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Writer says GTA is racist; gamers react |
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Richard O. Jones, a writer for Black Voice News, wrote about his concerns regarding what he sees as racial stereotyping in video games; gamers everywhere form contrasting views on the issue. In "The Bad News and Good News of Obsessive Video Games", Jones wrote that negative video games reinforce poor self-images in Black youth, that playing such games for prolonged periods of time mentally implants anti-productive images. In the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Jones relates that players assume the lead character of Carl Johnson, a down-on-his-luck Black criminal, who roams city streets stealing cars and helping gang members knock off rivals in drive-by shootings.
Jones quotes John Murray, a psychologist who's studied violence and stereotypes in the media. According to him, Blacks and Latinos being portrayed as villains or victims who get killed often and easily is the code for powerlessness. Murray adds that these images persist because too few minorities are in the industry, that roughly 80 percent of video game programmers are white, about four percent Latino, and less than three percent are Black.
Jones expresses his concern that unless minorities are motivated to get on the business end of the video game industry, Blacks and Latinos will continue to be portrayed in a negative light and also miss out on a ten billion dollar a year industry.
Jones also points that if minority players would spend a portion of their life learning to create these games instead of wasting their lives playing them, there would be as many Black millionaire video game designers and illustrators as there is athletes and music artists.
His article has spawned heavy debate among the members of the gaming community. Gamers comment on whether it is really true or not that Blacks and Latinos are often perceived as the villain in most video games; and if it's true that most game developers are educated whites who perceive minorities as such.
Via GamePolitics.com
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stop drawing lines for everyone else between races, i don't see other races as evil or villians, some of the villians in games just happen to not have the same skin color as me.
go get your 15mins of fame elsewhere and stop it with the reverse racism.
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GTA & GTA Vice city both had white criminal charactors.
If every criminal in GTA was white, wouldn't this be racist against white people?
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Anyway, arn't most gangs made up of minorities? If you've watched the news recently (I live in the UK), you will no what i mean.
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Also in America, the ratio for black/white criminals in prison is 1 white person for every 8 black person. This is not an oppinion, It's a fact based on stastistic.
Poor self-image?? I let the numbers talk, they never lie.
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Please stop exaggerating .
You say all minorities/N's are criminals is like me saying , Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan represent all white women. "Get my point? Richard O. Jones STFU please and use your energy to educate not preach!
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All characters before the San Andreas release were white, and it dealt with Organized Italian / Hispanic criminals.
Black criminals are nothing new, nor racial. As in White, Asian races, criminals are everywhere. Wait til they come out with an Asian version of this thing.... It'll be the most gruesome one yet.
GTA is like a comedian. They pick on everybody.
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"Everyone, I'm here to announce that the games GTA3 and GTA Vice City are extremely racist. As a white person myself, I find it horrible to see that white people are being portrayed as members of the "mob" and associated with such horrible crimes as these. White people should NOT be portrayed as criminals in any way shape or form, as it is completely degrading to our character. As white people, we need to stand together against this company and the shame they have brought upon us."
In other words, just because your black doesn't mean you can just f*cking go out and call everything racist. Do you realize how many games have white people in them, and all circulate around crime, drugs, and so on? I think it's only natural that every once in a while a game depicts a black person as the culprit behind things, not just white people.
GTA isn't freaking racist, it's people who go out blaming that the "white people are destroying the image of Black America" who are the most racist. If you have nothing better to do than blame people for calling blacks/whites/hispanics/whatever you are racist, then I think you YOURSELF have a problem with race... Not those who created the game.
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The gentleman was right to say that minorites ARE presented in marginalised ways in games, they ARE more often than not criminals or existing on the violent fringes of society, thing is there are ways to treat this, make the story writing better, a simply change in texture colour changes race in a game, make the change.
Really games are at the blacksploitatio n phase of their evolution, a stage the cinema went through in the 70's and how archaic does that seem mow?
