The 'Black Girl' Hero & Apex Legends

Yknow I read things, and then I want to scoop out my eyeballs with a blowtorch.
Sanitize the medias virtue signalling right out of em, and hope to god they grow back.

No one, particularly biracial individuals, gets the privilege of just choosing to place themselves in a high racial caste. Whiteness is ultimately decided upon by white society at large, based on the response a biracial person gets from that society at large. In short, if white people can tell you’re not white, and they start treating you like you’re not white (aka like garbage), it doesn’t actually matter about your parentage.

You have to remember that American racial designations make no sense and were never actually intended to make sense (why do you think the Irish were once considered non-white and then magically were?) The idea of a “white people” was intended to consolidate power into the hands of wealthy European landowners by telling poor whites with completely different national backgrounds from one another that they all belonged to that same prestigious class and thus had more in common with the elites who never worked a day in their life than they did their black and brown neighbors across the street hustling as hard as they did. It’s a way of separating lower classes for the benefit the rich, because a poor white man will no sooner protect a rich white man’s pocket then try to fill his own if he thinks a black person will also get a “handout” in the process. That’s what it’s about.

Thus, whiteness is an arbitrarily-changing definition decided on by society at large. You can easily question the logistics of it, especially in light of the reality of biracial people with white parents, but at the end of the day it is what it is. You’re either white or you’re not. Biracial people who don’t look white are largely not.

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Fair enough. I honestly find it all rather difficult to follow because of how arbitrary it is. It is just not rational.

This whole “there doesn’t have to be a reason” thing is a double edge sword.
If there’s no reason NOT to have black women, then there’s also no reason TO have black women.

Just wanna clarify I have absolutely nothing against a black female hero and I don’t think there needs to be a reason for their inclusion. But jeez it’s not something you have to beg for and it’s not something a game needs to have.

The reason to have black women is that it aids the mission statement of diversity by including a large demographic that is simultaneously under-represented in games.

You’re also applying the logic to the wrong argument. When people say there’s no reason to exclude someone, it is in response to those who are mad at the suggestion of inclusion and try to find reasons to tell folks that they’re not allowed to have something that doesn’t even effect the gameplay they claim they care about first and foremost.

I honestly wouldnt mind if they implemented a black female character.

But jeez, some people ring their race not just slightly fanatical.

Blackness is defined through a series of cultural markers, among them dark skin, broad noses, and kinky hair, as well as a shared cultural history of freedom from bondage. Broadly, you could define blackness as the diaspora of people displaced from Africa through the slave trade, though that doesn’t account for everyone. Blackness is more about how you are seen than how you are. To be seen as black allows people to treat you in a certain way. No matter who I marry and have kids with, of whatever ethnicity, my children are going to inherit the markers that will deem them to the world at large as black. I would be disappointed if I had a daughter who could only see narratives about blackness through the eyes of black men, just as I have had to do for my entire life. And I would be disappointed if black women continued to be overlooked in a game with a cast as diverse as Overwatch ’s.

Honestly, this rings in my ears as a rhethorically bad attempt of attributing skin-colors and ethnicities to some kind of idolization not unlike that of diary entries of popular figures of ww2-germany idolizing their “race” or even the terrible attempts of Kant to describe “certain races.”

Take a step back from your “blackness” and try to concentrate more on what Kaplan said - help make skin-color perfectly “normal.”
Not every black person on this planet was a slave and certainly most of them have about as much in common with you as the next guy, even if you’re both “black.” Chill.

The more finely we draw the lines the deeper they become… people just cannot grasp this it seems…

Wonder how many people know about 40 million people are slaves currently around the world, and yet, where is the outcry? Ironically, the vast majority are in gasp Africa and not surprisingly, India. Hmmm…

So now black people talking about video game representation is in the same line of thought as Hitler’s brand of white supremacy.

We’ve reached peak ignorance.

Did you just call Kant “Hitler” and call me ignorant in the same sentence?

Edit: No, you didnt. Two sentences actually.

You weren’t just talking about Kant.

Could you quote that correctly? That would be great.

Have you read the entries which I am referring to? Did I mention Hitler? Do you even know who I’m talking about?
I don’t think so.

Is that ignorant? Yes, it is.

You mean the second statement referencing Kant connected to the first by the conjunction “or,” which means both statements hold equivalency, meaning I was correct in saying that you weren’t “just” talking about Kant.

Anyway, when you mention WWII era Germany, we know what you’re talking about, and it’s still idiotic to compare that to any racial minority discussing their representation. You can proceed to clarify yourself if you’d like, or continue playing games. I’m down with either.

