Sticks and Stones may be digitally enhanced, but words will never hurt me!

So in reading the rock'n'roll nigga's words he was a little frustrated, or maybe just full of pity for some dumb white guys who he over heard make a stupid comment about interracial couples. After reading it, it made me think of a little realm of racism that I stumbled upon in the last little while.

So as we know, if we've read anything off this page in the last while, is that, for now I am back living in sweet little ole Whitby. Now you see there's not much to do in the evenings here in the GTA outskirks and so when I come home from work I tend to engage in a little virtual mind expansion (ok screw off I play some video games ok!)

Lately I've been playing this game called Halo 2, and for those of you from under a rock, or the majority of girls, Halo 2 is this shoot em up, gun wielding war game kinda like that old james bond 007 that everyone loved on Nintendo 64. Now with Halo you can play online against kids from all over the planet, ranging in ages from 10 to 50 (no really I played with this fifty year old from Norway, whose accent was intense) whose abilities in the game all get matched up based on skill.

Ok, so what does this have to do with racism you ask. Well, at a certain point in playing this game, which is the point where you start to get pretty good, the competition gets pretty fierce, and soon enough when you kill someone or say something into your headpiece (yes the game has a earphone and mic piece that lets you talk to the other players) soon enough some of the most racist and bigoted comments I have ever heard start flourishing.

Some of these kids are like no more than ten and the amount of uses of the word nigger, fag, spic, queer, and this can go on, is really disturbing. I mean have you ever heard a pre-pubescent 12 year old scream "I hate you, you dirty queer into your earphone", seriously its like children of the corn creepy.

As I tend to do, it made me think more than I probably should, and I've come up with this overarching theory towards war and otherness:

Halo 2 is a game of war, the amount of mobility and control you have on your virtual soldier puts you there, and I mean there. It sounds geeky and nerdish but this game is the top of the gaming world (which is a bigger industry than Hollywood: so take that Tad Hamiliton) and a lot of people play, with full interaction between them. How bout this for a theory, racism is inherent in war because it defines the clear enemy and lets you continue to be superior in mind over anyone who may take away your victory. An other needs to exist as long as there is war, and if your gun isn't working, let your mouth shoot for you.

Now of course this theory is not unique or revelating, but nevertheless, it is disturbing that this can be brought out in conversation by a commercially sold video game. The unique thing behind racist presence in online video world, is that in many ways it is more personal than if you were fighting for your country. With this game you are ranked as an individual proving yourself against your shared communal peers, and some people take these ranking ultra serious, to the point where a loss in their win column, causes screaming rhetoric to spew into the mic.

I can't justify the bigotry inherent in violence towards the other, but I mean at least these kids know what and who they are fighting for, as opposed to troops fighting for a one faced government whose agenda is veiled in buzz words like freedom and democracy. And the real bonus is at the end of the day you push the reset button and go down to dinner with your family. I just hope these 12 year old little bastards dont turn into the next troop for the administration to the south's next Enders Game.

*worth noticing is a rough guestimate would put 95% of the slander I hear in this game from a southern state derived accent. Ain't nothing bigger than Texas' *cough*mouth*cough*.

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Friday, May 27, 2005