When my brain started combining the complexity of being Black in America with the real world proposal of wandering and exploration that is designed into the gamplay of Pokemon GO, there was only one conclusion. I might die if I keep playing.
This week has proven he’s not wrong.
Indeed and thanks for sharing. The lack of empathy and the “if you’re not with us you’re against us and damn nuance” mentality in USA from both knowingly and unknowingly racist people is astounding.
But all he says is totally unrelated to the game. He is a black living in the USA and is upset of blacks persecution, scared bad things will happen if he do things outside. He may be perfectly right, but how is that a problem with the game? If human interaction is a problem for him, then he should stay home and play solitaire. OR do something to fix the root of the problem, which is a social and cultural one.
Thank you. Pokemon Go isn’t the first AR exploration game by a long shot; hell, Niantic’s own Ingress (which I play) has been around since 2012. My best friend, who got me into Ingress, and who happens to be black, has no fear of wandering around Savannah, Georgia where he lives. That city is in the southern part of a southern state with a long history of racial issues, and he gets by just fine wandering around looking at his phone.
Granted, he’s smart and watches his surroundings, and he’s a sample of one.
Oh, well, that’s okay then. We’re all equal, as long as some of those equal people have to be more wary about setting off people’s suspicions than others.
I don’t think you get the point that it’s imperative of any player of any AR game to stay alert and aware. Niantic even added a warning at the startup of both games to “stay aware of your surroundings” mostly as a response to a player literally walking to his death off a pier.
Or do you want to try to imply that race had something to do with that man’s death?
Neither of the article, or your previous example, mentioned the guy walking off the pier. In fact, your previous example also brought up the idea of your friend being a black person in the “racist South”. At which point, you differentiated him as being more aware of surroundings.
So it seems you are now trying to divert away from the actual point at hand with an irrelevant side step. Or your earlier comment was irrelevant and complete non-sequitur.
Your choice.
Your reading comprehension needs a tune up. My point was that despite his race my friend, and anyone else who plays AR games should remain alert and aware, as they are inherently dangerous. Niantic’s decision to add a disclaimer to both games is a response to an incident that is wholly unrelated to the article here, but I felt it was worth mentioning. I’m not saying race plays a factor in how one would be perceived playing AR games, I’m saying that playing AR games should be done with care and alertness, period.
Maybe your writing needs a tune up. Or you were caught making a ridiculous statement, either way. Or you were trying to do a sneaky bait-and-switch.
You continue to deliberately miss my point. All I can conclude is that you don’t have a solid rebuttal so you build a straw man instead.
I’ll say it point blank so you can understand: I feel that the issue with AR games is that they are inherently dangerous regardless of race or other differentiator. This has been proven many times with the game Ingress and it’s going to be the same with Pokemon Go.
Your rebuttal? I’m betting you don’t have one and once again you’ll misquote me and intentionally misconstrue what I said no matter how plainly I state it. Please for the love of Cthulhu, prove me wrong and offer a coherent counterpoint, or else please do us all a favor and move on.
Considering people have corrected you and others over what the article was about, your continued pursuit of your line of argument is the straw man here.
Discuss the points made by the article or move on.
* And no, I didn’t misquote you. I quoted the exact words you said, in the exact order they appeared, in the context they appeared. You continue to not address the issue in the context of the article.
Edited 2016-07-10 03:51 UTC
Sure! And it’s probably more dangerous on top of that if you’re black. Right?
I don’t think that’s too controversial, or takes away from other people possibly being in the same boat too!
…maybe that is why he chose to write about it?
Please though, go back to playing Pokemon Go, as it obviously is weighing heavily on your mind right now.
ps. I usually hate these kinds of articles, but this one was actually cleaver (and spot on). Kudos to the author. He didn’t lash out at anyone, he didn’t try and put anyone down in the process, he just used a silly game to make a rather poignant point.
Its very sad that in many places in the USA he is unfortunately right.
The human interaction problem is not on his end. He is doing what he can to mitigate the problem that lighter skinned people have irrational fear of people with darker skin.
He is doing something to fix the problem. He is writing about it using a very topical game as means of making the problem apparent to people who don’t have the same problem. When made aware of other peoples difficulties, normal f***ing people feel compelled to assist or the very least not make things worse.
