I don't think he means that it has any corelation to race, rahter that blaming violence on video games is *like* racism, illogical and stupid.
Expert Says Blaming Videogames for Violence is Racist
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
The article makes a lot more sense to me now, thanks to you, though the presentation definitely could have been better on this. Half the time, when I see a headline with the word "racism" in it, I think that someone is a bit over reactive or paranoid, and I skip right by it, depending on the context of the statement.Princess Rose said:
Can people actually read the article before they start pointing out that games aren't a race. He means that when if a member of a minority goes on a shooting spree it's put down as an act of terrorism, but if a white male does it they try and look for something to blame and usually decide to blame games.
People will always find someone or something to blame for anything, and it doesn't help that the people who will decide if gaming is "dangerous" are people who probably never played these games, I mean, it's difficult to imagine anyway, someone like David Cameron or an prominent american politician playing Black ops or dead rising 2, but if they did all their actions would suddenly be linked to those games by other politicians and the media and it would be a witch-hunt, and people can make as many reports saying that excess gaming is dangerous, but, anything in EXCESS is bad, that's why it's called an excess. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that this is racist, just an unnessicary attack for irrational reasons.
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. I've heard people called racist for pointing out that certain schools fail to provide a good education. It's a cheap, strained rhetorical trick and all it does is make it harder to take real cases seriously.Dr Snakeman said:
I would hardly call that the case, politics are still a major role. The media's been using the ol' 'we found copies of (insert fringe political philosopher here, in Norway's case Ayn Rand) in his house' tactic. There's been a ton of journalists demonizing him and arguing that it was Randian 'hypernationalism and anti-immigration' that lead to the massacre. It's gotten so bad that the Cato Institute had to recently release an article detailing how these people have no idea what they're talking about and have never actually read Objectivist philosophy.ddq5 said:
The focus really isn't on culture, religion or race but 'fringeness' for lack of a better word. It's very easy to blame violent behaviour on atypical behaviour determined by society. When there are problems in society it is clearly the fault of the lunatic fringe by some people's logic because they're the ones who at least partially 'reject' the system.
Forbes magazine.
FORBES!
The highest society magazine there is, I don't think you can get much higher above the video gaming/geek/nerd culture rabble than that and THEY are defending video games?
Even going as far as to defend it with an anti-racism angle?
Guys... girl... gamers. I think we've won. We are accepted now. We are no longer the strange little niche that everyone is afraid of and blames for everything. It's like what Shigeru Miyamoto said:
"Video-games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock 'N' Roll."
We are at the mountaintop people!
FORBES!
The highest society magazine there is, I don't think you can get much higher above the video gaming/geek/nerd culture rabble than that and THEY are defending video games?
Even going as far as to defend it with an anti-racism angle?
Guys... girl... gamers. I think we've won. We are accepted now. We are no longer the strange little niche that everyone is afraid of and blames for everything. It's like what Shigeru Miyamoto said:
"Video-games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock 'N' Roll."
We are at the mountaintop people!
That's delightful, gave me a good laugh.bootz said:
I can completely see what he's saying. It's no secret that we make assumptions about motivation based on race or ethnicity...and there are plenty of people who would rather point fingers than accept the uncontrollable nature of things.
no its not. he's saying that if a school with 80% minorities (like mexicans, asians and african americans etc) and 20% white has a shooting (probably one of the minorities because theres so many (80% chance)) then people dont blame games.EverythingIncredible said:
if the school is 20% minorities, then the shooter with probably be white (80% chance) and everyone blames videogames. so basically, he's pointed out people believe
-minorities just decide to shoot up their schools.
-white kids need to be tempted by games.
which is racist.
It's because nobody asks questions when the shooting is in an African-American majority population (I guess everyone assumes it's gangs?) And when it's perpetrated by middle easterners, everyone assumes it's extremist Islam. Whenever it happens in white majority populations, the default boogyman is vidja games.GaltarDude1138 said:
*Minorities tend to be a part of gangs and therefore have an excuse to shoot up their school, but otherwise spot onTrilbyWill said:
That actually kind of makes sense. It's no law, people of other races have had video games be the blame of their violence before, but it certainly is something to think about. If you look at the surface, a middle-class white kid will have "a good life" despite the fact that they could be bullied or abused or mentally ill. Since nobody wants to blame themselves, they point at a copy of GTA or CoD and shout "there is the cause!"
Well, this certainly wasn't something I expected. Hey I'm glad that this will give people another reason to not blame videogames, but it still is kind of weird.
Actually, I don't find it stupid.EverythingIncredible said:
The argument here is that people don't want to think "normal" people can be psychopathic killers. There has to be a reason, something to blame. When the person is from a minority, their violence is blamed on the fact they belong to that minority. Phwew, white middle-class people aren't like that! It's just problem people who are!
So when it's a white person in a shooting and they can't use the race card, they need to find another flaw. That's because they don't want to admit that people who seem normal can be killers. That there doesn't need to be a reason, a finger to point, something to blame.
It's not racist due to blaming videogames. It's racist that videogames only becomes the excuse when the excuse can't be race. It's racist that the excuse is race whenever it's applicable. And if that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be that spot for videogames to fill so the videogame blaming is an extension of that.
I believe that's what the article was saying and I can see the logic in that.
I can see where you're coming from but I disagree that the main reason the media emphasizes video games as the cause is down to race. It's usually brought up when there's a high number of victims or the killing is particularly violent so they can say games lead to dehumanisation : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3934277.stmbinnsyboy said:
EDIT: Actually maybe it's more to do with there being no obvious financial/ideological motivation, so they go looking for any possible reason and odds are they've played games at some point so they just blame that?
See the link above, I don't understand why people are so eager to see racism everywhere.Avistew said:
I'm thinking there should be a short quiz at the end of each article that people have to answer correctly in order to prove they actually read (and understood!) the article before commenting.
Also, I have to laugh at all the people saying "boy, this guy makes a lot of sense, has a good point, and makes a logical argument for why it's racist, but it's not racist because I say so with absolutely nothing to back me up (except my feelings of discomfort whenever racism gets brought up)!"
Also, I have to laugh at all the people saying "boy, this guy makes a lot of sense, has a good point, and makes a logical argument for why it's racist, but it's not racist because I say so with absolutely nothing to back me up (except my feelings of discomfort whenever racism gets brought up)!"
It is racist, in an entirely passive indirect way, but when isn't anything in our world? Not only does every man and woman on Earth consider stereotypes before thinking of another of a different race, but we do it before we think of ourselves as well.
Although I agree with the sentiment, I feel as if this is digging too deep. It's wrong at the surface to blame an object for the crimes of man, in any situation. You don't need to prove it more wrong.
But I'm very glad there are experts and people on "the other side" who are fighting for reason and rationality. That's always a plus.
Although I agree with the sentiment, I feel as if this is digging too deep. It's wrong at the surface to blame an object for the crimes of man, in any situation. You don't need to prove it more wrong.
But I'm very glad there are experts and people on "the other side" who are fighting for reason and rationality. That's always a plus.