Black Lives Matter Supersedes Your Game Escape

By: Bryce L. Jackson

I’m Black. And I’m tired.

I’m tired of seeing Black men and women being killed by those in authority and pseudo-authoritative roles with either little or no justice.

But what I’m really tired of are these gamers that refuse to not only get the purpose of the nationwide movement and global protests but wish that they would be left to just escape into a videogame.

Every time a topic seen as “political” seeps into the gaming world, there are these pockets of cretins that consistently pop up to admonish the journalist or YouTuber that dared to bring it to their attention. It could be as simple as having a black main character, or a female main character, or as complex as having said character explore either their identity or sexuality. To them, videogames are this safe space where politics is completely off-limits when in reality and practice, it’s anything but. Throw a dart at any videogame that involves guns and there can be a political message found if they look deep enough, but they choose not to. These gamers also tend to be the same ones that become enraged if a female character’s anatomy isn’t to their liking or they deem isn’t attractive enough to be the main character. (Tifa in FFVII REMAKE, Tomb Raider series reboot, Adult Ellie in The Last of Us: Part II, need I go on?)

As the list of famous streamers and YouTube channels with the likes of Ninja and Dr. Lupo began to stack up in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, this contingent of stubborn “no politics” peanut gallery gamers grew louder for me. Their constant whining for politics-free gaming in the mentions becoming a nuisance. What personally set me off into writing this was 2 interactions, one involving a black writer for large publication and one from a YouTuber.

Kotaku writer and fellow Overwatch League diehard fan Ash Parrish wrote an article getting out her thoughts on everything, the struggle she has had simply operating as a black woman in this hell of a week, and her attempts to cope with how she can though gaming. As usual, a Kotaku comment section is sprinkled in with “stick to gaming Kotaku”, “ugh, politics” and other comments of their ilk. It shows the lack of empathy that some gamers have that completely overlooks another person’s emotions for a cheap, insensitive “lul” and an eye roll. The second incident was YouTuber Ellen Rose from Outside Xtra in the UK. She was venting on Twitter about having to deal with similar comments managing community comments. This finally set me off and lead me to write this:

These anonymous fake edgelord gamers are Cowards. They want to sit at home, face in front of a screen being awful humans with no repercussions while black and brown people continue to get abused and killed by a system that doesn’t care about them or their families who they’ve hurt. They lack empathy to try and understand that these things are happening. Whenever it seeps into gaming, they turn up their noses and attempt to continue ignoring the problems of the world. These gamers that incessantly complain about leaving videogames as a place to escape from the real world also tend to be the same ones who get on some multiplayer service and drop racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic slurs ad nauseam. Black gamers like myself wishing to get that same escape are suddenly jolted back to the issues that we have to deal with daily. Then we have to make a choice: Leave it alone and mute the player(s) or address it and risk ruining not only your experience for that match but for the whole night.

My final message thought is this: If you choose to opt into the wrong side of history, that’s your prerogative. But since you’re opting into silencing the plight of minority groups, you’d have no problem actually shutting up and leaving those that are fighting for progress alone. After all, if you haven’t noticed. your opinion is in the minority now.

Or you can listen and learn. You can choose to be mature. You can see the seriousness of all the information and the lengths that the industry and society as a whole are taking to bring these injustices to light and eradicate them.