Lets try to iron out poor reflections of whole sections of society within media, this does matter, most people who do not have personal contact with a race or culture will assume that the one portrayed by media, including games, is the real one, and they will form attitudes accordingly.
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DERRRRR
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And the fact that he thinks all the whites as in one race make it even further. If i'd call someone racist, i'd call him 1st.
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"Negative video games" was the term Jones used to refer to GTA:SA. It's true that media and whatnot depicting violence, drugs, and all that jazz can influence people in various ways. But in what way and to what extent depends on the person and their surroundings; family, friends, school, work, and other such things. But that's beside my current point. The term negative when speaking about an object that does not have a quantifiable value is relative term or precedes an opinion. What I mean is that what's negative or positive for some people isn't so for other people. Depictions of violence, sex, drugs can be positive when reinforced with knowledge about those subjects and their used with that knowledge. We can watch martial arts videos to at least fake our knowledge of the said martial art if we ever need to. Although I don't recommend it you can use adult films to learn new things to try with significant others. Whenever you see something about drugs it's hard to find these days an image of the drug that doesn't come up an image of what it does to someone. On top of those, on "negative video games" themselves I can say that what's positive is that they can be effective stress relievers that can result helping someone avoid taking actions that could have consequences not to their liking ie. working up the guts to call someone to tell them off about something small and having it blow up in your face. I don't know, i'm bad with examples. But anyway, to me a negative video game would be one that doesn't entertain you. Isn't the point of a video game that of entertainment? It's just like any other piece of media like movies, television, books, and whatever else you can think of. Any of these can have a negative or positive influence. It all just depends on what you use that information for and how that information is reinforced in your mind.
Racism. Violence and stereotypes in the media. We have people stereotyping in the real world all the time. Yes, it isn't very helpful when that sort of imagery is in the media. But it still can be. Without this sort of thing, writers and politicians would have nothing to do but address the real problems in the world. Try to look at the positive sometimes. With violence and stereotypes in the media, parents and public officials have something that can trigger conversation between themselves and their children. Stereotypes exist for a reason. To deny their existence and where they came from would be wrong and outright stupidity. It's just like history. You want to know things so you don't make mistakes. If concerned parties really care, they'll use "negative" images as learning tools. Don't complain about their creation, complain about the cultures that fuel it. By that I don't mean traditional cultures that people commonly identify with like latino, american, jewish, italian. By culture I mean any sort of group that holds a common set of ideals or beliefs like, but not necessarily the Raider nation, college students, blue collar workers, band kids. I hope you get what i mean. Which cultures are directly involved? That's the sort of information that's necessary to know. Racism, violence, and stereotypes in everyday life. Those things are the subjects that need attention.
Everyone is subject to and guilty of stereotyping at one point in time or another. It's just something you can't escape given our society. This comment is getting a bit too long so i'll just say KNOWLEDGE PEOPLE! KNOWLEDGE!
Sometimes racism is only racism if we call it racism. Sometimes.
IMO
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This dude's throwing around equality like it's something easy to abuse. The truth is, game developers hire based on SKILL and TALENT not race. It's not the employers fault that more White people want to be game developers and be hired by the gaming industry than the rest. The simple fact is, it's impossible to have around an equal amount of races employed for every business!!
That guy is being racist by saying we need to hire BASED on color, not by skill and talent. I've had enough about this racist propaganda BS. The only thing to prevent racism is to not PREVENT somebody from being hired based on the color of their skin. Not to ENFORCE a policy that demands a certain percent of your employees HAVE TO BE BLACK OR HISPANIC.
This guy is just throwing a tantrum because his little paradigm can't see that racism is what he's doing, not what others are doing against him. He's the one making judgments based on skin color, not the accused.
