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May 22, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
54:18
Hipster Racists
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Hello everyone, today we're going to have a quick look at why social justice warriors are such raging racists.
I'm really getting quite sick of them and I just want to see some of their justifications and how it kind of plays out into the wider scheme of things.
Sorry about the quality, I'm actually in the middle of moving house and my microphone, my usual microphone, is packed, so I'm reduced to a headset.
My apologies, this will not be a regular thing.
So today we're going to talk a little bit about colourblindness.
Not physical colourblindness, but racial colourblindness.
What a cute term.
Racial colourblindness.
I mean, I personally, I'm one of the, I guess, old fuddy duddies who thinks that you should judge a man on the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin.
Being one of these old fuddy duddies, that generally means that I've got no particular reason to talk about the colour of someone's skin.
Because frankly, it's just not relevant to any conversation that I'm likely to have with them.
I guess ultimately, I'm a proponent of the golden rule.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
And I would rather it if people didn't make a big deal about my race.
In fact, I think I'd rather it if we all just treated each other the same.
It really seems to me like the best way not to be racist.
It really does.
And then we will literally, if everyone does this, we will end up at a place and time where we're not racist.
We're not worried about people's races and we're not judging them based on that.
And we certainly won't end up with some kind of crazy segregation.
But okay, Marina, tell me what your plan is.
A lot of people grow up nowadays under the assumption that it's a good thing to be colourblind, which means that you don't judge people based on their race.
Shit.
Okay.
Tell me why that's a bad thing.
And I can understand how people would be like, well, duh, that's how you solve racism.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe we're all wrong.
Maybe that's not how you solve racism.
Maybe you solve racism by focusing inordinately on race.
Maybe you solve racism by blaming white people.
Besides, racial prejudice seemed to be the cause of past injustices against people of colour, right?
Um, you're not going to tell me that racial prejudice wasn't the cause of past injustices against non-white people, are you?
However, the problem with this idea is that it assumes that racial prejudice no longer exists.
What?
No, you what?
That's really dumb.
No, Marina, let me see if I can make this very clear and very well articulated, because I guess if I were as thick as two short planks, I would want someone to articulate this clearly for me.
Marina, let me be specific.
We know that racial prejudice exists.
We know it does.
But the only way to get past racial prejudice is to not be prejudiced against race of any kind for any reason.
To not judge someone based on race is what you are calling colourblindness, and it is a very noble thing, and more people should aspire to it.
In fact, the ultimate goal of this, the utopian ideal, is that everyone in society will be like this, and then racism will literally be over.
Don't get me wrong, I know that's ridiculous and utopian, but we can get maybe, I don't know, two-thirds of the way there, so most of society doesn't judge based on race, and so we can just tell the other third to fuck off and be racist somewhere else.
Which I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
Then why are you smiling?
But that's not the case.
Oh, we're all fully aware of that.
If it's not the storm fags, it's the social justice warriors.
You are all obsessed with race.
Absolutely consumed by it.
And everyone's like, look, can we just not?
And you're like, no, no, we absolutely have to deal with black people or white people or Asians or Jews or whatever.
Jesus fucking Christ, everyone else is sick of it.
The idea of being colorblind has made race a taboo subject to talk about.
You know what?
Maybe.
Maybe that's true.
And maybe there's a good reason for that.
Maybe there is simply no good that comes of discriminating based on race.
The act of talking about race has become racist in itself, which I think stems from a fundamental misunderstanding that a lot of people have about racism.
Yeah, but those people are hipsters.
And they think, well, racism is an institution and not a concept.
Because they're stupid.
And they are literally looking for any reason to justify their obsession with race when the rest of us are literally not interested at all.
First off, it's okay to notice race.
No, it's weird and inappropriate.
Why would you even want to bring up someone's race in polite conversation?
As much as people try to assert that they don't see color unless they're physically blind.
They must be liars because you see colour just fine, don't you?
Then pretending not to see someone's race is pointless.
Note the term pretending because you are projecting.
We aren't pretending when we say, look, we're not interested in judging people by their race.
We're literally not interested in judging people by their race.
No good comes of it.
Either way, even if you're trying to be benevolent, it is still bad.
It is patronizing.
For example, I'm a mixed race Asian American.
That is an undisputable fact about me.
So what?
I don't have a problem with people noticing this about me because it's not a bad thing to be.
Well, I'm glad we can agree on something.
But if everyone all day, every fucking day, kept commenting about how Asian you were, wouldn't you get to the point where you're like, um, could we just not talk about it?
I know I'm Asian, it's great.
I'm amazing at Asian stuff and being Asian.
I've done it my whole life.
It's something I can do in my sleep.
But can we just talk about the things I'm doing that aren't related to my race?
Possibly like my artwork or something.
Personally, I get a little skeeved out when people try and pretend that my racial identity doesn't exist at all.
Well, I don't know what skeeved out means, but okay, well, maybe they're just not really that interested in talking about you all that much.
I mean, you're sat there, oh, yeah, I'm Asian, by the way.
