Some people (I use the term loosely [sick burn, bro {thanks dude}]), have taken offense at the following excerpt from my review of Mario Kart 8 -

The other notable omission is in the cast of characters’ diversity. After 30 years there are still zero Mario characters of color, a problem that Mario Kart 8 highlights by lining up all the characters on a single screen. When it comes to human characters, Mario Kart 8 is overwhelmingly white. Of the 29 drivers, 14 are human (including Toad and Toadette), and every single one of them is white. While it’d be atypical of Nintendo to introduce new characters into a Mario Kart game, it’s also where the deficit is the most obvious, and during play I found myself disappointed that Nintendo’s stable of characters so painfully fails to reflect the diversity of its audience.

All these comments are laden with confusion as to why I’d bring this up in a review of a video game. People have ascribed a bunch of political motives to me, or claimed I’m part of the “Social Justice Warrior trend” in games journalism, or that I bring it up for “click bait,” or for a hundred other reasons. While the people in the comments of that article are mostly, frankly, monsters, I thought that maybe some non-monsters were wondering the same thing, so here’s why I chose to bring up the issue of race in Mario Kart 8.

Because when playing the game, I noticed it, and I had an opinion, and my job as a reviewer is to share my opinion.

No grand conspiracy, no ‘white guilt’ - I was playing the game, and when all 30 characters were unlocked, they appeared on screen at once, and I was struck by how the overwhelming majority of them were white. After the recent conversation surrounding Tomodachi Life and after reading this article on race in Animal Crossing, maybe this stuff was on my mind, but I thought about what I saw on the screen, and formed the opinion “Nintendo can do better than this.”

And I said so, because my only job as a reviewer is to give you my opinion.

If you see the screenshot above, read those articles I linked, and think, “Nintendo shouldn’t have to do better!” then, well, I don’t know what to tell you dude (you are most likely a dude). We just disagree, probably fundamentally. If you can’t handle an opinion you disagree with, good luck going through life just in general! But as far as video game reviews go, you’re welcome to read someone else’s instead.