This week many (privileged) folks hit social media all aghast that Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced under Rule XIX which stipulates that “no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming […]
Games and Race
48 posts
Bianca: In light of the election, the two of us have found ourselves returning to the conversations we have had on building feminist coalitions–that is, we have found ourselves reflecting on both the consistent, perpetual need for such work and the challenges that result from embarking on such work. Previously, […]
Episode 140: Racism and Worldbuilding: A Conversation with Joshara Edwards (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). In this week’s episode we talk with Joshara Edwards. Joshara is a game developer at Blind Squirrel Games who worked on projects such as Mafia III, XCOM 2, […]
For this, the forth post in the series of posts that I have written about Mafia III and Luke Cage, I wanna play around with the notion of freedom and the ways that freedom gets enacted or enacted upon in the narrative we play. While my previous posts have used as […]
One child grows up to be Somebody that just loves to learn And another child grows up to be Somebody you’d just love to burn -“Family Affair,” Sly and the Family Stone (1971) Family. It’s a big deal for me. I live and die for mine. I am a fierce […]
You know how much I need you To have you, really feel you You don’t have to change a thing No one knows the love you bring Be real black for me – “Be Real Black For Me,” Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway (1972) Over the course of the last week […]
In recent weeks and months social media and television media has given me a lot to think about in terms of the sexualization of the black body. From Lena Dunham’s ignorant comments about Odell Beckham Jr. on social media to my own experience watching a television show on Netflix to […]
This holiday weekend was one of the first times my daughter and I had to just relax and spend time alone since the beginning of the school year a month ago, so when she asked if we could stay home and write/plan/make a Minecraft machinima (like all good nerdlings), I […]
Later this week, I’ll also be at Games+Learning+Society with Alex and Kishonna, presenting a Well Played of my own on State of Decay. I’ve been such a strong advocate for the game through two releases (and DLC), but here I’ll finally be able to draw the various themes and lines of inquiry I’ve […]
In the recent weeks and months I have found myself asking the question over and over again, “Why would you shoot an unarmed or restrained person when they were not a threat?” and the answer has bounced back and forth between hatred and fear. Or perhaps more accurately the hatred […]
This week I finally finished playing Playdead’s Inside. I started playing the game at launch and had previously written about my reaction to the violence. I found the violence especially disturbing since it was directed at a child. As I was playing through the game I found myself talking through […]
Pokemon Go is a lot of things. It came out Wednesday and Sam and Alisha quickly pointed out the flaws in the representation provided by the game, with good reason. In a game that was slated to let “us,” the player, be in the Pokemon world, and be the very best, […]
People all over the world love the Pokémon franchise. Fans in Hong Kong launched a protest in late May over a name change in translation. A quick image search of Pokémon tattoos reveals a treasure trove of body ink. Many people have grown up with the franchise, cutting their gaming […]
Episode 130: The Games We Need: A Conversation with Evan Narcisse (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn). This week we are joined by pop culture critic Evan Narcisse (@EvNarc) to talk race and video games. Sit back and listen as we talk about […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia lately and I’m not quite sure why, but I’m pretty sure it is a desire for the “good old days”. It seems that I am finally of an age (and the world is in a state) that is old enough to recall utopian […]
So Blizzard gives and Blizzard takes away. Or more specifically, Blizzard made great strides forward with body types and armor coverage for it’s female heroes, but still fell back on old, tired, and offensive stereotypes in an attempt to add some depth to the characters. Let me start by saying […]