I’m in the mood to have people pissed off at me today, so we’re going to talk about race. No we’re not going to have a conversation about race (I’m not running for US President), we’re going to talk… and by that I mean I’m going to talk and your going to listen and then bitch at me in the comments, same basic idea though.

First off, any discussion involving race always ends up with someone feeling they have been insulted. So let’s inoculate that right now by insulting everyone right off the bat:

White people: Shut up. Shut the fuck up! The world isn’t ending just because you own slightly less of it. Also, Thatcher; she’s your fault. Do something about it.
Black people: Shut up. Once the movie starts, shut the fuck up. Michael Jackson; he’s your fault. Do something about it.
Islamic people: Shut up. Not everyone is against you just because your brothers are setting a bad example, get over it. Bin Laden; he’s your fault. Do something about it.
Polish people: nie możemy rozumieć was ale uznawać wasze obrazy… smartass.

Was that a little juvenile? Probably yes. Crude and over the top? You must be new here. The point is, let’s have everyone get mad now, maybe leave the computer and make some coffee if necessary… let it all out. Or be privately snarky about how played out this whole ‘tick every one off first’ shtick is and let’s do this thing:

So, the reason to talk about race in video games now is Resident Evil 5 or rather the trailer for RE5. For those luckily unaware of all this until now, the trailer was the first reveal that the anticipated sequel will be relocating its survival horror franchise to Africa. My initial reaction to that was ‘hey, this is pretty cool!’ since it’s something you’re not expecting. Most horror stories do their business in a mundane, ordinary location to make the scary stuff even more so. It’s something else entirely to drop the zombies (or whatever it is this time) into a region which is often scary enough with all the wild animals, crippling poverty, near constant civil wars and an omnipresence of AIDS so thick the local warlord death squads can cut it with their machetes. Look, Africa is a beautiful country with a rich story and history but right now it is one of the last places on earth most people would be if they could help it. It’s sad, it’s tragic, it’s largely the long term by-product of the grim legacy of colonialism… but it’s also a fact.

In any case, the trailer features residents of a sun-bleached shanty town going all 28 Days Later and attacking the franchise icon character Chris Redfield. For the uninitiated, Chris is the whitest hero since 007 and is a member of make-believe tactical law enforcement team ‘S.T.A.R.S’. So what we have hear is a white man with a badge and biceps the size of melons gunning down hordes of advancing, shrieking Africans… huh.

It was predictable that someone was going to take exception to what seemed to be going on in the RE5 trailer and conclude it was racist. Sadly, it was also predictable that when that opinion was voiced the wrath of the gaming community would be equal to the Hammer of Thor being wielded by Stimpy. Seriously guys, some of us really let each other down here. The guy (Croal) had an opinion, he voiced it and in return he got a hail storm of vindictive bile and in some cases actual racism thrown at him…which makes him look right about the issue!

I have to say, I do disagree with everything Mr Croal had to say about the game being in some way racist. You know the bad guys are going to end up being rich, white dudes anyway, its Resident Evil- this franchise doesn’t do challenging subject matter; it’s not Portal! Playing a RE game for the story is like listening to Dragonforce for the lyrics. Look, we know two things: it’s in Africa and Chris Redfield is in it. This means Umbrella is back and there is a 90% chance the story is going to be about the evil Pharmaceutical Company (the white guys) using the third world as its test subjects!

Anyway, the anger was the depressing part of the reaction to Croal’s piece. The interesting part came in the recurring details, namely the fact that the same criticisms kept cropping up from young white gamers. If I may paraphrase: “OMFG! The only ones who talk about racism any more is Black people, get over it, yo!” And that folks is what you call stupid but understanding that is the key to race and the rest of this mess.

The first great debate about racism was just that- about racism. No one disagreed that it existed: separate toilets based on skin colour was racism. The argument was whether this was bad. The good guys won that debate, won it hard but that didn’t mean it went away, it just got smaller. Gone are the separate toilets, but the unease of a store clerk as the wrong people walk in remains…the problem is, this is not visible to everyone; you cant quantify this stuff. To many, especially young people, racism is a thing which happened in the past. When they say racism doesn’t exist they aren’t being duplicitous but hearing their black acquaintances talk about it is the only way they’ve encountered it. And that’s the problem in a nutshell- too many black people still think racism will never stop and too many white people think it already has and both of them think the other side is clueless, lying or both.

All that said, there is another dimension to this and it’s why I have to take exception to Mr Croal. The heart of his criticism of RE5 being potentially a negative image against Black Africans can easily be countered. Most us of didn’t even think about racism until Croal brought it up meaning they were fully able to look at violent zombie-like creatures who happened to be black and did not make an immediate connection between them and actual black people. Isn’t that a good thing? Shouldn’t we be celebrating this as a sign that the right side is still winning? Call me an optimist, but to me it seems the young, white generation are severely naïve about the issue of race but racist they are not. That’s it; I’m off, good day.