http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/5/the-online-game-that-proves-the-web-is-not-a-post-racial-utopia.htmlOnce upon a time some developers released a game called Rust. The game wasn't quite finished but it was playable and in the game people would try to survive in the wilderness. When it was released people could only play with a white male avatar, but most people did not complain since it is quite common in games to only be able to play a white male character.
...Then there came an update. In this update people got the option to also play as a black male character, although "option" might not be the right word to use. You see, when you made a character the skin colour would be randomly generated and people could only alter few minor details of appearance.
This caused an outrage as people were forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, to play a character that does not share the colour of their skin. This was seen as a problem as people were not given the right to choose an avatar that would more closely resemble their real appearance. At least with one minor detail that is.
Yes. If the colour of your skin truly is not important then why, WHY, would the developers not allow you to choose it? After all, they already have white characters in the game so it would not be much extra work for them to allow the player to choose this option. Just like you could make a female character in a game and it would not be much extra work from the developers either...
See? This guy knows it, being forced to play a game, watch a movie or a TV show where the main character does not share the colour of your skin is horrible. How are you supposed to connect with the characters? WHY CAN'T THERE BE MORE MAIN CHARACTER THAT ARE: White, male and preferably heterosexual. Why won't these...
...I can't do it anymore. The irony is killing me and I think everyone* already got the point. The first time that white men find a game where they can't play a character that is also a white man they start bitching about the lack of representation and using the exact same points that people have been using to complain when there is a lack of representation of black characters. ...Or non-heterosexual characters ...Or disabled characters. In fact, when there is a lack of representation of anything other than white-male characters these same reasons are brought up but now they still don't get the point.
*Apart from those commenters
PS: And I really don't think there is (much) racism in this. They just don't realize how important representation is in media even when they themselves suffer from the same problem. They really can't think of how
others could feel about any issues. And I believe this explains much of the institutional racism and other opression in the world. People just don't realize how they are harming others.