Expert Says Blaming Videogames for Violence is Racist

[BoogieManFL]

Those people making snide remarks about video games being a race need to work on their reading comprehension, that's not even close to what the person is saying.

Depending on the race of the killers in these events has shown a clear pattern on how the media reacts to it.

To be blunt, if it's Black kids killing each other they call it gang violence.

If they even look Middle Eastern it's terrorism

If they are White or Asian, it must be video games

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

A very interesting point that I had never thought of.

Not racist in the alarmist, political correctness way, but racist in a very demonstrable difference in assumptions about culpability and motivation. I think everyone's seeing the word "racist" and immediately throwing up the barricades, but the most interesting point in the article is about looking for a reason for tragedies like Oslo. When a simple conventional explanation isn't available as it sadly is in the case of a lot of minorities (note: conventional, not necessarily reasonable), you have everyone jumping to an equally simple seemingly conventional explanation (media) instead of looking for a more complex explanation.

The only place the article falters is in suggesting that these crimes are entirely random. People don't do things for no reason. Causality is a thing. When people do things, there is always a reason. The difference in these cases is that the reasons are likely to be too complex, too out of the ordinary, too varied to reasonably combat them. This makes people feel unsafe and confused, so they substitute any simple commonality between the criminals that they do not themselves have in common with them.

 

[Griffolion]

If video-games are a race now, can I play the race card?

That's not at all what the article said, please re-read.

OT: Everything he said makes huge sense. And it's great to be taking this info from a person who is actually a clinical psychologist, as in, not just some 'expert' who likes hearing the sound of their own conservative, ignorant voice.

 

[Clonekiller]

I don't know about anyone else, but I would sit down to play Call of Duty because I was feeling rather violent, and playing the game helped me get that out of my system. I've never come away from a Halo match feeling the need to kill something. I've come away feeling like reading a book or something, since I've already killed a bunch of stuff.

 

[Flauros]

don't think i've ever heard any thing so ridiculous as what this person is saying... being racist is the act of making assumptions about how people behave, on the basis of a strand of genetics that has nothing to do with behaviour. It has nothing to do with prejudice about video games.

The reason people dont raise the issue of video games in crap areas of town is simply that the actual cause of violent behaviour is far more obvious to the casual observer - i.e. drugs, poverty etc.

When talking about affluent areas that are suddenly beset by a mass shooting, people don't have these ready explanations, and so will look towards other seemingly plausible causes - like the fact that they didnt attend church regularly, or played computer games, or listened to a certain kind of music, or were of a particular religion. Their reasons for making these connections comes from a lack of understand of the thing in question - ignorant, but def not racist.

I came here to get in on this telling people to read things, too. My turn.

Wassamatter, you can type but you cant READ?!

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

.....oh for the love of god i really fell like I am being trolled

 

[Warped_Ghost]

It is regardless of your skin color but he is saying when a minority who probably played video games shoots up a school then people usually blame poor parents, drugs, etc. When a white kid does it though they go straight to blaming games instead of more likely causes like bad parents.
That means people cant socially see a white kid having the same problems than a minority, like he is better than that minority because such problems are not even considered.

 

[orangeapples]

Oh No! I play video games and wear sneakers! I'm just a statistic waiting to happen. Oh wow, something else all of these killers have in common: They have blood going through their bodies and convert Oxygen to Carbon dioxide. Oh God...

What would they do if it were to be a young white suburban girl who goes on a shooting spree. Surely with all of that female equality going around it is bound to happen.

 

[mikespoff]

Great piece, some really good points.

I'm worried about sneakers now, though...

 

[Eggsnham]

He actually makes a good point on it.

OT: I wish people would just get their heads out of their asses and clean the shit from their ears in order to listen to people who know way more about these types of things than they ever will.

It kinda reminds of the Hypochondriac vs. Professional Doctor sort of scenario.

No he doesn't. He doesn't make one bit of sense.

He's using the same technique Glenn Beck uses. If letter A has anything to do with letter B, it must mean letter A is a Communist.

These people jumping on the video game bandwagon are stupid guys, not racist.

And by calling them racist, we're becoming more like them. Don't sink to that level of stupid.

He's really not. Because honestly, when was the last time you heard anybody say that a black/hispanic/not white man shooting somebody was because of videogames? Now when was the last time you heard someone say that a white man shooting somebody was because of videogames?

All the fucking time.