Yeah, okay, that's fascinating, thank you.
Yeah, but no, no, but I'm half Asian.
I mean, like, that's half Asian.
And I'm like, okay, that's great.
Good for you.
And they'll be like, yeah, but can I talk to you about my race some more?
And they're like, no.
Go away.
When someone says something like, you don't seem like a black person or an Asian person or whatever, meaning that person defies the societal expectation of what that race should be, then that's actually really racist.
Yes, it is, which is why most people don't fucking say that.
Seriously, you must be hanging around with a bunch of hipster racists if that's what they say, because no one that I know has ever said anything like that in my presence to anyone of any race whatsoever.
It just doesn't come up.
First off, that denies that person's racial identity and experiences.
Who cares?
It's wrong to judge people based on stereotypes of their race.
We've got it.
Let's not do it.
Second off, it says you don't seem like the specific race because you don't adhere to the stereotypes associated with it.
Yep, very good.
Someone adhering to or not adhering to the stereotypes of their race doesn't invalidate their racial identity and lived experiences.
Yep, fully agreed.
This is really fascinating.
This is also usually said in an attempt to compliment someone, which is actually super gross and insulting.
I don't know.
I don't hang around with hipsters, but I mean, if hipster racists say that, then hipster racists say that.
The second point I want to make is that individual prejudices aren't the only contributing factors to racism.
Possibly not, but they are certainly the ones that we as individuals can control.
We're going to look at racism as two forms.
Individual racism, which is on a person-to-person level, and systemic racism, which involves the way that society is structured to benefit some races more than others.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Society was not designed to benefit some races at the expense of others.
The society you live in has come about holistically, through a myriad different competing forces that have resulted in what you have now.
To say society was designed makes you sound like an idiot.
And then to say society was designed to benefit some races at the expense of others makes you sound even more silly.
Even if a person doesn't participate in individual racism and discrimination, it still doesn't get rid of the institutions in society that disadvantage people of colour.
I agree.
Plantation slavery must end.
Oh, wait.
For example, the criminal justice system.
Oh yeah, this is going to be good.
People of colour, black men in particular, are much more likely to be racially profiled and stopped and also experience violence than white people.
You know what?
Let's assume it's because police are racist.
Just, you know, completely.
They hate black people, generally.
I mean, you know, the police in general, all of the U.S., hate black people.
And this is just what they can get away with doing.
You know, they would do a lot more, and it would be a lot worse.
It's just they can't justify it, and for some reason, the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy will punish these policemen for arbitrarily arresting black people, and this is all they could do.
If that's the case, then the solution is still for the individuals who are police officers that make up the system to not discriminate based on race.
A new different kind of discrimination isn't the way to solve this.
Also, are you sure that you as a person of Asian descent want to go down the road where we constantly talk about people's races?
Because right now, I am seeing some serious Asian privilege going on right here.
Just saying maybe that's something you might want to check.
Even though white people commit crimes at equal rates to people of colour, the disproportionate stopping of black men leads to higher rates of arrest and mass incarceration.
I guess maybe lumping crime into a big generic amorphous category isn't all that helpful.
Because maybe you're right.
I mean, but maybe the kind of crime is pertinent in a situation like this.
For example, if we go for, say, homicides, this is one that I think people should be fairly concerned with.
Now, the question is, do black people commit half of the murders in the United States, which is, of course, extremely disproportionate given that they are 12 to 13% of the population.
Well, it is true that 13% of Americans are black.
And between 1980 and 2008, they did commit 52% of homicides, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But does this mean that they committed these crimes because they were black?
No.
Should we judge other black people by the murders that some black people have committed?
No.
Does it mean that the police are going to have to arrest disproportionately more black people than white people for murder?
Yes.
Does this inherently make the police racist?
No.
Are you following me, Marina?
There are also many instances of police brutality against black men and black women that you're probably already aware of that leads to the unjust murders of these people by police.
Yes, but the police also unjustly murder white people.
This isn't something exclusive to black people.
On the surface, you can look at each separate case of racial profiling as an act of individual racism.
Because they are.
But these cases add up to form a criminal justice system that disproportionately disadvantage and harm people of colour.
Marina, you're a feminist.
Have you forgotten this?
Just, I bring this up because feminists like to talk about agency.
They like to talk about agency a lot.
Now, black people have agency, just like women and any other people you can really care to think of.
And so, when they use it to commit crimes, the police have to take action.
I'm not in any way defending the US police either.
There is a distinctly brutal and authoritarian streak throughout many police forces in the US, especially in places like Albuquerque.
But I'm not going to address that in this video.
It's a bigger issue for another time.
But the point is, black people are still responsible for their own actions.
And if half of the murders are being caused by black people in the United States, then is it any wonder that the police end up arresting more black people?
This is what we call institutional racism.
Yeah, but that's because you're stupid.
Do you think that if a minority group is responsible for half of, say, the murders in a country, then you should have less of that minority group proportionally arrested than anyone else?
I mean, that is just retarded.