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it has asians always in china town nowherelse, the only weapons they have besides the yakuza, who drive their yakuza cars and have guns, are knives and swords..
blacks latinos, pretty much all colored characters seem to be in the street walking around cursing, most of the time in or around their "gangs" and always have a weapon...
the italians represent the mob in its most mediacric fashion. High class, organized crime lords, who always have an expensive suit on and are on top of things...
the taxi drivers... more than likely are indian, more than always have the radio station set to a panjabi music station...
now every other person, the business person, the ppl just having fun... seem to be dare i say it white?
even the whores seem to have an accent which would give the gamer to think that english is not their first lang. and that they are from another country
this game portrays Americas look on american society
the minorities are not just black and latinos, they come from all over the world
the fact that most of you think that pretty much all gangs are minority groups you have to think what caused this how much do you wanna bet that their is more than likely someone behind the scenes making money off of these kids who are in these gangs....
i think the point of Richard O. Jones was basically not to pretty much point the finger and yell out racist, but to inspire everyonelse to get behind the wheel and start driving instead of just being the back seat drivers like you folks over here that only yell... do you honestly think the driver cares as long as you pay that 55$ for the video game and will continue to pay for it
and i do believe that this game, even thou i used to play it alot and enjoyed it during the time that i did, does promote a bad influnece on kids. Especially on minorities. Its just where parents have to step in and decide whether or not their children are adult enough in character to play this game and not have it change the way they act or look at the way they stand in society.
gta is quite the racist game.... it has been and i'm sure it wont change
and yes it does portray whites in a racist maner too.. but the racist view of whites is not a bad view so most ppl dont see it as racist in the first place
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He's not telling the industry to hire anyone he's pretty much giving all minorities a big kik in the ass and telling them to start doing something about it if they themselves want to see a change
its called activism
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Reverse Racism !
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i didnt find it offending and imma black person, that dude jus want attention
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Where did i accuse him of trying to force people to hire people equally? My first paragraph wasn't literal, it was meant to show how absurd his ideology was. It was meant to show how stupid it is to compare hiring by skin color is to hiring by skill and talent.
What you stated that he was trying to tell is not what he was stating as a whole. That's only a part of what he added in there. About 75% or more of his statement was directed towards inequality in video game characters and in the game developers' workplace. So you can't say i'm reading it all wrong, you should say that i'm actually reading the WHOLE THING, not just one paragraph in there like the one you are stating from.
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Really games are at the blacksploitatio n phase of their evolution, a stage the cinema went through in the 70's and how archaic does that seem mow?"
I think THIS is the most inteligent thing in the entire forum. I knew i woudl open up this comment section, and see a bunch of ignorant misinformed jackasses, commenting about crap they know nothing about. The near FLOOD of gangster games is pure explotiation, and the fact that you dumbasses cant see that, speak volumes about your own intelligence.
The guy didnt come out and call ALL developers Racist, what he stated is FACT, and was even supported by a industry wide survey.
He is NOT saying we need to have % of this % of that of poeple of color in each company. He is simply stated a FACT that minority characters are pigeon holed over and over again, exploited, stereotyped, and OFTEN portrayed as gansters, thugs, and bunch of otehr stuff USUALLY in a negative light. These are NOT opinions, these are FACTS. If you want to argue that they are not, youre a moron.
He Also goes on to say that this wont CHANGE unless more people of color get more involved in the industry itself. That is ALSO another fact.
The FACT remains that Majority of Black/Latno characters are written and created by WHITE people in videogames, and often get stereotyped by said white people who are created characters based on what they see in the media and have very little actual real world experience.
And it amazes me, how many idiots make comments like "so... the other GTAs had white main stars, and they were criminals too". Man, how can peopel be so stupid.??? For every White negative criminal in videogames, you have 50-100 positive heroes. For every 50 negative black criminals in videogames, you have 1-5 positive heroes. And often or not black characters in videogames are always gansters, thugs, boxers, dancers, rappers, football, and basketball players. ALWAYS. While white characetrs are all these things, and THEN SOME. You cant sit here and say White peopel in videogames are stereotyped in the same manner, youre a fool if you think so.
