Tell me racism is dead when…
All you have to do is play Xbox with a black avatar or a “black voice” and hear the word nigger over 50 times in a week. My room mate plays xbox360 regularly and he is very good. He plays a lot of madden and first person shooters like halo and call of duty. But why is it that, whenever he beats people, or sometimes when he is just in a party with his friends, they see his avatar and hear his voice, and feel free to call him nigger immediately. They proceed to say fucked up racial things on a regular basis. This is not a structural kind of racism, however, I just laugh when people say shit doesn’t exist when my room mate plays a video game in the comfort of his own home and still has to be called a nigger or a coon or some other really degrading racial shit.
Also, xbox360 is a wonderful place to examine masculinity and competition. Because their is a ton of gay bashing, calling people “faggots”, “pussies”, rape jokes, saying you will have sex with someone’s mom. And tons of posturing. I am amazed because my room mate just told me some guy got beat on the game and then told him what his job title was and that he drove a mercedes and then asked my room mate what he drives, what he got? I’m like… really. You got beat. It’s a video game. I’m not really making any kind of definitive post or statement here lol. I’m just saying, play video games and you can find and hear every ism their is. Many people get harassed and bullied over the airwaves in their own homes. A lot of it is racial and anti-gay bullying. It’s degrading and disgusting. And people want to ignore these things, as if they don’t happen. When all you need to do is go on the internet or on one of these systems and it rears its ugly head in a fashion you can’t get these people to speak in public (obviously not everyone has access to these things). But I believe the things people say online and on a game like that that they can say behind closed doors are their true opinions and the fake ass frontin “i’m not a bigot/racist” face they put on in public is a facade.
