Blog 9: Nakamura again

I don’t think this website really went beyond the “menu driven” concept of race. Yes, the idea of getting rid of racial prioritization is clearly the intent, but I don’t feel like they are even following their own advice in their content.

For starters, look at the slide shows in the Me, My Race, and I section. They show lots of pictures of black kids in the ghetto, yet all the pictures of the white families show them relaxing in the yard in some nice, suburban neighborhood. I say WTF! I know of plenty of “minority” families who live in a hell of a lot nicer neighborhoods than I do, and I would say I live in a typical middle class house in a neighborhood that is as a whole probably considered upper middle class. On the other hand, what about all the white people who live in leaky roofed mobile homes in backwoods trailer parks?

Another section I disagree with is the Where Race Lives section, specifically the Tale of Two Families slide show. It compares a white family and a black family and how they have earned and spent money during their lives. The black family buys a small duplex, financing a good part of it. The white family does the same but they use money from their parents and from a GI Bill to get a larger house in a nicer neighborhood. As the story progresses, the them remains the same; the black family struggles while the white family passes money down to their kids in order to give them a better start in life. Yes, I will agree that the black family had a harder time, and yes, especially back then there was more discrimination against housing and work and everything else that probably didn’t help; but at the same time, the story gives you the feeling that it is bad to pass down family wealth to your kids to give them better opportunities. It said nowhere that the white family was racist, or that they stole from “minorities”, they were just a normal family who happened to have it pretty good; why is it so bad that they use their wealth to better their family?

If you haven’t noticed, I have been using the word minorities in quotations; this is for a reason. Take the tri cities for example; I wouldn’t consider Mexicans a minority, or Asians, etc. But take a look at the scholarship offerings. There are pages upon pages of scholarships for specific minorities, none of which I am applicable for because I’m “white”, even though I am a ridiculously large mix of nationalities, I am more of a mutt. But what if someone were to set up a “white” scholarship? OH HEAVENS NO!!!!!! THAT’S RACIST!!!!! Well…Why? There are all these scholarships for minorities giving them tons of opportunities to go to school and have a better life, but what about me? What about me, the middle class kid who’s parents make just too much for me to get financial aid but not nearly enough to be able to afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on college tuition. Me who works full time to send myself to school, while others get their tuition, books, cost of living, etc. paid for just because they are a “minority”. Sorry for the rant, I would like to say I am not racist, I don’t think people should be discriminated against because of their skin color, background, beliefs, etc. But I do think this should include everyone; it shouldn’t be a “take it away from the whites and give it to the ‘minorities’” society. I feel like this is the message the website was giving, so no, I don’t think it went beyond the “Menu Driven” concept.

Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, ethnicity, and identity on the internet. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002. 102-135. eBook.

"Race - The Power of an Illusion." PBS.org. PBS, n.d. Web. 28 Oct 2010. .

Blog 8: Nakamura

From what I can get out of the reading, cybertypes are the online or digital representation of racial stereotypes. Well, I suppose they aren’t necessarily racial, they could be sexual, religious, etc. but that’s the basic idea. Nakamura talks about how the digital world has the ability to fight these stereotypes because peoples’ physical bodies are not actually seen in many cases so they can’t be judged based on them. Instead, often times stereotypes are reinforced and exaggerated online and in games.

People often use avatars of other races online and instead of doing this to try to break down stereotypes, they act according to those stereotypes. Nakamura says “Rather than honoring diversity, their performances online used race and gender as amusing prosthesis to be donned and shed without “real life” consequences.” (15) Nakamura calls this identity tourism.

I have noticed this in various games I have played; the one that comes to mind at the moment is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In this game your avatar is a black man and there is a scene where you and your black friends go to the drive through at Cluckin’ Bell, which is basically KFC. From the start this represents the stereotype that black people like fried chicken. Once at the drive through, one of your friends orders enough food to feed an army, further reinforcing the stereotype that black people like A LOT of fried chicken.

In Street Fighter II, the idea of identity tourism was pretty obvious. The first fight is in china and in the background there are Chinese people riding bikes, selling chickens in the street, all typical things you might think of when someone mentions China. At that point it wasn’t too bad, at least in my opinion. The next fight, however, is in the USSR and the stereotypes became a little more blatant. The game basically reinforces the idea that all Russian men are huge, burley, meat heads with muscles so big the veins on them are about to pop. After the USSR came India; your opponent here is a small scrawny man with no shirt on and his ribs showing. Again typical stereotype of Indians, but it took it a step further; the man also has a skull necklace around his neck, representing the voodoo, black magic type stereotype we have for Indians. When you actually get to fight him, he is able to stretch out his arms and legs almost all the way across the screen, taking the witch doctor thing even a step farther. The trend continued like this throughout the game, basically allowing players to be and interact with different races from around the world. The problem is, you don’t really get to interact with different races, you only get to interact with the extreme stereotype of that race.


Works Cited

Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet.
New York Routledge. 2002

"Racializing Cyberspaces." Cultural Politics. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct 2010. .

Blog #7: Schleiner

The most obvious gender-subject configuration I saw was with princess. All the rest of the characters pretty much just jumped up and then fell back down when you press the jump button. With princess she jumps up and basically floats/flies for a while before she comes back down. I’m guessing this is because they expect girls playing the game to use princess and they assume that females won’t be as good at games as males so they make it easier to play as her than as the others. Another thing about her is that she is much fluffier than the rest of them. Mario, Luigi, and Toad are more rugged or dirty looking and look like they belong in that surrounding; princess is more polished looking and seems out of place in the countryside jumping down pipes.

Other than that I didn’t really see any obvious, glaring gender-subject configurations. I did notice that Luigi was also slightly easier to use because he seemed to jump higher and stay in the air slightly longer than Mario. He is also kind of more nerdy looking which leads me to believe that maybe they expect people who aren’t as good at the game to use him. This isn’t really a gender thing though, just more of a stereotype. I really don’t know what the deal is with Mario; I mean, he is a very short, chubby guy yet somehow he is always the one that ends up saving Princess and running off with her. This seems to go against the norms in my opinion; usually it’s the taller, good looking guy that saves the day.

Schleiner, Anne-Marie. "Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons? Gender and Gender-Role Subversion In Computer Games." MIT Press 34.3 (2001): 221-26. Web. 7 Oct 2010. .