I did a rant earlier about how ridiculous this entire thing is, and the perils of historical reinventionism. I wanted to make two additional points however that I think are relevent:
#1: I don't agree with what they are demanding as you know, but at the same time I can understand why they are angry and ashamed. What's more the problem is that the perception of Italians as criminals does affect their employment prospects and such. When your dealing with an organization that is known to control entire neighborhoods and be viewed to some extent as folk heroes and men of respect to their communities, one becomes nervous in dealing with anyone they might be able to get their fingers into. Sure, you have no fear hiring some ordinary Italian guy because he's going to break your kneecaps, but a lot of people are going to have concerns that a guy from an ethnic Italian community might run into money trouble with the wrong people, and then be made to rob you in order to pay off their debt.
Let's say you run a warehouse, or a store with a lot of inventory in storage. You hire Luigi to work at your store, Luigi winds up owing some wiseguy a bunch of money, next thing you know boxes start to go missing from your warehouse. Luigi being less worried about being fired or spending a bit of time in jail than not being able to pay a wiseguy. This could happen to anyone, but it's more likely for an Italian guy from an ethnic neighborhood where these guys are known to operate. Not to mention the fact that if the business has something the Mafia really wants, they can find ways to apply pressure to someone on the inside without them being a member. That could also be peer pressure as well, I mean if Mr. Wiseguy paid off a family member's medical expenses as a white knight at the time (but also so he could go after a favor if he needed it), then Luigi might very well feel pressured or obligated.
This is simplistic, and as far as it goes this is not unrealistic. The problem of course coming about for all of the Italians who might not be from long-term Italian neighborhoods, or never wind up being pressured by the Mafia or whatever.
As open minded as a lot of us might want to think we are, if you were running a business hiring Luigi might give you second thoughts due to you considering the potential risks higher. A lot of Italian American groups needless to say don't like this.
Of course I am one of those who holds to a "correct" definition of racism, as the belief in a group's inherant superiority or inferiority compared to another group (or everyone in general). I don't think Italians are discriminated against on racial grounds, nobody I've run into thinks they are inferior, it's all sociological and based on the kind of things I mentioned above and have been talked about elsewhere in this thread.
Basically while I disagree with what they are trying to do, I do understand why, and feel some sympathy for them and their situation. Since there isn't any real racism involved, enforced ignorance about things like The Mafia and the like could very well improve things for a lot of Italians in general.
#2: I trust the validity of these complaints largely because of the fact that I've seen it before with other things like "The Sopranos", hence my first post before this one.
I will however point out that this campaign is being done stupidly, and if it was another group I'd suspect this was being done to generate hype for the game.
I say this because anyone who pays attention would notice that the best time to kill a game with contreversy is during pre-production. A game that is right about to be released has had millions upon millions of dollars spent on it. Even if reviled, at that point the producers relly have no choice except to stick it on the market and hope it recoups some of their losses. Unless legally forced to do so, they aren't going to just throw all that money away and not release the product.
As much as I hated what happened, I look at things like the "Seven Days In Fallujah" game (I have no idea if anyone else ever picked it up). That games was stopped because people attacked it before anyone had actually invested a ton of money in it (as I understand things). The potential contreversy being weighed against the cost and sales. Once the game is a month or two from release it's way too late to do anything practical.
On the other hand people, especially gamers, have been known to eat up contreversy. If it was anything else I'd suspect this would be an offhanded attempt at product promotion.
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Oh and I will also say that from what I've seen, groups like this probably would have gone after a lot of the other Mafia stuff out there, but there haven't always been organizations with the abillity to make themselves heard. What's more nobody has the resources to go after everything that can be produced in the media, battles have to be picked and chosen.
