Game Design: Silence On Black Issues

“We don’t need your politics in our video games,” it is a phrase that is overused, and used incorrectly as the sword to slash through any conversation. A sword that is not sheathed enough. If the discussion is that video games are art, then like any other art form people should be as loud about gay issues, Black issues, Latino/Hispanic issues, women’s issues, trans issues, and more as they are as vocal about Nathan Drake almost falling and never dying. Video games are a tool to explore the world through someone else’s eyes, either as a Formula 1 driver, a dungeon master, or an FBI agent with superpowers fighting ethereal monsters in the search for her missing brother.

If you say video games are an art, and we should visit realms unknown from our own couches, then we should acknowledge the power of video games. There are many issues here, including the recent killing of George Floyd, events where a White woman attempted to use the cops and a false statement as a deterrent for her to do whatever she saw fit, and of course those previous events where an unarmed Black man or a sleeping Black woman was killed, yet saw no justice for their murder. Those are the extremes, those are the moments we hear about on the news, what we see online, and we talk to friends about. What we don’t talk about are the systems in place that make these murders nothing to some people.

Those systems are as simple as being stopped in the street daily (if not hourly) to be checked for drugs, weapons, or anything. These same stops aren’t conducted on White people, the people I know often hold the weed, penknives, and everything else cops are looking for. These systems are as simple as shopping and being followed, being asked where you bought that can of soda, and once again being stopped in the street because of skin tone. These ground-level systems in place stop Black and Latino/Hispanic (predominantly) men and women from living a life as others do freely.

It is the silence on very basic systems we know are there that causes some to believe when another cop kills an unarmed Black man, it is fine because this only happens now and then. It is not fine, because those basic systems create larger ripples in the system aimed at relieving people of crimes they have committed. A perfect example would be Ahmaud Arbery. You may remember that name as it was said aloud at the start of May when we all saw him be shot and killed. Arbery was jogging around his own neighborhood when two men in a pickup truck hunted Arbery down and killed him, while a third man followed and filmed it.

It is the silence that caused the many issues here. Decades of silence on Black issues, racial profiling, and a system that attempted to ignore it. For 74-days no arrests were made on those three men that hunted down a Black man running in his own neighborhood, in the area where he went to school. He was shot and killed because of this silence. It was his neighbors, a former cop and investigator, and a man who was just nine-years his senior that killed Arbery. The system failed Arbery as it fails so many young Black men and women, along with many others.

When a Black person can’t walk down the street, alone or with friends, without getting asked by cops to step aside for some kind of search there is something wrong. When a Black person can’t exercise in their own neighborhood, there is something wrong. When a black man is yelling that he can’t breathe for nine minutes before dying, there is something systematically wrong. Yet it is silence on these issues that makes people believe that it is fine, it is the belief that because Black men are shot in America that this doesn’t happen elsewhere, it is the silence that reinforced this belief across the world.

Yesterday, in a hijacked form of protest propagated by miscommunication, a lack of knowledge, and misuse of the protest, the “#BlackOutTuesday/ #TheShowMustBePaused” campaign caused anger and confusion. For many of those with a platform, they ended up posting a black square with a caption of the hashtags being used. This wasn’t the purpose, the purpose was to elevate Black voices on large platforms dominated by White people. The purpose was for White allies of the cause to share Black voices for 24 hours instead of a picture of themselves, their food, or their pets.

Quite a lot of (mostly) White celebrities trying to show solidarity drowned out the purpose, while strong Black voices that were only hearing about this through an intricate game of Telephone were angry, understandably. Once again, silence had been created, muzzling Black voices from being heard and amplified in quite a few circles. So your question now is, where does this come into games? Video games are a powerful tool giving players control of a character, showing us sad stories that we empathize with. So why aren’t we using them to amplify Black voices, displaying Black lives as they are lived, and putting racist systems in the faces of those who need to see them in-action?

I’ll repeat myself with a twist. When a Black person can’t walk their own streets without being stopped by police, but can walk the streets of video games unharassed, there is a problem with the system. When a Black man can exercise in a video game without having to worry about being shot for doing so, but can’t do the same of his own neighborhood, there is a problem in the system. When a Black man is pinned to the ground and choked to death for being suspected of forging a $20 bill after complying with police, there is something wrong with the system.

I’m not saying that we should depict those gruesome and horrifying scenes, I’m saying Black men and women have a better life waiting for them in video games. If we’re going to herald games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 for their “realism,” while ignoring the lack of shown issues Black people face daily, what is the point in realism when it isn’t all that real. This isn’t just a Black issue in America, in the UK, Black and Asian men were subject to unfettered stop and search rules until 2000, with only 6% of stops ending in arrests in 2014. In the same Runnymede Trust report (of 2015), racist violence in the space of four years (1975-1979) went from 2690 to 3827 cases.

When the system tells people it is ok to be racist, when there is a lack of stories being told, when it is shown that racism is happening 3000+ miles away, people think it is ok. If video games were to show these issues happening to characters we as players are playing as, there may very well be empathy shown. Outside of cut scenes and outside of voiced lines, there is a complete lack of design being used to show players the life of a Black person.

Though most importantly over all of these design issues, the system that is in place, the one that seemingly causes Black lives to be richer in video games needs to change. This morning, our new staff member Dmitry wrote a piece about how the gaming community is here for Black Lives Matter. Monday, though we could have done so much sooner, we vocally stated we support for those peacefully protesting. We will continue to do so, and hope you will join us along with many others in protesting, listening to Black voices, taking action, and lending our platform when needed.

If you want people to listen to, books to read, and podcasts to listen to, I’d suggest: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, White Fragility, The New York Times’ “1619,” and the NAACP‘s #WeAreDoneDying campaign are places to start. Voices to listen to would be (WARNING: strong language) Killer Mike of Run The Jewels, every Black comedian as they have been talking about this for decades, Cornel West, and most importantly, listen to your black friends.