Diversity largely doesn’t matter. If a developer for whatever reason wanted a game with nothing but Hispanics that should be 100% fine as it should for every other race (including white).
Plus the game already has plenty of diversity, just because there isn’t a specific identify doesn’t mean it’s a problem.
I mean, how deep would this rabbit hole go before people realized how ridiculous it is? “We want a black hero” Bliz gives, “we want a black female hero” bliz gives, “we want a black female mother hero” Bliz gives, “we want a black trans hero”.

This would just go on and on. I have no problem with any of those heros but demanding more and more specific identities as if it’s at all necessary is ridiculous.

Yeah but that’s not what I’m arguing. I’m just saying it’s stupid to complain we don’t have something that isn’t necessary.
The arguement works both ways there’s no reason not to include an identity and there’s really no reason to include them.
If the devs have a vision of a hero they shouldn’t change it just for diversity sakes.

Diversity in media does matter. Media representation, both the presence of minorities and the quality of roles given and stories told, introduces disparate populations to groups they might have already been negatively informed about by- wait for it- mass media, and it goes towards normalizing those who are marginalized over time as well as providing actual avenues and means of work for minority artists.

In short, if seeing yourself in media literally didn’t matter, a Middle Eastern dude named Jesus would never have been popularly depicted as white.

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You certainly don’t know what I’m talking about and you certainly aren’t acquinted to their uneducated thoughts and what kind of “inner sensations” they seeked to satisfy and how they went about it in their personal lives.
There were more individuals, viewpoints and thoughts than just those you want to imagine here.

There are thought-processes which I recognize and deem as unhealthy idolization of an entire race in the wishful thinking that it would be a representative, familiar unit.

If you want to rationalize this thought-process to be something more than a temporary emotional outburst for a wound to be talked about - “something acceptable and worthy of establishment” - I dare say my moral compass is quite monolithic in this regard as a German.
Would be a waste of your time.

You quoted the wrong person. Quisp didn’t write that. I did.

I know Quisp didn’t write that. That’s how the quoting system works on this blasted software. The quote was a direct response to you.

Except seeing a specific identify in a show or game would never change an ignorant mind. Especially since it’s all fiction anyways. The only way this type of diversity would work is if the entertainment was all about accepting others in the first place.
If you just insert identities into media it won’t change stereotypes or negative associations.
The perfect example is with the most represented group in all media, white people.
There’s white people in everything movies, games, ect. Yet that doesn’t stop other identities from spreading the same old stereotypes and myths.
Simply seeing another race won’t change any prejudice, they have to be educated.

That’s kinda a bad example because the reason Jesus was originally depicted as white was due to blatant racism. People back then didn’t want to worship and believe in a colored person. So by that example, anyone who wants their identity to be represented instead of another is racist.

Just wanna point out that’s not my point and I don’t believe that I was just showing how bad of an example that was.

Psychologically it doesn’t matter whether the media involved is fiction or non-fiction. So long as messages are repeated and patterns can be formed, then people will still subconsciously pick up on those messages. It’s why advertising works. We know seeing the same messages over and over again creates physiological associations between different concepts.

What you would have to prove to say media representation literally doesn’t matter and has an absolute zero effect on society is that the human mind somehow just stops making associations when it sees or reads about a group of people in the same light over and over again.

Good luck with that.

It’s the perfect example. Even idiots back then knew that one’s treatment towards others can and is influenced by the common fiction surrounding them. Thus, it actually makes perfect sense to take the most reverent figure in human history and depict him to look like you.

Just a bit food for thought, so you get where I’m coming from.
The plainest example being the fact that the article literally suggests measuring a characters nose to determine the purity of their “blackness.”

That passage is really stretching it.

I agree if it’s a message. But overwatch isn’t a message, it’s just a game. I even said in my reply that diversity only changes minds if the material was meant to be educational or have a real message.
Simply seeing a black female hand on your screen while you play overwatch won’t have an impact on anyone’s bigotry.

Except when it comes to entertainment no one is every depicted in the same light over and over again. In some things the black character is an evil villi an who wants to rule the world, in some he’s a charming protagonist.
Your point works really well if we’re talking about an education piece of media or a more personal narrative but in a game where there’s practically no back story or lore and it’s just about shooting stuff, diversity loses its profound purpose.

It’s still a bad example, they didn’t do that so they could say “look at this white person who is so good” they did it purely so they could maintain their bigotry.
By your example the people asking for a black female hero are racist.