletuby with a purse and a upside down triangle on his head (supposedly a icon for gays). The context lead people to declare that it was an attempt to make kids gay. (I know I will be lambasted for this one)

Squidward- This Sponge Bob Square Pants character likes art, music and interpretive dance. Another character accused of making people gay.

Both of these characters were taken "in context" and declared something they weren't. Context means nothing, as long as you (or someone else) finds something to be offended by.

Haha @ Jim indirectly saying that people shouldn't have any gut reactions lest they (and this is a shock considering how often people are wrong) be wrong. So, by Croal having an opinion about the way the original trailer is framed, that somehow invalidates his point about imagery on the whole, and doubly because Capcom totally has black members on the staff that are wholly involved in making decisions like that, never mind that it doesn't matter if the people who made the game were all black...if they're using the same images, then they're tapping the same well. Which is where all of you are neglecting to see.

You are all seeing the imagery argument as "game is racist" when it's really "game has some iffy portrayals...tread carefully" especially when the game will be released in a country that has a history (well over 100 years) of making the same kind of portrayals across various forms of media. When the mainstream gets ahold of this, having no prior idea of the series (unlike you and I), they will assume the worst, because that's the type of feelings that images like this bring. And someone at Capcom should have at very least given some thought towards that.

That's the whole point. Also the difference between Sterling and Croal (levels of credibility aside, obviously) is that when Croal found that he was wrong, he did actually admit it...unlike Jim, who has seen that he is arguing the losing side and is attempting to make it a person to person (Croal v Sterling) argument.

Also @ RabidKeebler

Context only means nothing when you have no context at all, which is exceedingly rare when it comes to the world nowadays, you'd pretty much have to have come from another planet to have no context for any kind of action or image or what have you. That said, when people don't have a context for something, they are left to guess. Which, if you're following, is what people are saying to be weary of. They are saying watch out, because not only did you tap into some very dark, hurtful, harmful imagery, you are about to unleash it on a multitude of people who don't have the proper context to say "oh it's just a game" or "they're likely zombies."

In fact, the context for the Resident Evil 5 trailer was clear as fucking day and yet still certain people (not N'gai) extrapolated that it was white propaganda, training white kids to fear and hate the black man.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The initial trailer showed no zombies, only Africans and what looked to be a forced injection/contamination, then devolving into violence. None of the mouth exploding, tentacle tongued madness of the future trailers. Enough ambiguity to create a doubt even with those who are fans of the game, and more than enough doubt to have people make their impressions of it on their gut feeling without benefit of the doubt (as the use of this imagery usually does come within a harmful context).

Alas, I should probably stop at this point, because despite people like Sterling and their insistence that they see it, the fact of the matter is that they continue to veer off towards ultimately unrelated arguments. It's like teaching a rock the alphabet.

This is the thing about context, and the reason that I have found this to be a load of bunk in general.

In Pennsylvania there was a minor league baseball team that had adopted a pig mascot. They held a contest to name the mascot, and the name that won was Porkchop. A nice simple name, goes great with a pig mascot.

Except that the name Porkchop was, apparently, at one point and time a derogatory name for Puerto Ricans. They complained, and the name was changed. NEVER MIND that the mascot was a pig, and the name was used in reference to a dish whose main ingredient was pork. All that mattered was that some one applied their own context to it and was offended.

"there are a myriad of ways to create proper horror context without playing on the longstanding fears among non-blacks towards blacks".

THAT is my issue with this whole thing, in a nutshell. The only people who still have "longstanding fears towards blacks" are complete and utter idiots that deserve no attention. THAT bullshit, to me, sounds like "Uh-oh, everyone still hates us." That's asinine.

Anything that gets said to any one black person in a day about his race gets said to me about my weight, gets said to Hispanics about their immigration status or culture, gets said to nearly anyone who is different from anyone.

Fucking HELL, how annoying.

@ Bioautographical

"The only people who still have "longstanding fears towards blacks" are complete and utter idiots that deserve no attention."

