In da hood

TN readers will no doubt be aware that 404 games are working on a ‘hip-hop’ MMO. The list of collaborators is starting to read like a who’s who of rap and now includes DJ Pooh a.k.a Mark Jordan “writer” of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

I started to imagine role playing a character like the one that I play GTA:SA, this immediately started to make me wonder about the idea of what one might call “race-bending”.

That is, while I’ve been known to gender-bend in SWG and the like, and it’s common to species-bend in EQ etc., race is so highly politicised that very idea of a middle class, middle age, British, white guy like me role playing a young American black person (especially in an ‘urban’ gang context where race is often foregrounded in media coverage) bristles with problematic issues.

One is language.

Is it OK for me to use common street US vernacular in this context or is that hate speech? What if you actually are a young black American does a developer have the right to restrict your language?

As we recently saw in the The Trader Malaki incident - virtual sexism, even in the service of plot progression, can be construed as indistinguishable from actual sexism – so does the same apply in the virtual hood?

Comments

[Will Humphries]

1.

The developer controls the online world, so they have complete discretion over what words can be said and what cannot. I am certain they won't permit anyone, regardless of their real life attributes, to say anything that might be considered racially insensitive.

The real question is, will the game be insensitive in and of itself? I'm not suggesting it will promote racial stereotypes; something tells me they won't be so foolish as to require a specific skin tone in order to be a certain profession. However, the very idea of making lighthearted entertainment out of the difficult life situation many low socio-economic status Americans find themselves in could be pretty insensitive in and of itself.

[Xilren]

2.

>The developer controls the online world, so they have complete discretion over what words can be said and what cannot. I am certain they won't permit anyone, regardless of their real life attributes, to say anything that might be considered racially insensitive.<

Please tell me you are being sarcastic in the extreme.

You want to take the typical internet gamer and add a hip-hop flavor world and expect anything other than a metric ton of insults, slurs and derrogatatory remarks (especially racial and sexualy based ones), you are fooling yourself.

You do know what hip hop music sounds like right? Insensitivity is practically its middle name.

Xilren

[Nick Yee]

3.

Lisa Nakamura wrote about this in the context of LambdaMOO - "Racial Passing on the Internet" - and very relevant to this discussion. Neil Gotanda also talked about the "pleasure economy" of race at the State of Play 2 panel on Virtual Identity.

Does "racial tourism" merely members of majority groups to perpetuate the exaggerated stereotypes of minority groups?

[Nick Yee]

4.

Woops - missed a word:

Does "racial tourism" merely allow members of majority groups to perpetuate the exaggerated stereotypes of minority groups?

[Jim Purbrick]

5.

Woo-Ha! You know my steez.

Is it OK for me to use common street US vernacular in this context

Werd.

[Flatfingers]

6.

Nick Yee> "Does 'racial tourism' merely allow members of majority groups to perpetuate the exaggerated stereotypes of minority groups?"

It's possible there'd be some of that.

But before we assume that majority groups are nothing but oppressors and exploiters, I suspect there'd probably also be a large representation by a couple of other groups:

* middle-aged, middle-class white guys with unnecessarily guilty consciences [I don't mean you, ren; your description was just too apt not to borrow it]

* young people who perceive hip-hop culture as more tolerant of behavior their parents wouldn't allow (cursing, race- or sex-based violence, theft, property destruction)

Assuming this game ever gets made, it would be fascinating to see the self-descriptions of its actual players....

--Flatfingers

[CmdrSlack]

7.

It seems to me that people will justify racially abusive language as "roleplay." Certainly, they'll point to SOME hip hop to illustrate this idea. There is other hip hop that ISN'T like the stereotype, but that's another discussion for elsewhere.

I think the important question is whether game companies have a duty to prevent racial stereotypes from being perpetuated. Clearly, they don't have to restrict their speech (or that of their players) in this regard, at least not in the U.S.

