Obama to Blame for Resident Evil 5 Racism Row?

Capcom taken by surprise

Posted by Staff
Capcom spokesperson Chris Kramer has suggested that the election of Barack Obama has stirred up the racism argument that has dogged Resident Evil 5.

A Wall Street Journal article contains the paragraph, "Mr. Kramer also contends that Americans are more sensitive about issues of race in the wake of President Barack Obama's election. 'There are probably some cultural awareness levels that are not there [for Japanese developers],' he says."

It's worth noting, of course, that Resident Evil 5 (in which most of the zombies are black Africans) has attracted criticism for its racial content as far back as mid-2007. While Obama's candidacy for President had been announced earlier in the year, he was still a long way from the White House.

Kramer also asserted that arguments that the game is racist caught Capcom off-guard. "When this issue came up last year, it caught us by surprise", he said. He also pointed out that the Resident Evil franchise contains "zombies of all creeps and colors", including the Spanish zombies dubbed "Las Ganados" or "cattle" from Resident Evil 4.

Mary Flanagan, professor of digital media at Dartmouth College, offered a different take. "It's not to say we can't allow for transgression, but there are so few depictions of Africans in games", she said.

Does having a white chap (and his cappuccino-skinned partner) shooting a horde of black zombies make Resident Evil 5 racist? Give us your take in the Forum.

Source:
wsj online
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Comments

Showing the 20 most recent comments. Read all 44.
Tired of the race card being played. 12 Mar 2009 16:28
25/44
It's a game. It's also the continuation of a storyline across a series' that people are COMPLETELY ignoring because they're too ignorant to take the game for what it is. Some people like stirring s**t up for the sake of it - this is one of those times.

You want to be treated equally? Stop playing the f**king victim bullshit card and stop complaining for the sake of it, just to show how pig-ignorant you really are.
rob 12 Mar 2009 16:35
26/44
didn't you know? racism only exists if its not a white person they're talking about, personally i will only entertain any comments on racism when the playing field is level. If white people have to tip toe around these issues for fear of reprisals and yet have to endure the constant discrimination from most other 'minority' groups, and all kinds of disgusting things said by the likes of chris rock and spike lee then why should we listen now?

Plain and simple it boils down to.... 'Would there be outcry like this had the main character been black and the zombies been white?'

Answer: No of course not, theres no such things as being a victim of racial discrimination if your white
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shut up 12 Mar 2009 16:49
27/44
Tired of the race card being played. wrote:
It's a game. It's also the continuation of a storyline across a series' that people are COMPLETELY ignoring because they're too ignorant to take the game for what it is. Some people like stirring s**t up for the sake of it - this is one of those times.

You want to be treated equally? Stop playing the f**king victim bullshit card and stop complaining for the sake of it, just to show how pig-ignorant you really are.


You wouldnt know the meaning of the word ignorant if it hit you in the face! Ironic!
alfienerk 12 Mar 2009 16:49
28/44
thats bull, zombie films zombies are white, and there are black characters, its stupid that anyone would call this racist, its a bloody zombie game. jeesus, people these days, anything for an agument
Zombie Power! 12 Mar 2009 16:50
29/44
rob wrote:
Answer: No of course not, theres no such things as being a victim of racial discrimination if your white


Having had the crap kicked out of me for being Irish while at school in England, I've got to say that you're talking absolute and total, knee-jerk nonsense. The number of Polish people who have also been assaulted on the streets of the UK is probably not up to the level of Hispanics who get discriminated against in the USA, or the number of Asian people beaten up in Australia... but that's simple racism as well - by white people.

The history here is that Africa didn't come over and rape Europe for its resources. Your numty-brained analysis is, in effect, "Oooooh, white people are discriminated against because I refuse to read and understand any context and just want a BNP statement to vomit into any discussion that confuses me... poor white me, blub!"

Go away, find some like-minded, vapid, context-scared members of the Deliverance clan and leave the debates to the adults... or actually watch Chris Rock's "Niggers" sketch and also Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing rather than just take the opinions of other people.

As for Ressie 5 - I don't recall hearing this kind of stink kicked up about Mercenaries 2: World in Flames or Blood on the Sand. It seems to me that a lot of this is down to big 'L' liberals seeing black people in a game and feeling that they absolutely must have an opinion. "Some of my best friends are black" kind of an reaction... when they actually mean, "I tip the black postman at Christmas and am on nodding terms with the shopkeeper I buy my tofu from."
Pezza Dispenser - XBOX Gamertag 12 Mar 2009 16:53
30/44
Its articles like these that segregate our communities into a race row, fortunately it’s doesn’t require much intelligence to know that… (Watch out here it comes) the majority of the African population are black and hence why the bulk of the RES 5 populous is black!

I apologise is this comes to a shock to you, but its old news…In fact ancient news!