Another fact is, if Black characters werent so stereotyped in teh first place, GTA wouldnt have been such a big deal. The reason no one made a fuss about white characters being a big deal in previous GTAs was because there was FAR more games that showed whites in teh positive to counter balance any sterotype of different sthnic groups among whites. GTA stood out more, because there is little to ZERO other games featuring blacks in a positive light, so there was NOTHING to counter balance it. You will ALWAYS notice something more, when nothing ELSE is there. And with black characters in games thats almost ALL you exclusively see. THAT IS FACT. Any game that features an over 50% black cast is usually a game about sports, or thugs. To deny this fact also shows your ignorance.
Why am i not surpised that when someone brings up true racial issues, that other people (mostly white) will try to deny it, and fight it??
ANyone with half a brain will see that what this guy says is true.
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What the origanl author said, is "true". If you deny it, it shows your lack of understanding of the subject at hand, and what he "truely" saying. Why don't you people read what is there, and not what "you" want to see.
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White people are NOT stereotyped to the same degree as minorities. Hell I'm white and even i Know that. And in case you didn't know, MANY Italians didn't like the show the Sapranos, because of teh stereotypes it portrayed.
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Next you'll have a woman write an article or the negative ways, and sexist ways women are potrayed as in videogames, and you'll have a bunch of "MEN" joining in to say how "it's not true" "the womon who wrote this is sexist herself" "the woman who wrote this is whinning". Sometimes people need to get over themselves, and learn to recognize when someone is trying to "seriously" discuss a problem. It would be a better way to improve thingsm then to sit here making ignorant baseless comments to something that was actually researched, and has facts to back it up.
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And do YOU realize the number of games starring whites that DONT center around that stuff??
You don't see a game featuring the lowest of the low, the most negative of negaticve aspect of a culture as not racist? Last time i checked, I've yet to see that many games starring "rednecks" and i've yet to play a game call "Trailer park trash adventures". Maybe you woudl have a point if just about EVERY game that featured white people was about Crime, Trailer park living, drunk rednecks, then MAYBE you would have a point. But since that is not the case, your comparison is WEAK.
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fist off kids shouldn't be playing it if they are they were doomed before they ever played the game i play gta but my k definitely do not
secondly its a game it stereotypes big deal who cares
black and latino gangs italian mob yakuza indian cab drivers oh my goodness how dare they
i am soooo offended
c'mon people look vice city stories even has rednecks in a trailer park it is a crime game that shows the worst of our society but in essense it is true
who cares truth hurts get over it
if you don't like it don't play it
people whine way too much
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I think it would be much lamer to always have the main character in a video game a white male.
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I am not wrong. I don't think a Latino has ever been the bad guy in GTA, and the only time we've killed a bunch of blacks was while playing one. He should make some crack about how we're constantly killing whites in video games. The bad guy is always white.
Or at least go for the Italians. Forelli, Salvatore...
Idiot. Presenting a single sided argument to make the world look like it's against him.
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I suppose he'll also be wanting reparations and 40's because "white man so racist".
Jesus. Grow up, black people.
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That is SO inaacurate its not even funny. Because you are coming at the END of teh story, and telling teh ENDING without telling the REST of teh story. Maybe if we lived in a perfect world where racism didnt exist, you would be right. But it's a KNOWN FACT, that minorities in the U.S. are locked up MORE then white people for commiting the SAME EXACT CRIME, and with more harsh sentences. They are also racially profiled a LOT more. And it doesn't matter if YOU think drug use isn't a big deal. Getting caught with drugs no matter what is "possesion", and if you had enough on you (and it's a SMALL amount required), you are hit with an additional charge of "intent to sell". That's why so many peopel lobby to have druge USE charges reduced, because you have SO many people locked up for marajauna USE/Possesion overcrowding jails with people who shouldnt even be there, wasting our tax dollars when we shoudl be locking up people for more serious crimes instead. _______________ _______________ _______________ _______________ ______
And Joe blow you are a moron.