So the problem with colorblindness is that it makes these issues taboo to talk about.
No, what makes these issues taboo to talk about is that you're interpreting the statistics the wrong way around.
You're looking at the results and saying, well, this must have been the intention behind the system.
Police brutality becomes a problem caused by something other than racism, so we look for ways to justify it.
Jesus Christ, are you some sort of simpleton?
The police don't just beat people because they're black.
They in fact have a penchant for beating white people as well.
It's actually not because they're giant fucking racists, or at least not all the time.
Sometimes it's because they're violent authoritarian assholes.
But in your world, it has to be because they're racist.
Because you have taken the results of a system and said, well, that must mean that the system was designed to do this.
And therefore you have retconned everyone's actions in your head.
You've decided that you know why they did all this all along the way.
And you fucking don't.
If Michael Brown wasn't killed because he's black, because we supposedly live in a colorblind society, then it must have been another factor at work.
Oh, no, it must have been because he was black.
I mean, the police only beat and kill black men only.
Doesn't matter how many black boys and men are unjustly killed, the ideology of colorblindness makes race irrelevant.
And now we get to the projection, because an ideology is a collection of beliefs that all interlace with one another to support one another.
And when you start picking away at these interlaced beliefs and thoughts, they start peeling away and the ideology falls apart.
Colourblindness is a principle.
It is wrong on principle to judge people based on their race because they can't change that.
They had no control over that.
And the only way you appear to be able to think is through ideology.
And we'll get to other people thinking about ideology in a bit.
It's basically like saying this.
Hey, let's talk about Latina immigrant women and how they're often relegated to low-paying domestic labor and service jobs.
Oh, and also their race, class, gender, and citizenship make them particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
What is it about being born as a Latina that makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation?
As if they've got no agency of their own.
As if they are just objects to be pushed around by feminists.
And then if someone were just to come up and say, yeah, but we're like one race, man, the human race, like...
No, not like anything.
That's stupid, hippie bullshit, and no one is trying to support it.
The point is that if you discriminate based on race, then you have a society which discriminates based on race.
That justifies an awful lot of bad things.
Cool, but how does that solve the problem?
I don't see colour, man.
I do see straw mans, though, man.
Okay, but that doesn't actually fix anything.
Wow, like quit being so racist.
No, I don't want to stop being racist.
It's a lot easier for me to say that Latina women are weak and ineffectual, so I can use them to advance my ideology.
Basically, it makes no fucking sense.
Yeah, it does.
It's just that you're an idiot.
The ideology of colorblindness assumes that our society has fixed racism, which...
Calling something an ideology when it's not an ideology doesn't make it an ideology.
But you would like it to be an ideology because then you could say, hey, replace this ideology with my ideology.
And we would say, well, what principles does your ideology have?
You'd say, well, my ideology, one of the principles that we operate under, is discriminating based on race.
Which is obviously not true.
All of us are raised with implicit biases about race, and pretending that they don't exist and don't cause harm only causes us to perpetuate these biases.
Whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, stop right there, Miss KKK.
You might have been raised with biases against race, but most people actually aren't.
This is, of course, Sargon's law in action.
You are biased against racists, so you assume you know what's going on in other people's heads.
You don't.
You only know what's going on in your head, and frankly, by the sounds of it, it's not very nice.
If we're no longer allowed to talk about race, then how are we going to question and challenge systemic racism?
That's right, I see.
It's what you're saying is that everyone is secretly racist.
They've just agreed not to talk about how racist they are.
Again, this would be projection.
So, this was just the first video in this little series.
This is going to be quite a long one, so I apologize to everyone, but I've been moving house and I haven't been able to make videos for a while, and I've been seeing a lot of social justice racism, and I'm fucking sick of it.
So, let's go straight on to the next one.
I think you'll all enjoy this.
One private school in New York is trying to grapple with the issue of race relations, and they're doing so in a very controversial way.
Don't pretend like you're not pleased to see the young Turks.
My only regret is that Chenk isn't in this video.
I have the details, and now you get to decide whether or not it really is controversial.
Now, this is Fieldston Lower School in New York City.
Again, it is a private school, and what they're planning on doing is separating their classrooms based on race once a week in order to have discussions about race relations.
Oh, yeah, how can that go wrong?
Why don't we have the blacks sat on that side, the whites sat on that side, the Hispanics over there, the Asians over there, and that will in no way go any way to contributing towards people seeing each other as the other?
It certainly won't make them congregate into separate groups outside of the classroom and you know just see each other more as the sort of homogeneous racial group rather than a diffused diverse class of human beings.
Now, just to give you some more information, parents get a form asking them to answer for their elementary school-aged kids.
What is your race?
The choices are African American, Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Islander, Latina, Latino, multiracial, white, and not sure.
With this information, the kids starting in third grade are split up into racial affinity groups and encouraged to have frank conversations about their identities and experiences and then reunite for a curriculum designed to foster interracial empathy by encouraging children to recognize differences without disrespect while teaching kids strategies and the language for navigating racial conflict.
