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Borderlands 2 Racism Discussion

[Feb 03, 2013, 1:58 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Kotaku has a running summary of an discussion taking place over twitter over whether the Tiny Tina character in Borderlands 2 is racist, based on the white character's use of clichéd African-American slang. Some have expressed the opinion that this is "verbal blackface," and after originally resisting, lead writer Anthony Burch moved on to try to expand the discussion to see if he needed to re-work the character's dialog in future releases. Randy Pitchford's take on this is that it's not racist as long as it was not written by a racist: "@reverendanthony tina is not racist because you are not racist. You're a pillar of tolerance and inclusion." Thanks nin.

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134.

Re: Borderlands 2 Racism Discussion

Feb 6, 2013, 15:57

Verno

RollinThundr wrote on Feb 6, 2013, 15:38:

I get it, its a hell of a lot harder for a black kid from a shitty neighborhood to not get caught up in all the negative influences around them, but acting like they're owed something, isn't something I agree with. Life's fucking hard, wear a god damn helmet.

They are owed the same opportunities as you are which many do not get. I don't know how you reconcile your philosophy with society as a whole, the bootstraps individuality thing is fine but only goes so far, there are sometimes inherent advantages and disadvantages at work outside of a persons control.

Acting like everyone can live the American Dream if they just work harder isn't realistic, quite often hard work and education are divorced from success. People coast on nepotism, personality, background, looks and many other factors. Not all of those things are equal for all races either.

So while I don't think anyone is really "owed" anything extra, I do think that the playing field isn't always level and might never be. Sometimes I think we've come so far in my lifetime then I see a level of bigotry that is disturbing (even on the comments here as an example) and makes me worry.




Playing: Faster Than Light, Tales of Graces F, Fire Emblem 3DS Watching: Ghost in the Shell, Hannibal, Oblivion

Subject

Comment [quote="Verno"Feb 6, 2013, 15:57][quote="RollinThundr"Feb 6, 2013, 15:38] I get it, its a hell of a lot harder for a black kid from a shitty neighborhood to not get caught up in all the negative influences around them, but acting like they're owed something, isn't something I agree with. Life's fucking hard, wear a god damn helmet. [/quote] They are owed the same opportunities as you are which many do not get. I don't know how you reconcile your philosophy with society as a whole, the bootstraps individuality thing is fine but only goes so far, there are sometimes inherent advantages and disadvantages at work outside of a persons control. Acting like everyone can live the American Dream if they just work harder isn't realistic, quite often hard work and education are divorced from success. People coast on nepotism, personality, background, looks and many other factors. Not all of those things are equal for all races either. So while I don't think anyone is really "owed" anything extra, I do think that the playing field isn't always level and might never be. Sometimes I think we've come so far in my lifetime then I see a level of bigotry that is disturbing (even on the comments here as an example) and makes me worry. [/quote]

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