Put it this way if I decide to say “Why is the vast population of 1900 England white?”…

Hopefully people will just shrug off this shoddy news.
SuperSaiyan4 12 Mar 2009 16:57
31/44
It was my nigerian friend (I have lots of black friends!) that told me the story behind the slavery.

I am not racist, I am asian, my gf is white, my friends are all of mixed race and religions.

Also Africa as said is a continent you have white people in Africa too, south africa for example, what about Egypt thats brown people.
shut up 12 Mar 2009 17:04
32/44
Sick and tired of the minority of black people being to oversensitive and kicking up a fuss for the sake of it, and equally at the minority of white people, to quick to throw the term "Race Card" about when ever they're to ignorant to see some one else POV. The fact is they're both as bad as each other!

Im just thankfull that regardless of skin colour there are the rest of us that have that lil thing called COMMON SENSE, to realise this is a non-starter, should never ever have been an issue.

Africa= is a black continent afterall, therefore you would expect there be black zombies. FACT end of. Its not racist its a geograhical fact!
Wiseman 12 Mar 2009 17:07
33/44
Pezza Dispenser - XBOX Gamertag wrote:
Its articles like these that segregate our communities into a race row, fortunately it’s doesn’t require much intelligence to know that… (Watch out here it comes) the majority of the African population are black and hence why the bulk of the RES 5 populous is black!

I apologise is this comes to a shock to you, but its old news…In fact ancient news!

Put it this way if I decide to say “Why is the vast population of 1900 England white?”…

Hopefully people will just shrug off this shoddy news.


Thank you once again common sense prevails!
Buckwheat 12 Mar 2009 17:15
34/44
shut up wrote:
Im just thankfull that regardless of skin colour there are the rest of us that have that lil thing called COMMON SENSE, to realise this is a non-starter, should never ever have been an issue.


dude if its a nonstarter why are you all starting into it?

shut up wrote:
Africa= is a black continent afterall, therefore you would expect there be black zombies. FACT end of. Its not racist its a geograhical fact!


then why does the hero have to have bin dropped in from the USofA and be white then? Surely in a black continent there's black heroes as well. yeah I know its RE and next one in the series but ffs its still white dude comes to the rescue of dem pow black boys in the end.
ObamasDope 12 Mar 2009 17:23
35/44
shut up wrote:
Sick and tired of the minority of black people being to oversensitive and kicking up a fuss for the sake of it, and equally at the minority of white people, to quick to throw the term "Race Card" about when ever they're to ignorant to see some one else POV. The fact is they're both as bad as each other!

Im just thankfull that regardless of skin colour there are the rest of us that have that lil thing called COMMON SENSE, to realise this is a non-starter, should never ever have been an issue.


Yeah! These people having opinions that are not COMMON SENSE (which I believe when translated refers to "OPINIONS THAT ARE NOT MINE!") F**k 'em all! It's time we all thought the same damn thing... like zombies do!

shut up wrote:
Africa= is a black continent afterall, therefore you would expect there be black zombies. FACT end of. Its not racist its a geograhical fact!


Yeah! Video games are about FACT! why won't people get this into their heads! It's a geographical fact that Africa is black (except for the beige and tan bits at the top, and the bits of white at the bottom!) It's also a fact that zombies did take over the factual country of Kijuju! Why oh why oh why do people not start a factual campaign for COMMON SENSE aid to Kijuju... we could export some FACT and COMMON SENSE and SMUGGNESS to that suffering country. It is also a FACT and COMMON SENSE that you cant run and shoot!

Whats with that? Cant run and shoot! Where is the COMMON SENSE there?
shut up 12 Mar 2009 17:24
36/44
Buckwheat wrote:
shut up wrote:
Im just thankfull that regardless of skin colour there are the rest of us that have that lil thing called COMMON SENSE, to realise this is a non-starter, should never ever have been an issue.


dude if its a nonstarter why are you all starting into it?

shut up wrote:
Africa= is a black continent afterall, therefore you would expect there be black zombies. FACT end of. Its not racist its a geograhical fact!


then why does the hero have to have bin dropped in from the USofA and be white then? Surely in a black continent there's black heroes as well. yeah I know its RE and next one in the series but ffs its still white dude comes to the rescue of dem pow black boys in the end.


Very valid point, but its a game! And how many times do we see this scenerio in films? its no different its always the USA that save the day for some reason? Never in a million years do i beleive they consciously intented to seem patroninsing but the more i think about it i can see why people would feel this way. But the point is your not supposed to think about it! it was never intended to provoke these issues, maybe they were a bit naive when the created this game but certainly not malicous.
tomfresh 12 Mar 2009 20:14
37/44
Goldfinger wrote:
"their OWN PEOPLE that sold them as slaves in the first place!" Reveals you as a racist. If you sold a canadian (of any color) would that be your own people? Prick.


i think he may have been trying to say that the trading of slaves had already been going on for thousands of years in africa before the europeans turned up. There was trade between east and west africa, to the muslim north, and from the east to arabia and india. When the portugese turned up they just had more money to spend then the african empires like mali etc. And so the atlantic slave trade started, most slaves went to brazil.
In fact slavery was only made illegal in niger in 2003 and 2007 in mauritania.

