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Diversity in games and the guilt of being white



For the last 48 hours, I have seen a lot of tweets about the lack of diversity in games, and every tweet has been tagged with #GamesSoWhite. Before I continue my article on this subject, I just want to point out that I have ZERO problems with diversity in games whatsoever. In fact, I welcome it. As our world consists of many different cultures, races and nationalities.

However, the more #GamesSoWhite tweets I read. The more I started to think about Slayers song “Guilty of being white“. As it seems like it´s a crime to be white nowadays. You could even start to believe that white people can´t be considered to be humans anymore, or that Caucasian isn’t a race. I have also seen people who claim that we (white people) don´t have any feelings, nor that we can be targeted of racism (which we can).

You could say that I had been dehumanized because of my skin color (I’m white), and apparently i was also born with a world debt and conscience. As everything that has happened in the world since the beginning of the Caucasian race, is entirely my fault.

#GamesSoWhite should be about getting more diversity in games, not racist slurs against white people

That´s at least the vibes that I felt when I read all the tweets and comments about #GamesSoWhite, but you know what? I wear my skin with pride (just like anyone else should), and I take a lot of pride in my Swedish, Danish and German heritage, culture and nationality. I´m more than aware of the dark past of the white mans history, but for how long should I (and other white people) be blamed for our ancestor’s sins? 100 years, 200 years? 1,000 years?

Every culture, race and nationality that exist (and that has existed) has had a dark past at one point or another. So I have to say that i agree with Mr Morgan Freeman, he stated in a TV-interview that we couldn’t live in the past. However, we can learn from the past and our previous mistakes. That´s also why I became really sad when people started to use the “#GamesSoWhite” tag for all the wrong purposes.

POC (People of color) in games

Just take AHR Visions CEO Abdul H. Rashid. He creates a wide range of different POC (people of color) super-hero characters in his comics, and many online games (mainly mmorpg, sports, FPS and life simulators) offer the ability to choose the skin color of your character. As for games that don´t have this option. A lot of game genres actually do have POC characters from the start, especially fighting games.

Just take the Street Fighter, Tekken and Virtua Fighter series for example. All of them offers characters from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and cultures (Black, Asian, Latin, White, Indian. You name it!).

I do, however, agree that there should be more diversity in games, but don´t use the #GamesSoWhite for the sole reason to blame white people for everything, or to spit out racist slurs and rants. Instead, people should use a “#morediversityingames” tag, or something like that. I´m also mad about the hypocrisy of the games press, as they rant about “the lack of diversity in games,” but at the same time they don´t live as they preach, as they don´t have a diverse staff at the office themselves.

Milo Yiannopoulos even called out Kotaku, Polygon and Gamasutra on this (all three of them have a 84% Male and 87% white staff). In fact, we (The Gaming Ground) have a much more diverse crew than most of the big games news sites out there (with three black, one Asian and one Latin on our team). I don´t think that it should be all about skin color or gender though (when it comes to hiring people), it should be about talent and who is best suited for the job.

Apparently, the Japanese are the new white folks now

As for diversity in games and the #GamesSoWhite tagg goes. I think that #GamesSoWhite has done more damage than good, since it sets groups against other groups (as seen in the picture down below). Instead of focusing on HOW we should get more diversity in games, and that´s a damn shame i have to say. However, there is some good news to all of this though, because it seems like a lot of people really want to make some “real” changes in the games industry when it comes to diversity.

We have to start with ourselves first though, because only then we will be able to see some visible improvements in that particular field.

So “hopefully” the outcome of this internet dispute will lead to some more diversity in the world of games in the near future.

Resources:

Black female video game characters that i love

AHR Visions Abdul H. Rashid – New York Comic Con 2014 interview



Robin “V-Act” Ek

The Gaming Ground

Twitter: @TheGamingGround

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Tags: #GamesSoWhite, Diversity in games, Gamer, Gamers, Gaming