I've been playing video games for a long
time and as long as loka existed the
industry responsible for them has been
riddled with race issues art whether
it's stereotypical portrayals are just
the lack of diversity in general games
haven't been too welcoming for players
of color but worst of all gaming online
is a really toxic and racist environment
in 2002 NFL quarterbacks Peyton Manning
and Matt Hasselbeck played each other in
a game of NFL fever there was a twist
though the two players were thousands of
miles apart Microsoft used this event to
promote Xbox Live an online gaming
service that allowed people to play and
talk with each other without being in
the same room enter middle school media
who just got his hands on a copy of Halo
2 this was post 9/11 so kids with weird
names like mine weren't the most popular
at school to get away from some of the
bullying at school I turn to video games
so imagine how twelve-year-old me felt
when I logged on to Xbox Live for the
first time and was almost immediately
called the n-word as I got older the
same things kind of happened people were
still calling me then word and saying
racially insensitive things to me after
a while I just kind of got used to it
it was normal and it was just something
I had to deal with if I wanted to play
games online it's not just Xbox
Playstation and twitch have these issues
too
there are countless examples of this
online gaming is not made for women
people of color right it's really not
made for marginalized bodies Shoshanna
gray is the director of the equity and
gaming lab at Arizona State University
she published a study that followed for
black gamers in their experiences online
the players mentioned that they
experienced racism online a lot and that
they kind of just got used to it
a lot of folks have just normalized what
happens to them in the space because I
remember like back in like 2007 2009 or
something like that you know Microsoft
had issued this press release that said
you know racism is not a problem on
their network right but they were solely
relying on the quantitative data the
number of complaints that people would
file and because they had because you
know a lot of gamers of color had
normalized what was happening to them
they wouldn't file the complaint right
people don't do it because they in their
mind they think that nothing's gonna be
done they think that you know the
stakeholder within the space Microsoft
Xbox whoever doesn't care about about
that about what's happening to them I'm
not really playing competitive games as
much anymore so I'm not talking to as
many people online but I know that
professional gamers can't really avoid
it Terrence Miller is a professional
hearthstone player he faced a very
public display of racism during a
tournament a bunch of commenters in the
twitch chat were sending tons of racist
messages directed towards Terrence the
chat moderators couldn't keep up how did
that affect you just like as a player in
general how did you feel when you left
the tournament and you knew that this
happened I'm like on screen playing at
the time so I don't really know what's
going on I'm getting a bunch of like
messages on Twitter and like discord and
stuff like that Aaron's like all this
stuff happened like are you okay like I
know my mom saw it for sure and she
didn't really understand like why they
were like that at the time and I just
kind of had to like explain it to her at
the tournaments and at the events can
you talk about your experiences there as
a black person there is it it's a way
different than the biz online it's
definitely a way different than it was
all night like I've experienced never
racism racism like whatsoever people are
anonymous on the internet so like
they're one way when you're not around
and then when they know that you're
there they're like more careful with
what they say the fact that people act
wild behind a computer screen isn't that
surprising but as anonymity the driving
factor behind the racism and online
gaming yeah I think I think it is the
driver for racist comments yes you know
so in that piece you know I talked about
you know this online disinhibition where
when people get online they'll say and
do things that they normally wouldn't do
in physical spaces right which is just
what Terrence him described right
he was like wait a minute y'all call me
the n-word online like y'all here now
you're not saying nothing right you cuz
it could be real-life repercussions
right so how do we solve this
Microsoft's current strategy is a
reputation system the more bad reports
you get the worse your reputation is if
it gets bad enough you're only allowed
to play with people who have similar bad
reputations but gaming companies should
have zero tolerance when it comes to
racism racist players should be
permanently banned that's a no-brainer
that provides immediate relief to
players of color but outside of banning
players I think there's something that
can be done in the long run it really
comes down to diversity gaming companies
should be held responsible for changing
the culture of gaming as we know it when
companies discuss how to fight racism
online our voices of color being
included and if so are they being
listened to
here's an example of how diversity could
help I was being because I asked a guy
why he called me the n-word all that
they saw all this algorithm saw was that
I used the n-word and then I had to be
ousted from the space so think about you
know a lot of black men and you and
utilized like the n-word in their
everyday speech practices and their
everyday tech the text practices and
then they get banned because they've
used the n-word like like in these faces
so for instance if I was at the table
with Xbox whenever they decided is I
could have told them black people are
gonna get punished black people who
might use this in their everyday speech
practices are gonna be the ones that get
punished from this so I get what you're
doing but you need to have more people
at the table to help to be a part of
this decision-making process it's not
just diversity in employment either
Terrance says a showcasing of diverse
players could also help fight racism and
the fighting game community there's like
a lot of people of color and I feel like
that doesn't really you don't really get
these kind of stories coming from that
game when I reached out to Microsoft
they told me that keeping everyone safe
was a priority for them that's great to
hear
but further measures need to be taken
what happened to 12-year old me should
be an outlier and not the norm
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