I also don't think that this game is racist.
African zombies are bound to be black cos the vast majority of africans are black, or least dark skinned, north africans are technically arabic.
SPInGSPOnG 13 Mar 2009 08:57
38/44
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Firstly black people are soo quick to use racial hate towards them as slaves but fail to realise that it was their OWN PEOPLE that sold them as slaves in the first place! The only people black people should hate is their OWN PEOPLE!!!

OK, so let me get this right, if I were to shoot you repeatedly in the face with a 9mm semi-automatic weapon (and don't think for one second I haven't thought about it, at length, and in detail), the only person we could blame, and the only people your family would have any logical grounds for hating would be the guy who sold me the gun?

Sounds fair enough.

SPInGSPOnG 13 Mar 2009 09:12
39/44
Zombie rights wrote:
Personally, I am sick and tired of my people being portrayed as soulless, undead creatures of the night

OK, are you saying you are a Zombie or a Vampire?

Or maybe a Zompire?

Joji 13 Mar 2009 11:15
40/44
This post has already been hit by the artillery and shot down. If feel the Obama thing is the newspapers fishing for reasoning, when RE5 thing predates that.

Speaking as a black person, I wasn't offended at all by RE5, infact I'm loving the game, and respect Capcom for setting the game in Africa, There's many other locations they could have chosen. That MT Framework engine is amazing with the characters.

RE5 does have black characters that are not infected, working with you, besides Sheva, so again those hero objection are shot down. As for playable black characters, have you forgotten RE Outbreak, where you can play black security guard Mark Wilkins. And in RE5 multiplayer, you can play as Sheva, everyone is covered and we all win. Lastly, don't forget those who fell in the line of duty against Umbrella, Kenneth J Sullivan and Marvin Branagh (both black). There were a few hispanic characters over the series too, who we also got to play, so are Capcom still racist?

I'm gonna go to bat big time, for Capcom here, because as far as developers go, Capcom have the largest selection of black game characters in the games industry, IMO, so they are far from racist. I also believe Capcom were looking at the story and setting for this game, as fitting into part of the series, not because of any real world politics, while many might think so. In a similar way to MGS, use gamers and non gamers will draw our own stable and warped conclusions alike.

As for the real world of slavery, violence and racism, all creeds and colours are guilty of this, some against people of the same colour too. For black on black, we need look no further than Rwanda and Darfur (and in some cases, around the U.K). For white on white take a look are eastern europe (white slavery and war). Even places like Brazil has a thing about skin colour, and a lot of them are black. This cycle has been going on for ages and no one is exempt. in a similar way, the Viruses in the story show that no one is exempt or special, when it comes to misunderstandings and disagreements, death and any darker corners of humanity, etc.

The scene someone else mentions about the white lass being dragged away, are again seeing what they want to see. If you dig closer and play the game (always the best way to judge), you'll see that she's actually dragged away by another white villager, where she's then infected by him and other villagers of varying colour. You were wrong and its okay to be wrong so long as you acknowledge it, so objectors, take a breath now and rest easy.

So funny really, that Far Cry 2, also set in Africa hasn't had any problems whatsoever. Add 50 Cent also going under all radars, where he's in a middle eastern setting shouting at middle eastern enemies. Go figure. I care not, but many will see demons where there are none.

Guess they'd better call the Spanish Inquisition, to host the RE5 trial....lol. How ironic that would be.

Outstanding work on the game Capcom. Thanks.




Rutabaga 13 Mar 2009 11:19
41/44
Are there any black people that think this game is racist? Or is it a case of the typical insecure white PC brigade jumping in to defend the "offended"?

BTW Excellent post Joji, one of the most sensible posts I've read on here.
TimSpong 13 Mar 2009 12:27
42/44
Joji wrote:
This post has already been hit by the artillery and shot down. If feel the Obama thing is the newspapers fishing for reasoning, when RE5 thing predates that.


Applause.

Thanks Joji.

Cheers

Tim
TimSpong 13 Mar 2009 12:27
43/44
Joji wrote:
This post has already been hit by the artillery and shot down. If feel the Obama thing is the newspapers fishing for reasoning, when RE5 thing predates that.


Applause.

Thanks Joji.

Cheers

Tim
Joji 13 Mar 2009 13:54
44/44
No problem. Tim.

Hope everyone can chill and enjoy the game now.
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