But will this kind of game fly in places like Germany where there are laws against hate speech, etc.? Signs point to no, IMO.

As far as racial tourism is concerned, there's not much difference between it and gender tourism, IMO. If racial tourism allows players to perpetuate stereotypes, then so would gender tourism. In a sense, isn't most roleplay/acting based partially on mimicking the boilerplate/stereotypical aspects of the person/gender/race you are playing?

If you just have a racially or sexually different toon, but behave just like you would normally, are you really playing a role? No.

I don't think something like this rises to the level of "digital black-face."

[Dee Lacey]

8.

The first thing I thought after reading Lisa Nakamura's essay was that her "do you really think any natives were fooled?" was odd phrasing, and didn't have as obvious an answer as the rhetorical question would imply (we know historically there were cases of "passing" that were successful, so why not?)

The second thing I thought was, maybe I should ask my Asian supergroup leader if my half Chinese scrapper is offensive in her appearance or background... she is far from being a Geisha but she's a bit stereotyped being Asian and a martial artist, not to mention her goofy grin could be construed as stereotypical, though it didn't occur to me till now.

[Raph]

9.

I have trouble seeing the apparently much-desired "GTA Online." How is it not everything griefy, all the time, and glorified to boot?

[Will Humphries]

10.

> You want to take the typical internet gamer and add a hip-hop flavor world and expect anything other than a metric ton of insults, slurs and derrogatatory remarks (especially racial and sexualy based ones), you are fooling yourself.

I should have clarified what I meant when I said that 404 Games would not allow profanity/slurs. I mean that any user who gets caught doing it will be punished (warned, banned, etc.). That's not to say users won't do it anyway amongst trusted friends, or just do it in public and not get reported. I guess I should have said they the developer has discretion over what words 'should' be said and what 'should' not.

[Dave Rickey]

11.

Will >> I should have clarified what I meant when I said that 404 Games would not allow profanity/slurs. I mean that any user who gets caught doing it will be punished (warned, banned, etc.).

Ni--ah, puh-leaze.

Somebody had to say it, and once upon a time I could say it in person and not be risking my life (and even so, I can't bring myself to do it in print without obfuscation). The fact is that hip-hop street slang has *always* been filled with insults, it's a big piece of the whole point, and that particular word (probably the most racially charged, period) is a standard part of it. Along with "muthafu--ah", "sh-t", and the rest of the FCC's Seven Deadly Words.

A hip-hop MMO *without* profanity would be an empty farce. What are you basing this declaration of intent on, do you work for 404 Games, or have you talked with them (the vt.edu domain makes me suspect not)? I think you should check, because I don't think you're going to like their answer.

--Dave

[Bruce Woodcock]

12.

In my experience, racial distinctions fall away quickly and almost completely in VR interactions. Age differences are a little more persistant but not overly so. Sex, though, is something that almost always makes a big difference.

Bruce

[Damion "Ubiq" Schubert]

13.

In my experience, racial distinctions fall away quickly and almost completely in VR interactions. Age differences are a little more persistant but not overly so. Sex, though, is something that almost always makes a big difference.

Real-world racial distinctions can result in some of the most vile in-game interactions imaginable. When UO went live in Asia, the game was replete with people naming themselves cute things like "Hiroshima Bomb". Much bannage resulted.

Even then, the UO team found they had an unusual problem. The Japanese people and the Korean people would kill each other on site. One guild was so violent that it would have all of it's guild members bind a macro that said "Do you speak Korean?" (in Korean). If you didn't respond, you were immediately attacked.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

14.

Not sure if those qualify as racial conflicts.

Sure, you get national oriented guilds and there may be racial reaons for the hostility... But to get clear racial hatred in a game like this you would need to separate white and black american players into different guilds. RP hatred can't really count, can it? Is it really a problem if a black player playing a white character keeps calling a black character played by a white character something offensive? Could even have educational merits.