“The human interaction problem is not on his end. He is doing what he can to mitigate the problem that lighter skinned people have irrational fear of people with darker skin.”
In my town, if a black man walks around in circles in a black neighborhood he is quite likely to get shot by another black man.
I go geocaching every so often. And like with this game, I am often wandering in circles around an area. I have been stopped by the police before. Not once have I been concerned that I may be shot. –But I am white!–
I very well may have been treated with far more suspicion if I had been black. This is a sad fact.
nicubunu,
I don’t want to be insensitive to very real issues, but I also felt the game reference didn’t belong in this piece at all. To me, it doesn’t mesh well to use statements that, when taken literally, are false. The facts in the cases are shocking enough without hyperbole.
I find it kind of weird that we’ve had terrorist attacks throughout the world, nothing on osnews, many unarmed deaths at the hands of police, nothing, but now because a single gamer has something to say about it, osnews gets an article. I’m left to conclude the only reason Thom linked to this post was the hyperbole, so perhaps it’s more effective than I thought, although I’m still bothered that this news only comes in the context of gaming.
Edited 2016-07-09 12:11 UTC
This was a terrorist attack against the Dallas cops. Nothing else.
Well the first problem is terrorist is a word that can not be used without a context. What someone might think is a terrorist. Others will not.
So terrorist is a word I wouldn’t use for comparing other things with.
Edited 2016-07-11 14:01 UTC
This wasn’t a game review.
No, its not completely un related. Most traditional games don’t require a player to wander around. This does. Too many idiots here don’t understand because they haven’t had to understand.
If he follows the game, he has a statistically higher probability of dying. If he just does what he normally does and interacts the with the world on his own terms in areas where he feels he is safe.
You’re like arguing that drunk driving doesn’t cause accidents, because you have to drive to get around our modern world and driving is inherently dangerous. Of course it is, but drinking increases that risk. Pokemon go increases that risk for a number of people for a number of reasons.
I even wouldn’t play pokemon go on some of my neighborhood, because of security reason, and I’m white.
So what?
So you can probably understand the OP’s problem, even if from a different perspective.
Being mugged is definitely a problem anyone could face while playing Pokemon Go (or while doing any other activity) depending on where he lives and where he goes while playing.
Having police apply letal force on you because you look suspicious while playing (or while doing any other perfectly legit activity) is a problem too.
I don’t see why someone shouldn’t express their concerns about the later just because the former also happens.
Using new technology is always risky, because some hillbilly might not understand what you are doing and feel threatened.
When Bitcoin was all the hype, sometimes law enforcement would raid miner’s homes for using suspicious amounts of electricity.
if you look at some pure stats in 2010 and 2011 there were 4906 black on black murders. FBI data source.
between 1980 and 2008 52% of murders in the US were committed by blacks even though they are ~20% of the population:
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
if you are in the US and you are black statistically you should be scared of other people. now…most of those murders are from gang hits in cities like chicago, east st louis, etc…
and more number fun:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DqQNfjf4zKAJ:w…
Edited 2016-07-09 14:08 UTC
Don’t give him facts … because facts are racism.
Heterosexual white males, the only group that you are still allowed to hate according to SJW.
Nah, there’s actually a few more. Rich people, police officers, southerners, Christians… they’re all fair game.
Milo isn’t allowed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS_1bzaj2fw
Facts are fine, as long as you’re willing to put the required effort in to drawing thoughtful conclusions; i.e. not confusing correlation and causation.
bnolsen,
It’s interesting that those stats show that people are more likely to be struck by lighting than to be killed by police. Killing by police is relatively rare, that’s really just the tip of the iceberg though; day to day racism and harassment is far more prevalent.
In NYC the police are given the go to stop and search the public without cause (which is a blatant violation of constitutional rights IMHO). About 9 in 10 of those stopped are black or latino.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/nypd-stop-and-frisks-15-sh…
These stops do very little to stop crime and end up affecting innocent pedestrians who’s only mistake was to cross paths with police. Think about what that kind of systemic harassment by law enforcement would do to you and the community when you don’t have the right to be left alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01rsXYIXOrU
I find this harassment by Minnesota police against a black man to be very hard to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N30tT93FChQ
Seriously if I were there beside this man I would strongly want to help this guy, but I would have been arrested and charged with police obstruction (and possibly killed) for doing the moral thing and attempting to stop the police abuse. What does this say about my own values if I just stand away and let it happen?
