Ignorant's view on racism made me laugh

At first I thought it was some kinda jokes, but it's still going on even now so I decided to write about it.

If you haven't heard of it already, lots of ignorant people accused Bio Hazard 5 (Resident Evil 5) of racism. And expert (Anthropologist) and actors had to come out and explained as well as denied the accusation. It was just too stupid (I mean the accusation) I didn't even have to read or watch what the defending groups had to say.

The definition of the term Racism as found on Cambridge Dictionaries Online ,

racism noun [U]
the belief that people's qualities are influenced by their race and that the members of other races are not as good as the members of your own, or the resulting unfair treatment of members of other races.

Of course that is the traditional meaning of the term. But in my opinion, I also think that stereotyping the actions, behaviors or cultural references of some particular groups of a race and then implying those as a trademark for the whole race is also racism. For example, if you decided to create a hero who is black in a game like Fallout 3 and the only items which could replenish his health are chicken and watermelon (referencing Dave Chapelle's Killing them Softly show), while if the character you created is from other race then he/she can regain health by using any other food items. I'd not hesitate to say it's a freaking racist game.

If we take a look at Bio Hazard. You know what I felt when I first heard the announcement of episode 5 which will take place in Africa? My thought was "Damn! Wesker has gone too far this time!". I would have had similar reaction if the plot in this new episode will happen in Mainland China instead of Africa, because I would think about the number of population, the ratio between population and land space in those countries which will help spreading the infection like wildfire, it's really scary when you think about it. But not a single second I thought about it as racism, since the (mostly) black population here in this story are 'victims' of the antagonist's scheme.

You can sit there like a fatass who doesn't have a life and nitpicking every little details you could use to link this game with racism, but in my opinion if Bio Hazard (as well as it's creators) has some messages for us, I think it's closer to 'anti-globalization' (well, in a way)... and I suspect that people who brought up the issue didn't even played or learned from all the games in the series as well as the latest film "Degeneration" that Wesker, and the remnants of Umbrella Corporation had caused so much damages in another part of the world already and Africa is just their next target, that's it.

I myself had encountered some racist comments toward me before (well, me yellow :D ), I know racism is not something we should take our eyes or ears away from, but we have to look into the context to see the real intentions behind some comments or ideas which may sound like racism before we make any judgment. Only ignorant and stupid people would take every comment about color or race as racism.

Let's say if we have a game or movie which it's story is about a white cop tracing down an Asian shadow society in an Asian country (like one of my favorite movie Black Rain), would people stand up and say the movie is racist? Although some particular characters might have racism point of view, but the part where the main character needs to fight and kill Asian antagonists is definitely not racist, it wouldn't make sense if he marches down the streets of Tokyo (or Beijing) and fight black or Italian mafia, right? Same logic applies here in the African setting of Bio Hazard 5, the virus spreads in Africa so what's the problem with black zombies? Or would you prefer yellow or red zombies? It's time for people to look at the whole context rather than superficial qualities (colors, words, names) before jumping to conclusion whether something is racist or not.

Someone once told me that anyone who gets worked up just by superficial terms like colors, he is indeed racist himself and therefor he will try to prove (or more like pretend) he's not racist by attacking the person who stated the comment about colors. I did agree because for me, racism isn't about colors themselves, it's more about what was said about people who inherit those colors.


sources:
- Joystiq
- VideoGamer
- Associated Press