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I haven’t been blogging on a regular basis lately because just using the internet opens the floodgates to all sorts of infuriating things going on in the world.  So I’ve been playing video games, writing fiction, and watching various TV shows – to provide myself a temporary (always only temporary) respite from the burden of being “aware”.  Aware of what?  Well, the list below is of 20 things going on in the world that are pissing me off, making me sad, frustrated, or feeling hopeless.  A mere 20 reasons for escapism out of hundreds.  In no ranking order:

1. BP CEO saying that the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill is relatively tiny compared to the size of the ocean. By that logic, someone could argue that the over a million people killed in a war built on a false pretext is tiny compared to the 6 billion people in the world.  Oh, wait…
2. SB 1070 – more popularly known as the “Arizona Immigration bill”
3. Arizona banning ethnic studies
4. Texas conservatives working to revise history along Biblical/American exceptionalist/racist lines in textbooks
5. Corporations authorized to buy U.S. elections after the Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission case
6. The surge of people “tweeting” and “microblogging” about nonsense while remaining dormant on things that matter
7. People wasting their time talking about Jay-Z is a devil-worshiping Freemason.  Even if he is, who cares? There are bigger things to worry about.
8. Republicans and Democrats both screwing the public through bankrupt policy, while continuing to trick people into thinking there’s any substantive difference between them.
9. The fact that legally, BP may only be obligated to pay no more than $75 million in damages, which doesn’t even begin to cover it, and that they’re fighting even that.  You want to know what’s “tiny”?  $75 million compared to the hundreds of billions^PDF that BP makes every year
10. Open racism coming back in style
11. The mainstream media continuing to report on sensationalist bullshit, rather than covering the stuff that really matters – the corporate version of #6
12. Omar al-Bashir “winning” the election in Sudan, in spite of being convicted of war crimes and genocide by the U.N.
13. People chasing conspiracy theories, while doing nothing about evil acts being committed every day out in the open
14. How perfectly the “divide and conquer” social strategy is continuing to work
15. All this talk of Iran having nuclear weapons, while no one says anything to Israel
16. The betrayed promise of “change” from President Obama
17. How the people around me don’t know and don’t seem to care about what’s going on in the world
18. Facebook’s new privacy policy violations
19. Obama authorizing the targeted killing of a U.S. Citizen, setting a dangerous precedent
20. How people are pawns of their respective political parties, rather than thinking critically as individuals

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play some Torchlight, as an alternative to shooting myself in the head…

When a person of color dares to point out an instance of racism, or even more pointedly, accuse someone of being racist, the response from white people or their apologists is often that PoCs are being “hypersensitive”.

Ordinarily I am very critical of the use of this word, but today it occurred to me that perhaps I am arguing the wrong point.

An analogy:

If I slash your arm, then hit the wound with a bat, then dropkick you in that same place with spiked boots, your arm would be a mite “sensitive”, would it not?  Sure.  Then some time passes, and the wound heals over somewhat, but you still have a bruise and/or scar.

Because my savage assault on your arm was “in the past”, would that make it okay for me to poke you – even ever so gently – right in your fucking wound?  Or would that make me a major asshole?  And who is wrong in this situation, you for pointing out that “Hey, that still hurts!” or me, for being an insensitive asshole?

Let’s say I bumped into your sore arm by mistake.  What would be the right thing to do in that situation?  To apologize or to criticize you for being too sensitive?

It’s not that the racism-apologist is incorrect in referring to the person of color as hypersensitive.  Certainly we may be, but we are justified in being such, because old wounds – systemic institutional wounds – are slow to heal.  And someone being a racist asshole – even if only subtly, “by accident”, or “poking fun” – is still going to hurt.

So maybe, instead of stating the obvious, that people of color are “hypersensitive” to racism, white people and their apologists should be more careful not to be assholes.

According to Al-Jazeera:

The Iranian president has warned that a new round of UN sanctions against his country over its disputed nuclear programme could permanently damage Tehran’s ties with the United States.

So much for all of Obama’s talk about reaching out to Iran, even going so far as to correctly acknowledge it as the Islamic Republic.  Remember his message, back in March, tactically delivered at Norwuz, the Persian New Year?  As if to symbolize a new dawn in Iranian-U.S. relations?

Obama’s message said the United States seeks engagement with Iran “that is honest and grounded in mutual respect,” but cautioned that the country cannot “take its rightful place in the community of nations . . . through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.

More hopeful rhetoric backed by zero substance or commitment.  Maybe Ahmadinejad doesn’t represent all Iranians, but most Iranians do want nuclear energy as a clean and efficient option.  So in the U.S. persistently denying Iran a right to that technology and threatening it with sanctions that further cripple the people economically, exactly how does that represent “mutual respect”?

For his part, Ahmadinejad could be more open to U.N. inspection of the Iranian nuclear program, but one can hardly fault his skepticism towards a body that has openly disregarded, ignored, and walked out on him in relaying the interests of his nation and his people.  Especially considering that all of the rhetoric coming out of the U.S. and the U.N. revolves around stopping Iran’s nuclear program, not merely making sure that it is exclusively for energy.

