I never thought I'd say this but...

[baphomet_irl]

yeh I have to say in general I find modern theatre of war games distasteful,

I love BF:1942, but could never bring myself to play Battlefield 2 for example

I just think its kinda bad (and trust me I'm no mung-bean eating hippie ;P )

in fact I pretty much have never played contemporary setting war games at all, except for F-15 Strike Eagle on the C64 with its extremely topical Libya bombing :s ...

[Anubis]

I hate to sounds so cynical on a thread where I want to have hope, but stopping racism is like trying to stop a tornado. It just won't be done.

For as long as mankind has walked this earth, some people have deemed themselves to be of a higher value than others. Racism has always existed, and will always continue to exist. The biggest problem I have with modern racism is that I have to put up with it.

Personally, I think it's all bullshit. First, I'm an Anthropology major. Keeping cultural relativism in mind goes a long way towards not judging others. I like to keep an open mind about people I meet, it keeps life interesting. Second, up until last week, I lived with an Egyptian room-mate. The man was a genuine badass. He was confused and didn't quite our culture, but I didn't really expect him too. Regardless, he would make me different Egyptian and middle eastern dishes, and tell me about his life in Cairo. It just so happened that he was a Muslim. Shocking.

My hypothesis is that this is not a cultural problem per say. It isn't the fault of Call of Duty 4. It's the individual. As far as human history has taught me, we as humans have been walking in circles and doing the same shit since the formation of major urban areas roughly 4,000 years ago. This is the fundamental moral difference in people. Some individuals will look around, and see that the very idea of racism is (to put it bluntly) FUCKING RETARDED. They will question outdated practices, and examine and keep an open mind. Others, as history has shown, will not. Why question when it's just so much easier to follow?

Maybe its an ingrained part of our psyche? What if there were two types of people born from an evolutionist standpoint? The first group, which I'll call followers, work in that way. Followers have a much higher rate of survival in the idea that if they stay with the group their individual survival will be ensured. Followers are probably more likely to fit socially into a group, they would most likely have food and resources. They are cared for in exchange for their freedom. This giving up of freedom isn't a choice they have made, so much as a inherent though process.

The second group will be changers. Changers are there to do just that, to change. After an social group has gone stagnant (and they all do) changers keep it moving. They are constantly evolving the social structure withing which they operate. Survival for them is insured through this ability. The ability to change can lead to them picking up followers, which leads to overall strength and ability. Unfortunately, they only provide change with the followers can no longer lead themselves. (That's a strange statement huh?)


The real problem arises when you have followers leading followers, which is the situation we have here.

Wow, I just realized what I typed. I guess I was just attempting to look at the leader/follower relationship from an evolutionist standpoint. Regardless, it's an interesting topic to bring up. The Game Overthinker actually did a video on a topic similar to this. I think it was #4.

[MrPopo]

Maybe its an ingrained part of our psyche?

Yes, it is. But it's even simpilar than you are painting it. The human being is a social creature, and the brain naturally dices people up into groups. I have several group memberships; the group of males, the group of whites, the group of Jews, etc. The second phenomenom of this way the brain works is that humans naturally want to build up those in the groups and put down those outside the groups. When this gets taken to extremes it becomes the type of racism we are familiar with today.

[marurun]

Now if anything worries me, is that Americans are easily manipulated and are affected by the media around them. For example I can almost bet that no one around the middle east area is going to line up for movie tickets wearing a vader mask to get into the new star wars movie. I can also bet you that NO ONE EVER stood in line to buy anything except movie tickets(when it is crowded) and at bakeries during wartime and in poverty areas. While in America it is common to see people camping out wearing a witch hat waiting for the store to open to buy a Harry Potter book(or was that in England?) . One time I went to the movies here and it was the latest batman movie, and this girl was wearing a batman shirt. I was looking at my friend and was thinking "what the heck?" So its a bit of culture difference here, if you wear like X-men t-shirt for x-men movie you just might be the joke of the day. So that is some kind of culture difference. And due to that culture difference, It worries me that COD4 might affect the American public, and soon we see T-shirts like "GO TO WAR" or racist comments like the poster of this topic mentioned. I guess it is already happening.

I would argue that people in any culture are easily manipulated by the media. Large numbers of Chinese citizens agree with government censorship of media in China. Not all, certainly, but enough. Lining up to see movies and wearing costumes and all that has more to do with free time and disposable income. Americans with less money and time available to them (like me) generally don't line up and wear costumes. This stuff happens in Japan a lot, and sometimes in Korea too. Probably many places in Europe as well, but I don't know as much about Europe.

Education is the primary means to fight stereotypes, propaganda, and media exposure. And I'm not talking about just learning math and science. I'm talking about broader learning, including world events, history, and cultural studies.

So while there are problems in America with this, the same problems exist everywhere else. We all have to fight it where we can.

[RemyC]

Im from southern Ontario, where "minorities", are the Majority. I am a middle-class white male. I find racism to be rather humorous, because of the environment i was raised in. As a young kid, i had NO IDEA what racism was, until i was actually taught about it in school...then at recess i went out with all my friends, and we called each other names.

I have alot of black friends that like to make fun of white people in front of me, but then theyll look at me sincerely and say, "its ok, Remy, your not white in our eyes"
I have alot of white friends that throw around alot of racial slurrs about black people, but to justify themselves, theyll say, "We only mean the bad ones"
As ignorant as that sounds...in my area there is a decent number of bullies, and wannabe thugs, that cause trouble for no reason, and they just so happen to be coloured...thus profiling themselves the way the media portrays them.

You can blame videogames, you can blame music, you can blame movies and television...but at the end of the day it really comes down to, how open is your mind? A lot of racial profiles/stereotypes are indeed correct, but not EVERYONE is that way.

[lordofduct]

I don't think Moz is blaming the video game, or saying the game shouldn't have been made.

I think he is saying, just like a lot of media, if influences. These influences are everywhere and can not be avoided. The main point though is that these children are getting unfiltered bias through one source and none through any other source. Thusly creating a toppled seesaw that results in 8 year olds screaming towel head over skype.

I will agree racism is a human reaction to the very primal ape brain creating social cliques for security. It is natural human tendency to group with familiar faces, and shun non-familiar faces. The human brain is only capable of managing so many relationships, and it tends to want to make all those relationships comingal with each other. hence families.

But I highly doubt this is some racial conspiracy to create divides. It's just a game. But Nietzsche just wrote a book, and Nostradomus was only a fortune teller... yeah I said that. People through ignorant discourse will allow themselves to be affected by these medias and well... why the fuck are these parents ignorantly allowing their children to say "towel head".

[Mozgus]

There's no fucking conspiracy in COD4. They just knew when the time was right to exploit the war's image towards the redneck in all of us.

[aaron]

'necks have deep pockets, dude.

[Haoie]

Always with the shooting games, isn't it?

[andythebadass]

Its disturbing indeed. The good old days of playing games without the content being so damn realistic that it can translate into real world thoughts are over. Parents need to be paying more and more attention to what their kids play these days! Games are only becoming more and more interactive (online with voice chat for example) and realistic (real topics and depictions) which young kids dont need to be exposed to.

I can't believe people use to freak out about mortal kombat, when now kids can just yell out obscene racist remarks with complete anonymity across the internet into anyone's living room. And it just goes almost unnoticed by parents and media.