Before you know it you can watch hundreds of these videos of persecution at the hands of police, it makes you feel angry and helpless.
Edited 2016-07-10 16:27 UTC
Really disturbing and the problem with that is that many times cops cross the line and don’t get what they deserve, unhonored discharge and charges related to breaking the law.
You see, there are already provisions on law to handle that cases, the solution is not to rise the tensions by painting it as racist only, clearly the main problem is that the cops broke the law and as so should be prosecuted and punished. It could also have happened to an unemployed miserable white or Latino and the outcome should be the same, punishment because of breaking the law stepping on someone else rights.
acobar,
What you are saying is true, but it’s not helpful for racial tensions that the majority of victims are black or ethnic. I understand that procedurally it shouldn’t matter at all, and I completely agree police abuse needs to stop across the board. But I don’t know that we can ignore the fact that police encounters are much likelier to go bad just for being black.
And I really don’t know how to fix it. A lot of the bad incentives comes from higher up the chain of command. Police departments are notorious for defending bad outcomes. Part of that may be a “we defend our own no matter what” culture, but external factors such as the lawyer frenzy in the US may make it extremely difficult to come forward and sincerely apologize for mistakes, forcing departments to contest everything as no fault of their own.
Another part is just training; US police often respond with force rather than reason. Obviously there are times when it’s necessary, but sometimes it’s them who escalate the situation to the point of violence. It’s never ok for police to be the instigators. How can communities feel safe when the very people who are supposed to be helping are aggressors who bring us into harms way?
Deaf women gets tased and thrown in jail for three days after calling 911 for help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBO4-Be2F4
Even if they’re initially confused, as was the case here, it’s just shameful that they were unwilling & unable to deescalate the situation. But what makes the case far worse is that the department never admitted their mistake or issued an apology for what they did. How dehumanizing is that? It’s hard to trust law enforcement has your back when they care so little about the consequences of their actions.
Edited 2016-07-11 17:20 UTC
If the law were observed we wouldn’t have had this dialog to start so, to me, clearly the main fault is the fact that someone’s rights were neglected. Again, I really think that there is no other way to handle bad situations other than in the most impersonal form as possible, it will inhibit the use of special “justifications” for wrong actions and helps to undermine the self-defense rings created by groups, like those displayed by cops, politicians, doctors and so on.
Of course, I am aware that, if you are a victim, things are personal, very personal, but that does not help to de-escalate the emotions nor will foster the appreciation of the subject with impartiality, it will, most of the time, deteriorate to claims and counterclaims of persecution, prejudice and so on.
Edited 2016-07-11 21:52 UTC
acobar,
I respect your opinion and I sincerely believe your intentions behind removing race from consideration are well meaning. However with that said, I think a problem in practice is that even within the bounds of the law, police naturally have a great deal of latitude with which to exhibit racial prejudices. They have complete discretion over who they stop, they can choose to be intimidating and snarky or polite and cooperative, they can choose who to let off and who to throw the book at, they choose their level of aggressiveness towards any given group. I’m afraid that merely saying the law was followed is just not enough. It’s an important step of course, but police culture needs to change more fundamentally to be respectful of all groups. And frankly that’s going to be impossible to do without having this discussion about race, which has to start by acknowledging the problem.
Edited 2016-07-11 22:47 UTC
Alfman,
We, as a society, have been discussing unfair treatments of specific groups even before the civil rights movement, we are all already very aware of the problem, still, nothing changes if penalties are not delivered, and justice can not be served appropriately if we keep looking at how the perpetrator and the victim looks like from the beginning, it just collides with the general principles of the law, i.e., regardless of your specificities you should be treated like any other citizen. I know it is, perhaps, just the ideal.
Granted, I think that after culpability is established some worsening to the sentence can and should be applied. I also think that following this pattern the procedures are way faster, the cases where this is the norm seems to indicate it.
Last, please, never respect my opinion, disclose its flaws or enhance the premises and consequences, that is what exposition of opinions are for, to foster the debates and help educate ourself. Lets save respect to beings and use the opinions to improve our evaluation of them. By the way, hold you at high regard.
Cheers.
Here’s a fact for you — 25% of black men in the united states have been permanently barred from voting.