There is also the small matter of the double standard of the United States’ hard-line against nuclear proliferation, while completely ignoring Israel not being a signatory to the treaty.  Or the hypocrisy of the U.S. criticizing any country for nuclear ambitions when to date we are the only country to ever use nuclear weapons against anyone.  Not only that, but there’s also the recent affirmation that military action against Iran is “not off the table”.

All this, under the pretext of “mutual respect”?  Yeah, okay.

From Street Fighter to the Resident Evil series to anything directed by Uwe Boll, films adapted from video game franchises have a notorious history of being terrible.  The reason is both simple and complex at the same time – obvious to any real gamer, and perhaps beyond the understanding of everyone else.

Actor Joey Ansah, who played the character Desh in The Bourne Ultimatum, known one of the best fight scenes in any film, has created a short film called Street Fighter Legacy. Regarding the project, he said:

It was clear to me, that given the way the movie industry worked, we would never see a super faithful, darker toned and more adult themed (or just plain good!) incarnation of Street Fighter unless a die-hard director or filmmaking team with game canon knowledge stepped up to the plate to helm such a project. [Emphasis added]

And this is really what it comes down to, not just for making a solid Street Fighter movie, but to adapt any video game property into a film.  I would even take it a step further.  Any serious writer or director can do their research – read up on the story and characters, and hopefully play the game.  But there is a certain spirit contained within video games that only devoted players can tap into, that undefinable something that changes casual players into fans – or dare I say it: “hardcore”.

Rather than spending numerous paragraphs trying to pinpoint a definition of this elusive video game element – which fans already understand and non-players will not, regardless of how well I explain it – I will give you a perfect example. (more…)

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m way late to the party on this one, but I just wanted to weigh in quickly on this whole “Boobquake” thing.

For those who, like me 5 minutes ago, have no idea what this refers to, an Iranian cleric attributed the “immodest” dressing of women to the increase in earthquakes.

Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

As you can read in the article, a woman named Jennifer McCreight launched an effort to prove Sedighi wrong.  On April 26th, tens of thousands of women intend to wear their most revealing attire, figuring that if Sedighi is right, an earthquake should surely follow soon afterwards.

Chances are that nothing will happen, and that Sedighi is either a complete moron, or a ideological predator attempting to appeal to people’s sexual conservatism – through fear – in order to recruit more people to his particular moral code. (more…)

This was a statement made by famed movie critic Roger Ebert.

And it affirms something to which I’ve long attested:

…the film critic’s pathetic lot – to forever claw and scratch for recognition by other film critics, since no one else – namely those other film students who went on to actually make films – gives a damn.

What is art?

This question is one that has been debated perhaps since the beginning of human history – indeed I would venture a guess that even the cave painters Ebert mentions in his post argued the validity of those works, unaware as to how they would inform historians of the social context in which they were created.  It is only at the modern heights of arrogance that could one claim to be able to answer this age-old question with any certainty.  And it is hardly possible to be any more arrogant than making a universal truth claim, let alone one expected to hold for eternity. The whole thing is laughable.

I have argued in the past that video games are the ultimate form of expression, and what is art if not expression?  Indeed video games are a convergence of art from just about every medium – audio, visual, literary – and their social impact is ever-increasing.  Ebert makes his statement by observing video footage of a few games offered up as art, already prepared to deny the possibility.  Aside from the sheer fallacy of denying art as a form of expression, there is also the matter of his evaluation not being made from the proper standpoint.  As I argued in the above-linked essay, what sets video games apart from film, television, music, books, and other mediums is their interactivity.

That one thing [that sets video games apart from other media] is interactivity. You can rip a page out of a book in frustration as a story takes an unfavorable turn, or you can yell your lungs out at movie screen as the stupid teenage girl wanders down the dark hallway alone towards the lurking killer, but chances are that you’re not going to change anything. In a video game, however, a person is given a measure of control over the characters and environment presented.

To evaluate any video game without playing it is as dubious as evaluating a piece of music by only reading the lyrics or reading the sheet music, or evaluating the merits of a film based on – insert laughter here – a critic’s review. (more…)

Someone singing Wal-Mart’s praises on Facebook – and my subsequent criticism of that morally bankrupt point of view – reminded me of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Nickel and Dimed, which I read back in Economics 101 several years ago.  I looked up the book on Wikipedia, wondering what kind of criticism someone could levy against it, arguing in support of Wal-Mart.

That lead me to Scratch Beginnings, a book written by Adam Shepard detailing how he, starting with only $25 and the clothes on his back, managed to “live the American Dream”.  He started at a homeless shelter, got a job with a moving company, and by the time the whole experiment was over, had his own apartment and nearly $5,000 in savings.

Wow, right?