Maybe you'd like to think that you're above this type of thinking, but it makes decent sense to me.

If he was trying to say that speaking out against videogames was racist because of the fact that mostly white conservatives are the ones doing so, then I'd agree with you. But he's pointing out a pretty obvious double standard here. One that seems to deal with race and socioeconomic background.

 

[EGtodd09]

If video-games are a race now, can I play the race card?

You should try reading the whole article before making yourself look like a douchebag next time.

Racism? Really? We're going there?

That is stupid.

You too. Do people even read to the article or are they too busy trying to make a funny first post? It's not funny if you've only read the title guys...

Maybe you should try reading the thread before posting too. ^_^

I did read the whole thing. It still sounds stupid to me.

You should try understanding my post before quoting it. Those comments, the first one especially, don't reference the content of the article itself, it certainly seems like they were written based on the title. The article make valid points and never says video games are a race. It's also not stupid, so maybe you should read it again.

 

[lewiswhitling]

don't think i've ever heard any thing so ridiculous as what this person is saying... being racist is the act of making assumptions about how people behave, on the basis of a strand of genetics that has nothing to do with behaviour. It has nothing to do with prejudice about video games.

The reason people dont raise the issue of video games in crap areas of town is simply that the actual cause of violent behaviour is far more obvious to the casual observer - i.e. drugs, poverty etc.

When talking about affluent areas that are suddenly beset by a mass shooting, people don't have these ready explanations, and so will look towards other seemingly plausible causes - like the fact that they didnt attend church regularly, or played computer games, or listened to a certain kind of music, or were of a particular religion. Their reasons for making these connections comes from a lack of understand of the thing in question - ignorant, but def not racist.

I came here to get in on this telling people to read things, too. My turn.

Wassamatter, you can type but you cant READ?!

i can read... please READ my post. Summary of his argument; people make generalisations of what motivates people to go on killing sprees based on skin colour. In the case of the norway prick - he's white, and so people assumed it was video games. MY response to that theory is "bollocks". He has absolutely no evidence to make such a wide generalisation as this - people made the link between the norway shooter and video games because he cited them in his notes, not because he has pale skin.

Plenty of white people who live sub-par lives go out doing nasty things, and no one would ever instantaneously jump to the "oh it's computer games cos he's white" conclusion. As i said - this is because the actual reasons are much more obvious to the casual observer in this scenario. Let me reiterate my point; people forging a causitive relationship between games and killing has nothing to do with racism or skin colour. It's about ignorance, and people's habit of leaping on the bandwagon of the first popular theory they come across when the actual motivations behind a killer's actions are more concealed. People seize on anything which they think establishes a behavioural link to whatever that person did (no matter how unimportant it is) in order to make sense of the situation; and so everything from music, to games and religion etc gets blamed. That is the problem - not racism.

 

[Spawny0908]

Racism might be too strong a word. Ignorance? Quick to use video games as a scapegoat 99.9999999% of the time? Hell yes. Other than the racism part his points are quite inspired.

 

[joemegson94]

Finally, a sane person discusses the issue.

 

[Torrasque]

You hear that, Fox? You're racist!

WELCOME TO (as many years as Fox has been active) AGO!

Seriously though, everyone wants to blame video games.
Why?
I honestly don't fucking know why.
Because its easy?
Because it makes sense?
Because the evidence is there?
No one knows why.
The fact remains, that video games are blamed.

I think that Jimquisition made a good point the other day in saying that nonsensical, childish points, should be countered in kind.

 

[Double A]

Racism? Really? We're going there?

That is stupid.

Actually, if you read the article, and not just the incredibly misleading title, he says that it's because us white people want a boogeyman and are afraid of chaos and randomness. I'd probably laugh if it weren't so true.

 

[KimonoBoxFox]

Common Sense-bearing Objectivist Says Gluing Together Two Uncorrelated Generalities is Stupid.

 

[Gatx]

Certainly there is a correlation with economics, which has racial aspects, but I think it's inaccurate to say that it's "racist." It's like a variety of non-Blacks and non-Hispanics are blaming the cause of shootings BY non-Blacks and non-Hispanics because they played videogames, which are made by non-Blacks and non-Hispanics (I'm from LA, the article said inner city, and brought up race, that's just what the inner city is composed of here, no offense to anyone). Nothing derogatory is said about specific race by blaming videogames for shootings.

 

[Fbuh]

Goddam sneakers, ruining innocent lives...