The statistics were provided BY WHITE PEOPLE. Black peopel didnt come along and make up teh system. The numbers were gathered from MANY MANY places, and was teh most comprehensive study of its kind. Black peopel are 12% of teh population.... it would be RIDICULOUS to think that ALL 12% use drugs, and that LESS then 12% of white ppl in the country use drugs....YOU dont like the numbers... then YOU do a real study and provide more. Until then, STFU. the TOTAL number of drug users in history cant eb determined, but going around having studies and TALKING to people, and seeing WHO admitted to using drugs, GOING to drug recovery groups, seeing the numbers of people admitted to hospitals for drug over doses, And even seeing court records (just because you got caught using drugs dont mean you alwaays get locked up, especially when youre white) its easy to get the idea. YOU clearly have NO health care related experiences, or you wouldnt be talking out your ass.
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Thats hilarious... you want to know why? because the last time i checked black people didn't get fired from a job then come back with grenades, machine guns, and assault rifles, and kill every innocent person in site including the boss, fellow co workers, and any customer they see, and then continue shooting until they ran out of bullets. The last time i checked black kids didn't stock up on guns because they were sooooo depressed then go to school, and kill 20 people including fellow class mates, teachers, the prinicipal, and anyone else they can find until they ran out of bullets and then turned teh guns on themselves and left notes blaming Doom for all ther troubles. The last time i checked black people didn't hack up their neighbors, and anyone else they coudl get into their house then eat them. The last time i checked, just about every serial killer throughout all time (except for a few) were white men. Last time i checked black people didn't drop Atomic bombs on two cities killing millions of people. I coudl go on and on... the point is.. you're not looking at the whoel picture, and then making stupid claims. WHITE people are JUST as violent... the difference being blacks are locked up more for it. So much of teh same violence happens in Poor white neighborhoods but peopel try to pretend poor white people don't exist. And also in poor white areas, such behavior is NOT glorified in the Media the same way it is in black areas.
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The FACT remains that since blacks really aren't involved in the creation of these games, and they are created, written BY white people then it's logical to know that a lot of them would be sterotyped, because DUH white people are not black, do NOT face teh same problems, and what blacks may see as a problem, white people may see as a cash cow again points to the movies of the 70s, they werent called Blackploitation movies because it sounded CATCHY... they were named that FOR A REASON. And If you ever disussed it in a college class you ignorant minds would be enligtened. Videogames are going through the SAME phase that MOVIES went through. Like some peopel in this thread have said OVER AND OVER AND OVER... if there were MORE positive minority characters in games, NO ONE WOUL DHAVE CARED ABOUT GTA SA. But the FACT of the matter is.. there ARE NOT.
Richard as well as others are simply TIRED of being type casted, marginalized, pigeon holed over and over and over again. AND IF this were happening to WHITE people theyd feel teh SAME DAMN WAY. Me being italian... if EVERYtime i turned around, and an Italian person was negatively stereotyped in Movies and games and media ALL the time, i'd be pissed too.
This is BIGGER then GTA. THAT is why shows like Sapranos and games like the previous GTA's weren't that big a deal, because WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT MARGINALIZED THE SAME WAY IN GAMES, SO IT IS A PROBLEM WE NEVER HAVE TO FACE. And IF whites are mraginalized in media it's NOT the RACE that gets marginalized.. it's the ETHNICTY or NATIONALITY ie Italian, Irish, German etc etc.
And for you idiots lets use numbers: Lets say we have a chart that includes EVERY POSSIBLE character Archtype in history and the full chart i will give a value of 100%. WHITE characters use that ENTIRE chart all 100% of archtypes in thousaands of games over decades of time. Now... so far BLACK woudl ost likely have used up 40% or LESS of that charts character archtypes, because they are Marginalized and play teh SAME character roles over and over and over usually gangs, basketball, football, boxer, thugs, or the side kick talking street. THAT IS A FACT. And rarely are they anything else. THAT is what thsi richard guy has a problem with.