I found an interview with Shepard where he explains some of his experience and also his views on what it takes to live the “American Dream”.  Before I even found the article, I had some ideas about Shepard – ideas that were only affirmed the moment I saw his picture.  To sum it up in two words: white privilege. (more…)

I posted this video without any lead-in, because I want the viewer to process it on their own, before I weigh in with my thoughts. However, I imagine that the mere title of this post prefaces the video and will make you see it in a different way. Just as the mere fact that it is Bristol Palin in the video – because of who her mother is – prefaced how I watched the video. Or how automatically any analysis of teen pregnancy in my brain necessarily intersects with my understanding of privilege.

Perspective is a funny thing.

Upon first watching the video, I felt all sorts of ill feelings. On the one hand, we have a woman talking about the importance of making good choices with regards to sex – to think before you act, more or less. There is no inherent fault in that argument, because thinking is always good.

On the other hand, the video is using class war to advocate celibacy. And class war automatically intersects with the discussion about race and privilege.  For example, when Bristol Palin’s pregnancy first became national news, there were many commentators who mentioned how there was a general demand for sensitivity towards Bristol’s pregnancy, but that the same demands would not have been made if she had been one of Obama’s daughters or any other teen mother of color.

When the mother is white, teen pregnancy becomes merely a regrettable mistake, one that must be handled with great sensitivity and care. But when the mother is a young woman of color, it becomes some sort of moral failure on her part, not only a bad decision but a symptom of the epidemic of poor decision-making by people of color in general.

Mind you, I am not saying that the video above is making any statement at all about race – at least not explicitly. But it does scream privilege loudly, if only the privilege of being wealthy over being poor. In that way it is waging class war, wherein being wealthy affords one a buffer  against the difficulties of raising a child in poverty, and suggesting that therefore only poor women need to think carefully before they risk pregnancy. (more…)

The weight of knowledge, of “consciousness”, is heavy. I can neither look at nor listen to anything without a critical eye anymore, without it being immediately contextualized within my understanding of race, power, politics, and other such heavy subjects.

I was watching the 12th grade students at my internship put on their senior projects – videos that provided a snapshot into their lives – montages of baby pictures, friend testimonials, other things that they felt would put who they were into context for their viewers. And as I watched, there was the little spark of cynicism, the voice that said “must be nice”.  Must be nice, to be privileged to a life unburdened by any internal or external discussion about matters such as race or power, any personal struggle notwithstanding.  The last part of that statement acknowledges that people of all colors and creeds experience struggle, but white privilege liberates white people from the additional burden of race, and all the meaning that goes along with it.

But as I watched these videos I did not begrudge these children their experiences, their ability to live without certain burdens.  And I realized that I do not begrudge white people their privilege, either.  Like when I watch any of the countless “neutral” or “normative” movies featuring the conflicts of white protagonists, where race is simply not an issue, I am able to be right there with them through the highs and the lows, the struggles and the victories.  But those movies, like the insular world in which white people are able to live, are fiction.  At least they do not reflect my reality, or the reality for other people of color in the United States.

I would also say that they do not reflect white people’s own reality, that they choose to ignore.  And so it is not privilege itself that I begrudge white people, but the failure to acknowledge privilege as such.  It is true that sometimes I experience a bitterness towards white people’s ability to sit within their bubbles and be oblivious to a larger reality.  But nothing is more infuriating then when they extend themselves outside of the bubble – but still from within the bubble – to offer their commentary or engage in any sort of activism, including liberal advocacy for people of color on one end of the spectrum and overt demonstrations of racism on the other.

In other words, if they – white people – are going to live within the bubble, then they should tuck in their arms and legs and detach themselves entirely from the greater reality, and not pretend to understand a single thing about the world outside.  They should not argue with people of color over their perceptions, they should not deny any grievances.  If they are going to stick their fingers in their ears, then they should also stick socks in their mouths. They should respectfully decline any investment in the conversation and retreat to the comfortable confines of the bubble.

The alternative, of course, is to come full-bodied outside the bubble and to embrace, however difficult, the full reality of race and power as it applies to them, and to their relationships with people of color.

The following video discusses how game design and game playing can contribute to making a better world.  It sounds like a lofty idea, but it is well-argued, as I hope you will see.

Jane McGonigal is not simply comparing games to real life, but is talking about tapping into those abstract qualities that gamers bring to bear against game challenges – applying that determination, hard work, and idealism to real world endeavors.

It can, has been, and will continue to be argued that games are simply games, that they are designed to be won, and that the real world has no such safeguards against failure.  But the game McGonigal most talks about – World of Warcraft – ultimately has no point.  It has no happy ending. It is game that never ends, which works well for the developers, who continue to make millions upon millions of dollars every year.

You can overcome the most epic of epic challenges, but soon thereafter the game resets to the way it was before that challenge was met, to enable others to do the same.  There are people who continue to play Warcraft even though they have achieved the maximum level, have defeated the ultimate boss, and have done almost everything there is to do in the game.

But they will go through it all again, with the same determination and idealism, to help another player have that experience.  In the real world that could translate into people helping those less fortunate – i.e. at a “lower level” – after they have solved their own challenges.  It is not about pity or guilt, but about mutual understanding of a problem, and collaboration to solve it.  It is this kind of idealistic, high-minded, cooperative determination that McGonigal is suggesting we need to employ to take on world challenges.