Are you sure that this isn't actually, I don't know, setting the stage for racial conflict by emphasizing the differences between people and making sure that it is categorized and mandated by the authority in the classroom that we recognize racial differences.
Can't we just say, so what?
All right, so you kind of delve deeper into why they're doing this because the headlines say segregation and it sounds really bad.
That's because what they're doing is segregation and segregation is really bad.
Like I was saying, it does emphasize racial differences rather than erase them.
But once you look into the details, maybe this could be a credible way of dealing with race relations from a young age.
What do you guys think?
I think maybe is not good enough to bring back segregation in classrooms for kids.
I think so.
I think it could definitely be they're onto something.
The only issue I have is that I don't think that third, fourth, and fifth graders have the maturity to be able to have this conversation and to learn it and then apply it in their lives.
If this was a private school for high school students, I think this would be great because that's the place where you're now going into the world.
You need to learn this.
You can understand those conversations.
You've also started to experience certain things due to your race, due to your sex.
And so you can start to apply those situations and say, this is what happened, and then have someone facilitate.
Jesus Christ.
All right.
So you're saying that we should turn around and have everyone hyper-aware of each other's race.
It shouldn't just be something we just overlook because it's not relevant.
It is in fact supremely relevant.
And all we should talk about are people's races before we do anything with that person.
I mean, doesn't that strike anyone else as being prejudiced?
Isn't prejudice bad, even if we're doing it for benevolent reasons?
I mean, prejudice is forming a judgment or opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case.
In this case, the person you're looking at and saying, well, he's black or he's Latino or he's white.
Therefore, I must think this before I've even heard him speak.
Yeah, but a third grader, fourth grader, fifth grader, I don't think they're going to truly learn.
And then whatever happens there, they're just going to go home and they're going to get whatever bullshit their parents are saying, and that's just going to take over whatever they learned.
You know, it's weird.
I don't assume that most kids' parents are racist.
I actually assume the opposite.
I actually think most kids' parents probably aren't racist, but maybe that's because I'm projecting my own inner thoughts and feelings onto them.
I actually disagree.
I prefer.
I actually think that it's good to stimulate these conversations before their views of race have hardened and become dogmatic by experience.
You worry that their views of race will become dogmatic by experience.
You think that exposure to black people or Asian people will make these kids dogmatic racists, do you?
Because that's really weird, and I think it says a lot more about you than it does anyone else.
And specifically, the school, I read the New York Magazine article by Lisa Miller, which was fascinating, which is a more in-depth look at it.
But the school specifically said that at eight-year-olds, and that's I think starting with third grade, they don't have kind of a vague sense of racial identity.
So you're right, they are just forming those.
So you guys want to get onto the ground floor.
You want to get into those kids' minds and really form that sense of racial identity because there's nothing like a good bit of identity politics to really smooth things out.
It's all plain sailing from there.
And the idea is to really push them to have uncomfortable conversations that.
Holy shit.
Why?
Why do you want these kids to have uncomfortable conversations?
They'll be like, yes, yes, yes, I understand that that kid has got different color skins to me.
Yes, I'm not going to be mean to him because of his skin.
No, we're fine.
We're going to go play tag.
I might tag him, but that's not because I'm racist.
It's because I'm the one who has to tag the other kid.
Interestingly enough, in progressive liberal schools, because of colorblindness and political correctness, they're not having really progressivism and liberalism and political correctness are now the problem.
Well, what a surprise.
We've really come full horseshoe, haven't we?
Everyone is dancing around the issue.
I really feel like we have to take off our rose-colored glasses about race in this country and look at the full complicated prism of colors and situations that make up the racial landscape here and then take in like the harsh reality of what's happening.
And that's the only way we have a brighter future.
Sorry, Miss Whitey McWhiterson.
I don't know whether I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but are you some kind of white nationalist who's arguing for racial segregation?
Because it really sounds like you are.
Yeah, I think it's important to definitely reach children when their ideology is malleable.
I told you we'd get back to ideology.
And here we are.
Here we are with young Turks who are convinced that people's ideology becomes exceptionally rigid as they grow older.
They don't change their mind ever.
They don't think, and they certainly don't project onto other people.
And when you get older, I think that with mass media and the stereotypes constantly being thrown at you, you're more likely to believe in certain things that are difficult to change.
But I mean, I think about my own experiences, right?
And this is this is, I know I was really young, but this is an embarrassing story to share.
But I think it actually kind of gives you an example of why I think this is a good idea.
The first time I ever thought about race was when I was in kindergarten.
And that was the first time I had ever met a black girl, right?
So I grew up in an Armenian household.
My community is predominantly Latino.
And I just had never seen a black girl or black person before.
And I remember in kindergarten, you know, just kind of like staring at her and wondering, like, what's going on?
My parents had never said anything about black people.
And so I like started talking to her and I hurt her feelings because I asked her about her hair.
Yeah, and now we have a prime example of how offense is never given, it is taken.
You weren't trying to hurt her feelings.
Her feelings were hurt.