THAT is why he used GTA SA as an example. AGAIN... if black people in games used up all 100% of the character archtypes then GTA SA would be INSIGNIFICANT. THEN no one would say "minorities are always marginalized" because it wouldnt be true. Name me ONE videogame that "FEATURED" (and no, create a character games like teh SIMS don't count) a LARGE black cast of characters that wasn't a BOXING, BASKETBALL, FOOTBALL, or THUG LIFE game... ONE...!!!! The only games i can think of if Jet Set Radio, and Marc Echoes: Getting Up. But hey, even they might be a stretch as they fal
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The problem this guy is talking about is that there are no good stereotypes of blacks at all. Sports games aren't good or bad they are neutral, I say this because they don't show much personality other than celebrations, which all the players do. the Problem is most publishers don't give blacks a chance to play the "good guy".
What he doesn't realize is that most whites are like the people on this board- they don't want to play as a black guy. That's why game companies don't put them in the lead role. It's the same reason blacks aren't the lead in more movies. If a black guy is on the cover whites think, "that's a black game/movie." They skip it. Game companies aren't going to do anything to hurt their pockets, they did spend millions making the game, they want to get that back. And they know putting a black guy on a game that's not by EA sports is not the best way to make most whites pick up your game.
Just look at these post, I would say half don't like whites 25% understand what he was trying to say and 25% have no idea of what is going on either way.
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Its also true that majority of whites coudl care less about black issues as proven in that 20/20 hour long special so many years ago, where they talked about the media that appeals to different cultures. And that most people like things that are familiar ie: a face of their own kind on it. These are facts. The other fact is white people ARE fascinated with "thug life" because it seems foreign to most of them. Proof of this is rap music. The MAJORITy of rap is purchased by WHITE teens. Which has led to the bastardization of Hip Hop. REAL hip hop doesn't appeal to most whites, THAT's why it doesnt sell. Which is why artist liek Most def, the orginal black eye peas, Tribe called quest, Q-tip and countless others never sell Millions of albums. Then you have artist liek Nelly and others sellling millions like hot cakes, because it appeals to whites. And for teh idiots who don;t beleive me, it's all in the numbers. The only way a rapper coudl sell millions of albums if NO white person bought it, would be if EVERY SINGLE black person in the country bought it. Which anyone knowns would not happen everyone doesnt like the same thing. Which also shows how Emenim can come on teh scene and sell more albums then any rapper before him. Same thing happened with Elvis and Rock. And the is obviously the target audience Rockstar had in mind. These companies are here to make money.
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Anybody can be a criminal.
Bad guys vary, and race has nothing to do with it.
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Someone should point out to the guy that GTA is supposed to be satirical and is actually mocking many of the stereotypes that are in the game, maybe if he actually played the game he would see the comedy that runs through the whole series
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ALL THE *****S OUT THERE SHOULD JUST STICK WITH THERE JOBS OF BEING GANG MEMBERS, SHOOTING OTHER *****S, RAPPERS, AND DUMB BLACK BASKETBALL PLAYERS AND LEAVE THE TECHNICAL GAME PROGRAMING TO ALL US WHITE FOLK.
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and vice city white.
yes they did use an african american in Gta:SA but it is not racist if anything it confirms the oposite.
They only used a African american cause they wanted a change of pace. They already used a white dude.
It also does not make you any more violentl. ive been playen the gta games for along time and am not about to go jack a car or shoot some one.
i hate when people say somethings being racist when its not.
if any thing people that say somethings racist when its not is only using their race to get there way which makes them racist.
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That's it, I won't be buying GTA IV no more.
Stupid sensitive persons, If they don't like in then don't buy it.
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He looks exactly like the kind of guy who writes a motherf****ing article or something like that just to make some money to be able to eat and stay alive in his miserable life.
Burn him to ashes.
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