If you aren’t familiar with the Resident Evil 5 “controversy”, it has to do with the fact that Resident Evil 5 takes place in Africa (apparently, according to Adam Sessler, the writers were in part inspired by the Black Hawk Down story), and the zombies shown in the newly released trailer are black.  Some people, in particular N’Gai Croal, a tech editor at Newsweek, are crying foul. They claim the trailer shows that the game may, intentionally or unintentionally, be “racist”. Croal states: “There was stuff like even before the point in the trailer where the crowd turned into zombies. There sort of being, in sort of post-modern parlance, they’re sort of “othered.” They’re hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who’s coming to help the people. It’s like they’re all dangerous; they all need to be killed.”

All dangerous? All need to be killed? We ARE talking about ZOMBIES here. The ZOMBIE race. As in NOT PEOPLE. As in itchy, hungry, flesh-eating, brain-dead monsters. BUT I will humor Croal here for a minute and consider them “people” of black race. In that context is the game racist?

As far as I’m concerned, in that case an argument could possibly be made (if they were not ZOMBIES, as in NOT EVEN HUMAN). HOWEVER…. and this is a BIG HOWEVER… if this game was “racist” in that case, then every other installment of Resident Evil, heck, every other game that was ever made with zombies that uses zombies of ANY race is racist towards that race. That includes the caucasian zombies in Resident Evil 1. Where was the outcry then??? It’s ok if it’s one race, but not another? If there’s one thing I hate more than political correctness it’s a DOUBLE STANDARD. If black zombies are racist then white zombies are racist against whites and every other race of zombies would be racist also. So to not offend anyone, all zombies from now on would have to be ALIENS from another galaxy… or should we worry about being “racist” towards them, too? I’m sure someone in the world would even complain about that.

Give me a break. I have absolutely no problem with people of other races, religions, or cultures. Which is why I support “EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ZOMBIE-ISM”. I swear, if some of these people weren’t complaining they were in the game they’d be complaining that they weren’t included in the zombie role in any of the games.

One thing that really bugs me is that Adam Sessler spoke of his support for Croal’s position on X-Play last night. I enjoy Sessler’s points of view on games and watch his show often, and I was surprised to hear this coming from him. There is nothing any more racist about the Resident Evil 5 trailer than any other trailer for any other zombie game. I look forward to buying my copy on launch day, and I feel sorry for anyone who misses out on it because their feeling of being offended is completely misguided and misdirected.