You are not in the wrong as a child for seeing something that is different to yourself and being curious about it.
That's nothing to be ashamed of.
That's nothing to be embarrassed about.
And that girl undoubtedly went on in her life to have other people curious about her hair and that they were different.
And maybe she was curious about other people's hair being different to her own.
Maybe it was a character-forming event for that girl.
And so I noticed these differences.
I'm literally a five-year-old kid.
I'm trying to understand, like, why are we different?
What's what's going on?
Is this normal?
You know, so those conversations need to be had at a young age so kids know what to expect.
Kids know what the differences are.
Kids understand that, hey, just because we might be different in the way we look, doesn't mean that we're different as people.
So, if we're different in the way we look, but we're not different as people, why are we segregating children into racial groups?
What is the point of doing that if there is no actual difference here?
And that's what we want to emphasize, and I'm sure that is exactly correct, and that is what we want to emphasize.
Why are you in favor of segregation?
And so, I like the fact that they're trying to do this.
I just wish that the media's coverage was a little more detailed about it, because I don't like the headlines that focus solely on the segregation component of it.
That is the core of it.
Yeah.
No, I see, and I'm totally with you because I remember those experiences as a young black guy growing up in Texas in an all-white school and having those same experiences and issues.
Okay, and wouldn't it just have been better for people to have treated you like an individual, like they would want other people to treat them?
Well, what if we're going to then, because I agree with this happening, it's just that age group.
But see, what happens then is I know the parents now, even with my kids.
And my children and their friends can learn something in school.
And if the parents have a different ideology than what they're learning, they go home and they absorb and they take in what their parents are saying.
It happens to all of us.
So, say, for instance, you went home and you would have said, Hey, there is a, I've never seen this black girl.
And if your parents would have had any type of racism in them, they might have said something to you that would have taken away whatever love and support or whatever you've gotten from the teacher or whatever conversation.
So, if we're gonna do it at this age, I think that it should be mandatory that the parents should be there as well.
Jesus, how much power do you think you should have?
So, that way the parents can learn and that way everyone's being supported, everyone's on the same page.
Oh, for fuck's sake, this is as stupid as teaching men not to rape.
Adults know that racism is a bad thing, and if they don't think racism is a bad thing, you're not going to change their mind in a parent-teacher conference.
Because I just get nervous of if dad's racist, you know, by some degree, and you come home and you're like, We have this conversation, and he says, Oh, Latinos are stupid, or Asians are this, or blacks are that, and then all of a sudden you're like, Well, I guess dad is right.
Maybe that could happen, and maybe it could also happen that you may get some people using this power of the state against their parents.
In fact, this was the sort of scenario that was warned about in 1984.
You don't have the power, nor should you have the power, to override what parents say and do with their children.
I know you might think, yeah, but that means a racist might persuade their child to be racist, and yes, that might well be the case.
But the alternative is to open the door to such potential abuses of power that it is not a viable alternative.
Yeah, well, and this is kind of a control group.
This school is very progressive, private school.
And in fact, the real critics are people who are so liberal that they have a problem with the segregation aspects.
Because if there's one thing progressives aren't, it's liberal.
They are insanely conservative when it comes to things like dress, when it comes to things like freedom of action, and most importantly, freedom of thought.
You are not liberal in any way.
And you're telling us now that you have a problem with liberals.
So, at least we're all on the same page.
So, I mean, I can see how if you took this model and broadened it and put it in a public school with a much different dynamic, then you could certainly run into those problems.
But some of the quotes from Lisa's article that stood out to me is, she said, researchers suggest that a lot of authentic conversations about race have been inhibited by liberal values for decades.
Authentic conversations about race.
Do you think that there weren't authentic conversations about race going on during the era of segregation and previously of slavery?
I mean, they were very authentic conversations.
They weren't good conversations.
And in my opinion, it was right to inhibit these conversations.
But here you all are arguing for discrimination based on race.
Like a bunch of fucking crazy people arguing against liberalism because it doesn't allow you to do your little segregation experiments with children.
Well, I tell you what, I agree with liberalism in this case.
I don't think that you should be allowed to perform your little experiments and segregation with kids.
And that the cumulative result is that unspoken constraints, we have these unspoken constraints create a nation of fellow citizens who are foreigners to each other.
We do not speak to each other about our real authentic experiences.
Really?
Why don't you just call them xenophobes?
And we become mute xenophobes.
Called it.
whose hearts rush to their throats when a racially charged comment or conflict or even curiosity arises and the idea being if we put Look, I know where this is going.
I don't feel any guilt about slavery.
I had nothing to do with it.
And my nation was key in ending it.
And even just the fact that white people don't even recognize their own privilege?
Whiteness and their own white privilege.
I can read you halfwits like a fucking book.
Yeah.
And our race is invisible because we are.
No, it's just that we try to make race less relevant by putting less emphasis on it, genius.
We're the mainstream.
I did love when she said that, that white people have a stake in the conversation.
That was really great.
I was like, about time.
Right, because we need to understand what otherness feels like.
