between Bsky, where one weirdo said yesterday that all Japanese people are white (I just straight up block that kind of person, because hahahaha no. But from seeing other people reacting to that, that went down like a lead balloon there.) And this place where some of the white leftists are apparently saying that talking about Orientalism in vidya games makes you a cop.
Which is the usual sort of thing that white leftists say when they feel uncomfortable about conversations relating to race that don't center them, or their feelings of comfort. It's the old "it's the left eating the left" takes which get wheeled out when leftists of colour are saying: "hey, this is an issue, maybe think about this a bit more".
It's fine to be critical about Orientalism in video games. It's healthy for all creative folks (making all types of media) to ask ourselves: why this setting? And esp if it's not an Own Culture setting. Sometimes you can unpick an entire chain of unconscious associations that you are making with an Other culture, as well as your Own. Which is the kind of thing we all unconsciously carry around, because we live and move through social systems that are built to implicitly and unfairly assign specific traits to different cultures.
That process of attribution is also about having the power to assign defining traits to Others as well as yourself. So of course it's uncomfortable to work out what you may have been doing, unconsciously for a while now, with the power you didn't even ask for, and probably don't even want if you do become aware of it.
But that's how we go around identifying structures that need changing - working out our own relationship to power, and then being able to make more conscious choices about how we engage with those larger power structures. Including in the kind of creative work we do, the choices we make when we create media that we are asking other people to buy into.
While it can be uncomfortable to look at that baggage for yourself, where it can result in further harm is lashing out in your discomfort and making that the problem of the person going: "hey this is kind of stereotyping" or "did you mean to alienate folks from my culture, because this feels jarring", etc.
You can just not do that. Sit with the discomfort. Go away and do some reading. Watch video essays if that's your thing. Write a private journal about it. Talk to your therapist... Thee are very many ways to handle the discomfort that don't involve dumping it right back out on the person going: "did you really mean to do this with my culture?"
By the way, while I have time for people talking about this in good faith, I really don't have time for "and this is why Wholesome Games are so evil!" Like hahahaha there's plenty of Orientalism to go round the entire sphere of gaming. COD has an entire genre of video essays and articles about its Orientalism. Horror games made by non-Asian devs and studios frequently plunder Asian horror tropes and settings. Etc, etc.
In the scheme of things are there likely to also be some cosy games that do Orientalism? I would be very surprised if that isn't the case. Is it likely that in a showcase of >70 games, some of the games will dip into these tropes and settings, and some of them could usefully think about "why this setting" or "what will this look like to folks from that culture"?
Sure. Of course.
Again, it's often useful for creative folks to think about these things.
Where I will block or mute on this topic is if I feel the person is all about bashing Wholesome Games more than they have a genuine interest in thinking about Orientalism - and I say that as an Asian. I am not well served that way by people (and I do notice when it's white people doing this and not fellow Asians. Some of you are really obvious in that respect) taking Orientalism and using that to push an agenda that is actually about their dislike of cosy games, or their dislike of Wholesome Games.
OK. Now I've said all that I am going to do other things. Because it's yet another day of predominantly white social media platforms being fucking weird about Asians, and meanwhile I have work to do. 😂
As a white person, or even a person close to whiteness, the cop in our head will often manifest as the impulse to get rid of anything that makes us uncomfortable. (This is perhaps even more pronounced if you're a cis woman).
The inability to be uncomfortable without lashing out is cop behavior. The impulse to protect whatever status quo you're comfortable in by attacking any sort of dissent is cop behavior.
Killing the cop in your head is a process, the bastard will keep coming back in ways that are less and less obvious to you.
Whiteness makes itself invisible by discrediting or hiding anything that will make you notice it. You're supposed to be comfy in your place in the hierarchy, you're supposed to feel good about yourself. It's hard to do that when you notice how unfair the hierarchy is, how your place in it has nothing to do with you as a person and everything to do with you as a class. It's hard to be complacent when you realize your privilege comes at other people's expense. Which is why we keep coming up with ways to hide behind ideas of meritocracy or post-racial society or Diversity through tokenism. So, when we notice, we feel uncomfortable. And the discomfort is alien to us, perceived as a threat we need to destroy.
The truth is that our comfort comes at a steep price that we're not the ones to pay. Forget the cop in your head, look at real-life cops: how much violence is perpetrated against Black people (and people of color in general) by equating white people's "comfort" and "a feeling of safety" with actual safety? Growing up in a society like that, of course we'd internalize these dynamics.
If you're a white cis woman, the deal the patriarchy makes with you is: your safety for your obedience. Not safety from white men, safety from the scary Other. It's a shit deal, which is why our culture is so invested in making it look like a good deal by making sure you're scared of the Other and you mistake your fear and discomfort for actual danger. Can't have intersectional solidarity, after all.
Now it's easy to see these dynamics when it comes to police violence (remember the woman that tried to sic the cops on a Black man for asking her to leash her dog?), but they exist on different levels and at different scales.
Like, say, someone saying something you like hurts them and you feeling uncomfortable because you hadn't noticed or you didn't want to notice because you like the thing. And because you're uncomfortable, you need to get rid of the source of that discomfort as soon as possible. Discredit, hide and eliminate it. Feeling uncomfortable feels like a threat or like something is done to you. So you either run away from the source of discomfort (ignoring the problems that were raised) or you eliminate it (discredit the person pointing at the problem or attack them in some way).
We have to learn to be uncomfortable. We have to practice interrogating our discomfort, face it and feel bad and still be able to engage with whatever it is that made us feel that way. The cop in your head will tell you that your discomfort is harm being done to you, that you should retaliate or get rid of the source. The cop in your head thinks conflict will always end with someone wearing the boot and someone being stomped on, and you need to make sure you're the boot.
Kill the cop in your head.
