Valve Responds to Racism Accusations

[Omega RKB]

Don't you miss the good old days of gaming when no one used to give a shit? i mean, in golden axe for sega megadrive every hero is white and every single human enemy is black! but that wasn't deemed racist, cause nobody used to care...

 

[Fritzvalt]

I thought this whole issues was retarded back when RE5 was making news. Infact, I was offended by Capcom immediately cowtowing to the racism accusations. If something happens in Africa, you're bound to see a few black folk. The same can be said about New Orleans. As for the confederate flag, you can still see Dixie flying high in quite a few places today. To say it doesn't belong in a game set in that time period is just idiocy. Speaking of idiocy, I do see some comedy in a Texan calling the confederate flag racist, but I digress.

 

[US Crash Fire]

so where was this guy when Louis from L4D1 (a black guy) was shooting wave after wave of white zombie? according to his logic, this should have been extremely racist! its all bullshit. unless you have someone trying to cause harm (PHYSICAL HARM!) to you because of your race only (and not because of you being a jackass) or not hiring you or firing you for a job because of your race only (and not because you were being a jackass) then AND ONLY THEN IS IT RACIST! other than that its freedom of speach. ive been in a few situations where i have benn called racist just because of the other persons race. one example. this guy at the mall was harrasing me to borrow a dollar. after a few minutes i told him to fuck off or im gonna kick his ass. his respone, "why cause im black? you racist mutha fucka! i bet if i was white youd give me a dolla!"
seriously....

 

[ActualOvaltine]

Well New Orleans and most of America does tend to contain African-Americans. And one thing we all have in common is that we all can become zombies. It would be racist for black people to not be in the game.

 

[The_Echo]

Riddle me this: Why shouldn't there be zombies resembling specific races?

If there ever were a mass zombie uprising, I'm pretty sure every race and ethnicity would be affected, and every human left alive would be shooting up the zombies like there's no tomorrow, no matter what the zombie looks like. So if people could please shut the hell up about supposed "racism" in these games, they'd look a lot less like uptight pricks.

 

[CompanionCube]

Resident Evil 5 was set in Africa. Are they going to put a bunch of Chinese people? Same concept with New Orleans. It's like putting lions in Antarctica.

*Puts on fire suit*

 

[Keela]

Bitching about a Confederate flag in a game set during the Civil War is like bitching about swastika's in a WW2 game.

The sad thing here is that if they did not put any african american zombies there, I can almosut assure you that this would also get them accused of racism.
Utter insanity.

And then basically this. If all the zombies were white, people would complain whites are preferred. If you throw in black zombies, people would complain that you are a racist killing blacks. RE5, I may give them a tiny bit of credit towards playing the race card, but if and only if they actually played the game and learned why the black Africans are the way they are in that game.

You'll notice I never used the term (insert race here)-American. That is because I feel that everyone who is a citizen is an American. There is no race attached to being American, that's why it is called a melting pot. Now if you wanted to get specific and call me the white/caucasian guy that I am, that is fine, but I most definitely am not a White/Caucasian-American.

All of this, plus:
Resident Evil 5 was not in the slightest bit racist originally. So they added in waaaaaaaaay more white zombies/infected/dudes with parasites than what would make sense. I think that the vast majority of civilians in Africa are, for lack of a better word, AFRICAN. 20-40% of the population were white in Resident Evil 5 (my rough estimate), which is really BS. People are so concerned with racism that they give up real-world accuracy.

 

[The Great JT]

Who cares what race a zombie is? If a zombie is black or white, it's STILL gonna want to eat my flesh! So of course I'm gonna auto-shotty it in the face!

I'm not racist. I'm an equal-opportunity zombie-head-sploder.

 

[AlexanderAstartes]

Seems to me that the guy who accused the games is the one being racist. He's the one creating stereotypes, not the games.

 

[RufusMcLaser]

The sad thing here is that if they did not put any african american zombies there, I can almosut assure you that this would also get them accused of racism.
Utter insanity.

That's pretty much what I was thinking to myself while reading this. There appears to be a set of people who go out of their way to find things to be offended by. In today's hyper-sensitive society they sometimes have to dig pretty deep.

 

[TheSunshineHobo]

I don't see it a racism. RE5 and L4D2 are both set in areas where a high percentage of the population is black. I think the racism comes from people who think its okay to shoot white people, but not okay to shoot black people. If you truely want to be equal then black zombies deserve to die just as much as white zombies do.

 

[dreadmaster]

OK YA KNOW WHAT THE SAME PEOPLE THAT CALL VALVE, CAPCOM , ANYONE WHO BADMOUTHS ANY 50 CENT GAME (AND QUINCADENTLY ANY FASHION OF OBAMA BUT I DIGRESS) ARE COMPLEATLY RETARDED, AND SHOULD LISTIN TO ANYONE OTHER THAN THE LIBERAL DIPSHITS IN THE NEWS. (EXCEPT FOX AND AT SOME TIMES CNN. SORRY BOUT THE CAPS MY KEYBOARDS CAPSCOLK IS BUSTED)

 

[Kukakkau]

Isn't Call of Juarez set in the western era? ...You know when racism WAS abundant? How is being historical accurate racist?

And the Left 4 Dead 2 thing is just...wow too far

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I swear people don't know how to distinguish racism from other things anymore.

 

[IxionIndustries]

"with several of them who appear to be African-Americans."

...
*eyetwitch*
"The racial makeup of the city was 67.25% African American, 28.05% White, 0.20% Native American, 2.26% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.93% from other races, and 1.28% from two or more races. 3.06% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race." - Wikipedia, on New Orleans.

The fucking majority is black.
How does including them make it racist?
If anything, the opposite should be true!

I honestly cannot fathom the stupidity that goes on in the mind of this man.
Jesus Christ. Seriously.

I keep re-reading the article to make sure I didn't make some sort of reading comprehension error.

Agreed. Why the hell are people bitching about racism for INCLUDING everyone. It should be the other fucking way around.
What, would they not be offended if New Orleans didn't have black people in it?

What a bunch of fucking batshit nonsense. It makes me want to puke.

 

[quack35]

That's kinda silly.

 

[RebelRising]

Ho, boy. I have nothing clever to say...this Jefferson person is an idiot and is totally out of touch with both video games and the racial landscape. If he's really that repulsed by the sight of a black person and wants to whitewash New Orleans and Africa, then who the hell is he to accuse others of racism?!

Besides that, I am totally ignoring everything he has to say.

 

[Panda Mania]

This is stupid...if anything, having African Americans part of the zombie horde is being ethnically correct, given the setting. Get your head on straight.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I liked the 'fed flag in CoJ. For the reason that, oh, I dunno, it actually made sense? And zombie games can't be racist. Even if only one race were zombified, then, awesome, they became zombies, and still slaughter the rest of the population, instantly making everyone else zombies. Whoopdie do.