And there we have it.
That is exactly it.
We need to feel what otherness feels like.
It's not that people who feel otherness need to stop feeling what otherness feels like.
It's not that we need to remove or reduce the amount that they feel ostracized or excluded because we are treating them differently based on their fucking race.
No, everyone has to be the victim of racial discrimination.
That's the problem.
For fuck's sake, I hate these people.
Rather than drag everyone down to the level of those who are having the worst time in society, why don't we say to the people who are having the worst time in society, hey, let's make your lot better.
And I remember taking anthropology classes in college and finally that switch flipped where I was like, oh, my life is a construct just like anybody else's, but I see it because I don't see it because my world is, you know, I'm blind to it.
Are you telling us you're privileged?
So I think there's, I need, listen, anytime anyone's trying something creative, progressive, different in the conversation around race, I applaud it.
I guess this is probably what I hate most about progressivism.
We have here a black man applauding segregation.
He's like, yeah, of course.
I mean, this is just so damn progressive.
It could fall on its face, and for sure it's already super controversial.
Like this, you know, she talks about some of these PTA meetings where parents are just, there were some really interesting conversations around parents who are Jewish and but they don't feel like they're white.
And then there were, you know, black parents that were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you are white.
Don't get it twisted.
And you know what I mean?
Like those conversations are hard and uncomfortable and need to happen.
Oh yeah, they totally need to happen.
That's so productive.
A room full of people pointing fingers at each other, accusing each other of being white, or black, or Jewish, or whatever.
That is so fucking progressive.
It's not in any way insanely judgmental based on characteristics that those people have no control over.
It isn't a fundamental denial of the agency of the individual or anything like that.
So I'm excited that it is.
That plays into what I was just saying here.
of now you have these parents who have a different ideology and now you are teaching these kids.
But if the parents are on the same accord, it doesn't go anywhere.
Never underestimate the power of education, though, because there are certain, look, there are certain values that I grew up with that I rejected because of education.
Like, I'm an atheist because of my education.
I was, you know, told over and over again, like, you need to marry an Armenian guy, this and that.
I rejected that as well, because of my experiences.
So, I think experiences also play a huge role.
And remember, never underestimate how rebellious kids can be.
Yep, yep, yep.
Lots of agreeing.
There's definitely no kind of echo chamber mentality at the young Turks.
Finally, let's have a look at things that don't even really exist and how they are racist as well.
We've talked before about how games have had more than a few issues with racial inequality.
Note, racial inequality is not racism.
85% of the playable characters in games are white, according to the virtual census.
And when people of colour do appear, they're often relegated to what you call a non-player character.
If God is love, then you can call me Cupid.
Yeah, but often, maybe, sometimes, all of these weasel words only undermine your argument.
Because NPCs lack any agency and generally hold little power.
Alright, Slick, let's stop there.
I mean, your weasel words generally aren't helping your argument.
But I guess I'm more concerned with the lack of glass in your stupid hipster glasses.
Fucking why?
I ask this because when you say, generally, NPCs hold no power in a video game, I think, well, that's funny, because every boss is an NPC.
And then I pause and think, hang on, why is this moron debating power dynamics with fictional characters?
Why would it matter?
Things can get problematic pretty quickly.
For you?
In a medium where the entire world is subservient to the player's will.
Are you even thinking about what you're saying?
The entire world in a video game is not, quote, subservient to the player's will.
Most of the world is actively resistant to what the player is doing, and the player has to use the game mechanics to overcome it.
If there wasn't this resistance, the game wouldn't be fun to play.
Games can be racially unequal in ways that other mediums just can't.
Alright, Penfold, go on.
Tell us how racist games are.
Movies might have to worry about the power dynamic in narrative, but games have to be concerned with the power imbalance in both narrative and mechanics.
No, they don't.
That's stupid.
Seriously, though, am I the only one who's seeing this?
Or is it simply that I'm just the only person who's old enough to remember Penfold?
Particularly when it comes to white player characters facing off against NPCs of code.
No, it's not that stupid.
Have you noticed yet that I don't need to even refute what you're saying?
You're just asserting something to be true.
You're not providing any facts or evidence.
You're making wild generalizations, so I can just say, no, that's not true.
And I can point to plenty of examples where that's not true to reinforce what I've said.
But I don't even need to, because you're not providing any evidence of what you're saying is true in the first place.
You are just making really specious arguments that sound kind of convincing maybe if you don't really think about it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is sophistry.
And that means game designers need to think about everything from the skin colour of the enemies on the other end of the barrel to using stereotypes as a crutch for character design.
The only reason they would need to think about these things is if they don't want to write a lazy or badly written game.
That's it.
It's not any kind of prerequisite, other than to avoid being racist to progressives.
But as we've seen, progressives quite like things to be racist because it gives them something to complain about.
And it means that they can view the world easily.
They can look at someone and say, oh, hey, he's black, therefore I can judge him for being black.
He's white, therefore I can judge him for being white.
That's how they do things, because, frankly, I think they might all be idiots.
