Finding racism in GTA

I was pointed in the direction of GamePolitics this morning, they had a piece about a blogger who noticed quite a bit of racism in Grand Theft Auto franchise. The writer, a schoolteacher in a NEw York City, seems only to be half clued in on the topic about which he writes.

[toughNAME]

Naughty Dog bought Rockstar

[Lifendz]

We can't just call something racist because we don't like the picture it portrays. In fact, this game is basically a satirical portrayal of life in NYC. Calling this racist is like calling Mass Effect porn.

It all comes down to the older generation not understanding games. They don't even play them. They just politicize an issue people know little to nothing about to gain publicity.

Now pardon me as I go escape from the police in GTA and utilize the Hot Coffee code ;).

[xbox360elitegamer]

it depends on how you at the series of games, but personally i don't think GTA is racist..

[Lifendz]

It's not like you can join the clan and go harass innocent people. It's not like you go around only targeting one group of people (at least not what the missions direct you to do). Granted, if you wanted to just shoot every white/black/whatever person you could but you could also kill all the women and men. How about the young and the old. It's just a game and no more.

In fact, I've never heard of anyone just killing one specific type of person in GTA. The only people I regularly killed were the hookers and that was to get my money back. Truth be told I always felt bad afterwards :(.

Bottom line, you could call it racist, sexist, misogynistic, or whatever but that's really just a lame way to label it.

[-EvoAnubis-]

You can find racism anywhere, if you're looking hard enough. As usual, this is meaningless.

[TheExecutive]

lol i love this argument. Just because you dont portray a race positively doesnt mean its racist. AKA the negation of good doesnt mean the presence of evil and so on and so forth. I dont really remember any blatantly racist remarks or actions, but hey I cant remember and to tell you the truth I would expect it. Most people in GTA are low-brow thugs, what they he!! do you expect? Conversation about metaphysics and epistemology? Give me a break.

Just because the main character is black (san andreas) white (GTA3 & Vice City) or Russian (GTAIV) doesnt mean that it shows racism. As we can see, R* loves to be diverse in their "racism".

[name]

No one in GTA has ever been potrayed good.

[calis]

People have way to much time in this world and you know why the world cannot move on, because people still look for reasons to ***** about racism, like this.

Truly pathetic.

[name]

Please don't do that "*****" about racism crap. People bringing up racism isnt *****ing. People bringing it up in cases like these, is incredibly annoying. I just noticed that alot of ppl don't even want it brought up in ANY senario. That gets kind of annoying. Especially since the ones who call it *****ing are the ones who don't have to deal with it.

[calis]

Yes it is *****ing. Society doesn't progress past racism because people still think innane things like a video game are racist. (notice no one called San Andreas racist when CJ killed white people).

[xandmar]

That was a pretty ignorant statement. Society doesn't get past racism becoz there are still people out there who are raising their children with it. Coming from a minority, racism still exists.

That said, I do not get the racist vibe from GTA. I mean you're stealing cars, killing cops, etc... So looking for this game to be politically correct would be, for lack of a better word, dumb. I can't think of a single race that is portrayed as innocent. And I think that's the point in this game. They're all criminals.

But what you said makes it sound as if ALL claims of racism are inane.

[OldGamer]

And you can find racism in just about anything.

Your perception dictates your reality.

[meepmoopmeep]

man, wait until more info on Rez5 emerges and its release date. people pull out the stupid "race" card whenever they can. if you look at the world as racist that means you yourself are racist for viewing the world the way you do.

[vloeistof]

no gta is not bad its cool.

i like gta it brings people together ( at least it brings gamers together with its online multi)

[calis]

I wouldn't call GTA cool.

[Salvadore]

It's people like him who points at a white picture and yells "Racist".

[RecSpec]

It tackles many stereotypes, which means it's racist to everything, therefore, it's racist to nothing.

[sumfood4u]

They got Ballz picking fight on games as Racist! These Fruitbasket ideas are about as Racist is totally Bananas like being Racist over seedless an seeded Grapes!

[Official General]

I'm a black man, and I actually did notice that point you made about CJ in GTA: San Andreas in an earlier post dicussion. A few days ago a an article was posted about games like Unchartered and Resident Evil 5 being racist. If you were on that forum you should have seen the post I put up about CJ in San Andreas. I actually stated that San Andreas could be seen as racist if the player decided to control CJ the black male main character to kill only whites and mexicans. My point was that some games can be considered racist if the player decides to see it and play it that way, so it's pointless saying games are racist as anybody can create a racist perception of most things out of nothing, including games.

[calis]

I completely agree with you.

[Bazookajoe_83]

It was only an attempt to show how ridiculous this article´s are, i hope no one ells took offense. In that case im sorry..

[blade206]

ok here we go again gta sa paints a picture of what the u.s thinks of blacks and if you don't think the u.s.a thinks that way of blacks ask some people that have been thru it i love gta like everyone else but if all you think of blacks are thugs then the u.s needs help

[heyheyhey]

@title

believe me- it isn't hard

[Official General]

I'm a black man myself, and I dont believe Rockstar created GTA SA seeking to paint a bad picture of blacks in the USA as it's main objective. What about the Italian-Americans, Cubans and Latinos? They could have easily made a massive rant about the way they were portrayed in Vice City and GTA III, (some maybe did) but at the end of the day those GTA games were just simply portraying real-life criminal organizations that exist in the United States. The fact is in the US you have the Italian-American Mafia (La Cosa Nostra), Cuban drug syndicates, Colombian drug cartels, and Mexican street gangs that all exist for real. GTA just depicts these real-life aspects of organized crime within it's games, clearly based on these organizations. So whats the difference with blacks? Yeah I know blacks have bad for a long time and have always been portrayed in a negative light in America since the first African came of a slave ship in 1619, but the fact remains in real-life, you do get many notorious African-American street gangs that terrorize many US urban black ghettos, eg. Bloods and Crips in Los Angeles. And GTA SA was clearly based on that real-life aspect of US black/LA ghetto criminality, which is of course street-gang/color set culture. The GTA SA game was not just painting a bad picture for blacks - it was merely painting and imitating real-life gang culture within black ghettos in the US, specifically Los Angeles.

[Official Admiral]

For some reason I agree with you even though obviously I should not. I mean seriously.

[Official General]

Damn are you for real? LOL thats crazy man! Yeah I'm really feelin your avatar though! I like da name too! At least we can have A Blood AND a Crip's opinion on here! Look man we really brothas man, no need to kill each other over colors! lol. I mean just listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

One Nation my brotha! LOL. Thanks for agreeing with me by the way.

[AngryTypingGuy]

If you read the end of his blog, he goes on to say that it isn't racist, but still - why do we give attention to articles like this? It only empowers them. Just let them be.

[MikeTheCapo]

Im really sick of the media and the world attacking video games for everything theres other things in the world that are worse such as Hilary Clinton , Iraq , Osama bin laden , the news , Gays trying to get married, illegal aliens etc...