10 Idiotic Moral Panics Caused By Awesome Video Games

7. BioShock Infinite

bioshock-infinite-racism

Let me get this out of the way: I'm black (Lousiana Creole to be precise, but... details.) Various "Social Justice Warriors," a demographic of bloggers who promote social equality yet are often laughably misinformed, and then several equally close-minded game critics rushed to slam the game's portrayal of race relations. For those of you who are uninformed, the game takes place the year 1912, in the fictional, sky-high city of Columbia, under a Christian Zealot named Comstock, who promotes white supremacy, unshaken faith in God, and American exceptionalism (read, xenophobia). Such is the motivation for such scenes as above, which depict an Irishman and his African-American bride, being harassed by a group of spectators who (surprise!) frown upon interracial marriage. The reason I'm not offended, and/or believe this to be taken the wrong way? Simple: ACCURATELY depicting race relations in a time period (did I mention this game takes place in post-Civil War 1912?) is NOT racist, offensive, or remotely derogatory. Bringing awareness to a period when foreign demographics were oppressed is NOT a form of racism. Attacking a game developer because they incorporated realistic elements of horrendous social and economic norms of the time period into the game to make it more realistic, and thus calling them racist? Oh, by the way... you can hit Fink with the ball if you want.
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

I'm a technologically savvy Sony Gamer born in the epic city of New Orleans, currently pursuing a degree in Mass Communications in South Carolina. When not losing hours of my life with a controller in my hand, I'm probably losing hours of my life typing endless words into a keyboard, my attempt at this thing called "technology journalism". Hi there.