A noble viewpoint, if only it were true on the whole. Being fearful of blacks (of people different than you in general) is something that is not going away, nor is it reserved to those ignorant individuals who do cling to outmoded ideas about race (or gender, or country of origin, so on and so forth). My issue comes from the use and exploitation of the imagery, which is highly offensive (again, assuming one knows nothing about the game, and further in the first trailer since the subsequent ones have more zombie/monsters than regular people) and comes from a highly pejorative past.

I would like to direct you to a website first (not saying that all of the examples from the website fit the RE5) that details a number of the stereotypes facing blacks, this is the pejorative past that I spoke of in the older post.

Now, again, I must say, the main thrust of this comes from, specifically the design of the characters supposed to be "normal." The fact is that they are anything but, their design draws on the physical characteristics and traits (through body language/facial expression) of the stereotypes. That's what I mean by "my issue comes from the use and exploitation of the imagery, which is highly offensive...and comes from a highly pejorative past" The part in the parenthesis should have probably been a separate sentence in hindsight, because it was a bit hard to follow.

There's a difference between people being assholes because a person is simply different-looking, and a person being an asshole exclusively to ONE race, especially due to some past tensions

I disagree, mostly because people being assholes to people who look differently and to those of different "races" has one key element in common, and that's of course being an asshole. That wasn't the point of the sentence though, it was more directed at your claim that those holding on to fears of blacks were exclusively the ignorant.

We don't need a pendulum swing in the opposite direction where one group gets whatever they want at the expense of the other. It needs to drop, period.

This has been the norm. One group (the disenfranchised/minorities) have long been the group that is on the expense end of that statement. The tables turn, sometimes the disenfranchised make a small move (the pendulum might move to the center for a while), but ultimately, the majority will get/do whatever they please.

It will never BE dropped as long as these stupid, insignificant little things lead to rawring and butthurting.

The rawring came as a result of literally tens of thousands of people absolutely putting the blinders on. The same way that the people who are ignorant of the RE context made a snap judgment, the gamers made the same kind of snap judgment. Gamers quickly got personal, even in the face of well thought out, well reasoned arguments (GuitarAtomik's blog was well written).

Even IF you're a flaming idiot who sees the trailer and judges the content without a shred of context - how does this resemble anything close to what I assume are historical injustices that, in my opinion, are too valuable to some to let others live down?

Not so much the historical injustices, but the injustices that have lived on and evolved throughout their history, specifically the images used to represent blacks. Their similarity to RE5's villagers is alarming and potentially very upsetting to those who are presumed by some to actually look like that. It subtly reinforces the idea that blacks are sub-human through their characterization (all before the zombies come into play).

In this medium, the visual elements are quite important in characterization and as such, there are certain archetypes and connotations that are brought along with certain designs and looks. Whether the intent is to harm or not (I don't think that there is in this case), the images that Capcom drew from are all too similar to those that are from an extremely sensitive era, and are essentially updated versions of those old stereotypes.

Then:

"Resident Evil 5 set in Haiti, the home of voodoo. Not so racist now, eh?"http://www.destructoid.com/resident-evil-5-set-in-haiti-the-home-of-voodoo-not-so-racist-now-eh--45810.phtml

"It's set in Haiti and there's a very good reason for that."

"Of course, having argued against idiots in the past who claimed this was racist, I am filled with a tremendous sense of self-satisfaction at this news."

Now:

"I think everybody here has missed the important bit of news that I was presenting:
Jim Sterling was, once again, right.
People who argued with him was, once again, wrong."

PopeJamal: Different subject, although the fact it was NOT set in Haiti actually worked in my favor, as N'gai told me the African music in a Haitian setting was further proof of Capcom's insensitivity. Henceforth, my own incorrectness (or rather, Kotaku's incorrectness) allowed me to be even more correct.

As you can see, James Sterling is unstoppable, and possibly Messianic.