The Other Side of the Coin of Bringing Stereotypes Into Light

 But that being said, does the lack of representation and the creation of stereotypes really lead to racism? Or has Americans simply became so trigger happy with the subject of race, that it became a dinner table debate for everyone to enjoy. While stereotypes leading to racial violence and discrimination is undeniably real, the problem isn’t so simple. A jewel will shine regardless of where it is, though it does shine brighter when a light is being shone upon it. Ironically, one of the reasons racial stereotypes are so prominent and widespread is partially caused by the focus “anti-racists” put on it. It is important for problems to be brought to light to avoid national ignorance, but the side effect of creating anti-racism to be a mainstream trend is that it only seeks to further the confusion and lack of understanding.

    In film, there are indeed examples of movies refusing to use actors of the race that the character was originally intended to be, such as Scarlett Johansson and an entirely white cast playing the upcoming live-action remake of the well-known Japanese cyberpunk animation Ghost in the Shell, the constant American remake of The Ring, the dreaded Dragon Ball movie with it’s completely white cast, and the newly announced Netflix original live action make of Death Note, another Japanese animation-turned-movie with an entirely white cast. However, it has become a trend that there are those who are ignorant to the hatred for the disloyalty to the source material, and those who are over sensitively pointing it out.

America has become an overly sensitive place to a point where shining a light on racial stereotypes are sometimes taken as a joke. Someone can walk down the street and say “that black dress looks ugly” and another would bound to nonsensically yell “that’s so racist!” Matt Damon received accusations of the crime of “whitewashing” by starring in the Chinese film The Great Wall. The same with the character William in the game Nioh, both featuring white, westerners arriving in an East Asian environment and acting as heroes in the story. However, what people don’t tend to notice is that the two cases are indeed different. Whereas one changes the source material and forcefully “whitewashes” the setting, the characters, their backgrounds, and the plot, the other is an original story meant to incorporate other races in. People often fail to realize that saying Matt Damon doesn’t belong in ancient warring china is analogous to saying Chinese people are not allowed to be on American movies because it takes place in the United States.

Finally, in the case of video games, the one that particularly stands out is the Grand Theft Auto franchise, specifically the fifth, most recent installment. The case started with a twenty-one second viral video showing one of the main characters, Franklin, a young black male, walking up to a police. In the first 5 seconds, one of the pedestrians or policemen can be heard saying “I only listen to white rappers.” As Franklin approaches one of the policemen while saying “aye you keep us safe alright officers,” the officer pulls out a gun claiming Franklin has “crossed the line.” Franklin then proceeds to put his hands up, before getting shot to death. And so begins the process of players testing to see if the police was actually “racist” in the game by repeating similar actions with the other two protagonists. Rockstar has claim that no code was put into the police’s AI for discriminating against the players based on race, and the testing seems to have proven that claim too. The results shows that law enforcement in the game simply tends to pull out their guns and shoot anybody if the player got too close to them or stood near them for too long, as also tested in GTA Online, a version of GTA V where the player can create a character of any ethnicity and looks to their liking. Another point to notice is that the video was taken as Franklin walked into the vicinity of the police station, an area in which the player could get “stars,” or police alertness, for simply crashing a car into the cement nearby.

Scene from the video of Franklin’s encounter with the police.

    The existence of stereotypes are so prominent in the United States because it is such a diverse nation, the act of stereotyping helps humans simplifies life by categorizing people into groups, unfortunately, these groups tend to have labels of “good” and “bad” which stems from the acknowledgement of stereotypes. Though, ironically, these stereotypes were also fueled by people fighting it and and shining a light on it in the process. Barack Obama, being the first black president, but also the president that could reach out the least to the African American community due to accusations of favoring his “brothers,” is a living example of how Americans can’t solve the race problem by bringing race further into light. The only resolution is the idea of cosmopolitanism, to erase the sensitivity and acknowledgement to the difference in race, to create a country where people are portrayed by their actions, instead of by the link of their actions to their skin color.