WGSS414: WK7 Blog / Power, Privilege and Control as Entertainment in Gaming

According to David J. Leonard, “Systemic racism is the most dominating controller inside and outside of virtual reality, a world produced by the White male-dominated video game industry” (Leonard, 141). Mainly, once the virtual world in video games is critiqued, systemic racism, heteropatriarchy, and violence against women and Black people are used as entertainment and thus contribute to the axes of oppression and erasure that marginalized folks and communities experience. As a queer person and casual video gamer, the violence, harm, and systemic oppression viewed and experienced in video gaming are unavoidable, even more so in the online chat that occurs through gameplay as well. While Leonard primarily discusses Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) since then, games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, another release from Rockstar gaming creates a similar virtual world that does not challenge white-male dominated gaming and society. Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) is another Rockstar series where the “othering” of marginalized people and communities are efforts that maintain power and control or frankly, “move white characters forward” (“The Intersection | Racism, Liberalism, and ‘Red Dead Redemption 2′”). 

Besides, moving white characters forward in the virtual world is the core of the american history of white colonialism. Manifest destiny, the genocide of Native Americans and Indigenous Sovereign Nations and people, and romanticizing the “Wild West” as a feminine spiritual rebirth to be controlled, diminished, and dominated is precisely the toxic and oppressive environment that Rockstar games created in Red Dead Redemption Series. Ultimately, both the Grand Theft Auto series and Red Dead Redemption series are part of the contemporary institutionalized racism, or rather new ways for the white-male dominated gaming industry to play colonizer or a virtual manifest destiny. Whether conquering and controlling people and businesses in Los Santos or becoming a “cowboy” in the West to save your family, men are in power, and other characters exist within the real-life axes of oppression, with unstable family lives, classist, and sexist portrayals. In a white male-dominated society, these virtual worlds and types of gameplay only contribute to systemic racism and oppression of women and are part of the institutional violence towards marginalized communities and women. 

Works Cited

Leonard, David J. “Grand Theft Auto V: Post-Racial Fantasies and Ferguson Realities.” The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online, edited by Safiya Umoja Noble and Brendesha M. Tynes, vol. 105, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2016, pp. 129–44.

“The Intersection | Racism, Liberalism, and ‘Red Dead Redemption 2.'” THE DEVIL STRIP, 13 Feb. 2019, https://thedevilstrip.com/the-intersection-racism-liberalism-and-red-dead-redemption-2/.

WGSS414: WK6 Blog / The Digital World and Identity​ Erasure

Sarah T. Roberts’ article “Commerical Content Moderation: Digital Laborers’ Dirty Work” identifies how CCM employees, mass media, and corporations control and maintain systems of oppression affecting women and other marginalized communities. For example Roberts explains, “It can appear that content just naturally exists, and should exist, in the digital ecosystem, rather than it often being the result of a decision-making process that has weighed the merits of making it available against the result of removing it, or a system that simply has not been able to deal with it yet” (149). Mainly, when digital content or UCC challenges these social normatives, marginalized communities may remain silenced. Ultimately most social normative or “standards” of beauty, “coolness,” sexuality, age, and (dis)abilities create unearned privileges for women and folks within a white, cis-gendered, able-bodied, higher social class, and higher educated people. Silencing and erasure of their truth and experiences are controlled, approved, or denied through CMM workers at the guidance of mass media and corporations. Futhermore, the censorship of content in the digital world has the power to either challenge or advance institutional violence, as well. Accordingly, when specific content is deemed (in)civil, or too challenging to unspoken rules, regulations, and sociocultural normative which all uphold institutionalized racism and oppression for marginalized communities, US mass media and pop-cultural become signifiers and part of the systemic oppression. What content brings more money to a platform, corporation or company, or has the chance to become viral, regardless of the harm and violence it may cause or sustain will go uncensored, or be appropriated based on cultural differences in efforts to capitalize on financial profits. Like all scenes, words, actions, and beyond are orchestrated in film making and other media types of popular culture, we must critique the digital world through these same lenses. We must work to dismantle the hate, harm, erasure, stereotypes, and violence that leak into these platforms and support the axes of oppression within folks’ social locations and identities.

Works Cited

Roberts, Sarah T. “Commerical Content Moderation: Digital Laborers’ Dirty Work.” The Intersectional Internet: Race. Sex, Class, and Culture Online, edited by Safiya Umoja Noble and Brendesha M. Tynes, vol. 105, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2016, pp. 148–59.

WGSS414: WK5 Blog / Wikipedia As Activism

Both online and offline, social normative gendering is evident in many ways and contexts. Everything from folks being assumed a normative gender in a polite public conversation, to products in the health and well-being sections of stores, clothes, toys, mass media, etc. While identity safe-spaces online and offline in my personal experience, seem to be improving, the change is mostly based on idenity-safe language becoming normalized and in turn, social spaces more inclusive because of visibility. Wikipedia, whether intentionally or not, supports and is part of the social change taking place to create identity-safe spaces both online and offline. Online, using gender-neutral language allows for any folks being described, citations and sources not to have their gender-identity assumed or become part of hegemonic gendering from editors who may not know how a person identifies. Furthermore, at times, gendering may be irrelevant to the article and content.

Mostly, social change occurs through both smaller instances of activism and more extensive outreach. The gender-neutral language used on Wikipedia signifies activism efforts that contribute to creating identity-safe spaces online and as a result, are a part of an intersectional social movement. Collectively identity-safe language and spaces in mass media and pop culture are necessary to confront hegemonic ideas of gender. Within Wikipedia’s policy, folks who embody many social locations may feel further welcomed to make contributions to Wikipedia articles. Ultimately, the more diverse and marginalized communities that have access to these articles and also feel safe, making contributions are part of the activism that challenges several social normatives.

WGSS414: WK4 Blog / The Round House and the genocide of Indigenous women

The Round House by Louise Erdrich succeeds in revealing the layered ways in which Indigenous women and folks navigate the axes of oppression. Particularly after learning about the act of violence against Geraldine and how critical it is to understand the exact point of the location where the attack took place. The location of the attack essentially determines who has jurisdiction over processing the crime, all of which allows different rights and sits within a complicated territorial line of stolen land and nation sovereignty laws. Additionally, the discussion of location and how to proceed is regularly handled by men in power, both Indigenous and white. However, it all revolves and exists within the systems of oppression facing women.

Erdrich confirms how land rights are part of the systemic oppression and state violence suffered by Indigenous women and folks daily. With this knowledge, understanding the complications surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous women becomes even more apparent. The story of Geraldine in The Round House helps understand a crucial part of how and why so many cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women go unsolved, along with how many missing and murdered Indigenous women are not afforded justice through the acknowledgment of violence. All of which contributes to the erasure of their identities and stories.

Moreover, there are currently four federal legislation acts to address the state violence that is the crisis and genocide of missing and murdered Indigenous women. In addition to the federal legislation, the following states also have state legislation to address, share data, and declare emergencies: Arizona, California, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington.

Works Cited

Goforth-Ward, Meg. “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Legislation.” Urban Indian Health Institute (blog), May 17, 2019. https://www.uihi.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-legislation/.

“MMIW Crisis,” September 13, 2019. https://www.doi.gov/ocl/mmiw-crisis.