Let's start with enemy design and how people of colour are often framed as the villain.
How often?
In what games?
In what?
Where's your data?
Are you going to point to one or two games and tell me that is a fucking trend?
Because I will point to three or four games and say it's not a trend, and then you'll have to point to five or six games to claim it's the trend, and we will continue because there are thousands of motherfucking games, an incredibly large number of which don't even involve human beings at all.
Resident Evil 5 takes home the gold of racist creations of NPCs by far, with 95% of the gameplay consisting of a white protagonist killing off hordes of nameless zombie-diseased Africans.
Right, I don't think that you understand what racism is.
Racism is deliberate, willful prejudice.
It is discrimination or prejudgments based on the person's race, skin colour, etc.
You can't accidentally be racist because you set your game in Africa.
If one sets a game in Africa, then the majority of the NPCs are bound to be black.
For fuck's sake.
What you are saying here is that anyone white who kills someone who is black is in the wrong.
Because you can cherry-pick this example and say, well, see, this is a white person killing black people.
That's racist.
They actually throw spears.
I'm not making this up.
And I'm not making it up when I say that there are actually black people in Africa who still use spears.
Probably because of cultural reasons.
Then there are all the war games, like Battlefield and Medal of Honor, that differentiates the player from enemy targets by using skin colour and culture, most recently Arab or Muslim cultures, the same way that the NFL uses different coloured jerseys.
Sorry, what do you think they should do?
Do you think that they should perhaps have everyone dressed like an American soldier?
Do you think that they should be complaining to the Americans to invade maybe white European nations?
Because, you know, it's just kind of racist if they don't.
They can't make a computer game that isn't transgressive to the progressives.
Again, what you are saying is you can't make a game that has a white person shooting Muslims because that would be racist.
Even the Legend of Zelda, for all of its childhood innocence, isn't above fall.
Oh, I know where this is going.
I know where this is going.
You're about to tell me that a made-up fictional race is being discriminated against.
And that is racism.
And that's unacceptable.
And that makes Zelda a racist game.
Ganondorf's Gerudo racial group might be made up, but they're an entire class of people defined by three characteristics.
Oh shit.
Okay.
Okay, yeah, no, the game is being racist to a fictional race that it has made up.
It's actively showing prejudice and discriminating against them based on the way it fictionalized them in the game.
Living in a desert, having darker skin, and being thieves.
All the heroes are white, of course.
Isn't Link an elf?
He's got pointy fucking ears.
Look, I'm not saying that people of color always have to be the good guy.
Yes, you are.
You absolutely are.
You have made it so that there is no way anyone can make a white character who travels abroad in the world and has conflicts with people who are not white without making that inherently racist.
There is nothing.
You are cherry picking individual examples and saying, well, see, this is a white guy shooting black people.
That's racist.
And so now if anyone else makes something that even vaguely resembles it, they are racist too.
I can't believe you're so stupid as to not see that.
But given the massive inequality in the racial makeup of playable characters, one would presume that they are being made by predominantly white people for predominantly white people.
That's not racist.
That's market demographics.
And given Adrian Shaw's wonderful research, we know that players aren't really that bothered.
This power dynamic of white guys squaring off against people of color just can't be ignored.
By you because you are a racist.
Racist NPCs don't just come in the form of enemy hordes though.
Take a listen to Letitia the trash lady in Deus Ex Human Revolution.
If it ain't the captain here silly this isn't Mark Twain.
This is just over three years ago.
Do all of the black characters in that game sound that way?
If they do, maybe you've got a point.
If they don't...
Leticia points to an even bigger problem than racially divided enemy hordes.
Because as the white protagonist designated street informant, which is a half step up from using the term urban spy, Letitia exists in the world of Deus Ex solely to grant access to a part of Detroit that's outside of the main character's race and class.
As here, there might be a gun seller or two around town.
She's an example of a person of color who not only suffers from a stereotypical and offensive representation, but also finds themselves in the lesser role of an NPC because they're racially distinct from the white protagonist.
You are fucking insane.
Let's go through that again, slowly, bit by bit.
Letitia exists in the world of Deus Ex solely to grant access to a part of Detroit that's outside of the main character's race and class.
This is in no way unusual.
Most NPCs serve as a thing to help the player progress from one stage to the next, usually with quests or goals or objectives that have to be met.
This is not unique to this character.
The fact that she's black and he is going to an area that he wouldn't be allowed into is again no different.
It could be a police officer saying, I can get you in the police station.
As here, there might be a gun seller or two around town.
She's an example of a person of color who not only suffers...
No, she doesn't suffer.
She's not real.
She doesn't suffer from anything, you fruitcake.
From a stereotypical and offensive representation.
Is it stereotypical, though?
Is this a common stereotype in the modern era?
Nobody sounds like this.
You were comparing it to Mark fucking Twain.
If she had come out with gangster talk or something like that, then I'd be like, yeah, that is kind of stereotypical.
But that's not.
She's actually really unique and unusual in the setting.
But also finds themselves in the lesser role of an NPC because they're racially distinct from the white protagonist.
No, she's in the role of an NPC because she isn't the protagonist.
White or not, black or not, she is a fucking NPC.
But there is hope.
Games have gotten a lot better overall.
In the 2013 Assassin's Creed DLC Freedom Cry, a black protagonist is the driving force in a story focusing on the slave trade.
Okay, that does actually sound interesting, but this is again the problem.
If you're just going to cherry-pick a single example and say, hey, this is an example of things getting better, then we don't need to do anything else.
You've got your example.
Now, every game until the end of time could have white protagonists.
And we'll say, you've got your black protagonist right there.
It's still DLC, but hey, we're getting there.
You're getting where?
To a time when there are no white protagonists, where every protagonist is black?
Yet even Freedom Cry inadvertently uses racist mechanics.
I doubt it.
I can't even imagine what a racist mechanic might be.
Dehumanizing the slave NPCs by essentially rendering the ones you liberate a nameless resource for experience point.
I'm not even going to refute that.
That's just the dumbest motherfucking thing I have ever heard.
I... I...
Are you fucking serious?
Are you s- You know, I think you probably are serious.
You fucking retard.
So there's progress, but it's tricky, as all progress is.
That's because progressives are never happy because there is nothing that can actually satisfy them.
Because if you think you've satisfied them, what they will do is cherry-pick a single example and declare the whole thing, quote, problematic.
Especially when conventional mechanics often get in the way of a humanizing narrative.
Why the fuck should it have a humanizing narrative?
What possible requirement is there in saying, oh, I don't know, worms, for there to be a humanizing narrative?
You're blowing each other up because it's a fucking game.
But there are still persistent and more indirect issues we need to address.
No, we don't.
You want to address them because you are some sort of freakish cultist.
You are obsessed with identity politics and you literally cannot remove that from anything that you do.
But the thing that pisses me off the most about this is that you people are never fucking happy.
Like the shift from offensive stereotypes to tokenism.
As if on cue.
In movies and television, you'll recognize tokenism as the black best friend problem.
A white protagonist has a black friend who show them the ways of the world in quirky, ethnic ways.
It's an important observation and possibly more relevant to gaming than movies.
Even when games do include characters of color, tokenism tends to rear its ugly head.
Listen, you fucking idiots.
What you are doing here is laying a groundwork so unbelievably complex that the only sensible answer is to include no black people at all.
Bioshock Infinite, while appealing to the social injustice narrative, ostensibly renders racial inequality a gritty conflict for the gritty white protagonist to solve with quantum physics.
And are NPCs always going to be fully fleshed out characters?
Of course not.
But that's not going to stop you from complaining as if they should be.
But they also don't need to be written as cheap stereotypes because that's just lazy.
Things like Mass Effect and the New Dragon Age include darker skin tones while ignoring them as any indication of race.
An odd oversight in the context of their exceedingly racially divided universes.
Ah, I see.
These are games that are colorblind, and you're not happy about that because they're colorblind, and they're treating black people like everyone else.
I don't think it's too much to ask to have racially diverse characters whose skin tone is more than just a cosmetic adjustment to make a game appear diverse.
Of course, it's too much to ask.
You don't even know what you're fucking asking for.
You're asking for things that would have developers running from pillar to post and never, ever getting things right.
It's like you're trying to fucking gaslight them or something.
And ultimately, this is the problem.
The appearance of diversity is all that's important to you people.
You know, the actual fact of the diversity of opinion, of intellectual discourse, of any kind of thing that would actually matter, anything concrete that really counts towards a person's character, you don't give a fuck about.
It may seem like I'm splitting hairs here, but these types of considerations are exactly the kinds of changes that need to happen for true equality in games.
Then we don't have true equality in games.
I'm completely comfortable with it.
You have made true equality in games such an unreachable prospect.
On the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that desegregated schools here in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder delivered an important speech on the changing nature of race and inequality.
He acknowledged that we've made progress, but we're moving from the realm of law to culture, from bias to sincere neutrality, from direct racial effects to indirect racial effects, from commission to omission.
Essentially, things are changing for the better.
We've moved away from not even having characters of colour in media to something slightly less racist.
But with enemy hordes, stereotypical character design, and tokenism, clearly we still have a long way to go in video game.
Don't worry, in American schools, we're heading straight back to segregation.
So what do you think?
Do games represent race in NPCs in a problematic way?
No, not really.
I think, at the worst, it's lazy writing.
I don't think it's inherently racist, because that would imply that the writers are deliberately trying to write bad characters who are black.
And I don't think anyone ever tries to write a bad character.
I'm getting really, really tired of this hipster racism, this just overwhelming focus on race.
We can't talk about anything else.
We can't do anything else.
We have to talk about someone's fucking race.
The least relevant thing about that person.
If your identity is your race, then I feel sorry for you.
I really do.
I think that is a fucking crying shame.
You must be a person of so few life experiences, skills, and joys as to only have the fucking way you were born that is just sad.
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