That’s not a side effect — that’s the point of the police brutality. Get as many in the system as possible. Provoke provoke provoke.
Lets not mention the cops that got sniped by a guy who wanted to “kill white people”, there is pretty much close to a race war going on in the USA at the moment … and you equate it to this nonsense in pokemon Go. Christ Sakes.
Walking around with an expensive phone in a strange manner is going to bring all sorts of attention whatever your skin colour.
That’s evidently not true. You may wish it to be true, but it’s not. It’s not actually about the phone, it’s about engaging in the same behaviours/actions and the disproportionate suspicion heaped on one group over another.
Like the neighbours who called the police because a couple’s adopted son who was black went into his own house. Or the “Middle Eastern” looking guy (who was actually Italian) who was doing maths on a plane and some white woman delayed the flight because of suspicion.
You can’t tell me a white person engaged in those similar activities would have raised equal suspicion and responses.
This just doesn’t happen in the UK. People mind their own business unless you are being a dick.
It ultimately depends to where you live like I alluded above. I used to live in an area where there was high number cars stolen. Me and a friend was walking to his house with a spare guitar hero controller. It was stuffed strangely in my bag.
We were stopped by the cops because I had something strange looking in my bag and there are a lot of cars stolen and set on fire.
My friend is from Pakkistan and was taking turns hold the bag at the time and they stopped him, not me.
Was that racism … no.
I don’t live in the USA but a lot of the cops are proper gun-ho compared to European cops.
But I have also dealt while living in Spain with Guardia Civil, which are a para-military force, they have a force at the Gibraltarian border called the cobras. I’ve had friends beaten up because they didn’t co-operate and I had a gun put in my face more than once and I white. BTW this was in another high crime area.
Edited 2016-07-09 16:10 UTC
The article in question talks about the situation in the US.
Yes I know.
Your bringing up of unrelated anecdotes seem to indicate otherwise…
No I alluded to the fact it is more to do with the US and their gun-ho cops. Generally UK police don’t act like this, but almost nobody in the UK owns a firearm.
Edited 2016-07-10 20:19 UTC
That’s the point; your experience as a white man, with the UK police, is pretty irrelevant when discussing the experience of a black man, with American police.
Besides, just because private gun ownership is frown upon in your country, it does not mean your society doesn’t have its own deep seated issues regarding racism and xenophobia.
Private gun ownership is not frowned upon, it is heavily controlled and you have to have a good reason to have a gun and even then there are many restrictions.
Racism is pretty much frowned upon in the UK, I’ve haven’t met a racist in years.
Xenophobia is a tricky one, even people that are second or third generation immigrants I have spoken to in the UK think we should have a points based approach to immigration because we have also 1/4 of the population of the US in a space that fits within one of your states.
Edited 2016-07-11 19:05 UTC
Sheltered white kid assesses an issue that does not affect him, by making it about him, concludes there is no issue. News at 11…
OH THE IRONY!! In a discussion that involves racism you are trying to invalidate someone’s opinion based on race.
BTW countries I have lived in (except for England as I was born there) are Spain, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. Sorry but I am obviously not sheltered.
How about you stop making assumptions based on someone’s race … it seems the racist is you.
Edited 2016-07-11 21:55 UTC
Dumbass doesn’t realize that people analyze issues based on their own experiences in life. News at 11.
My local Ingress group is mostly white adult males, with some Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and Pacific Islanders, and a few women and young adults across the ethnic groups. Guess who gets stopped and questioned by the police most often when playing the game? The older white men. It’s purely about percentages; older white men make up roughly 60% of our group, and they are stopped much more often than the minority players. Again, it’s a relatively small sample size but there you have it. I don’t buy that a minority playing Ingress or Pokemon is more at risk than a white person. What I believe is that anyone playing such a game is putting themselves at risk if they don’t watch their surroundings and play safely.
To put it another way, substitute “black man playing Pokemon while walking down the street” with “black man walking down the street”. Virtually the same activity, but he is at more risk playing the game not because he is black, but because he potentially isn’t paying as much attention to his environment while playing.
We’ve had local white players chased out of cemeteries by the police, and we’ve had minority players told that the business owners on the town square feel safer because they are out there in the evening hours playing the game, which gives a presence of community.
You see, the world isn’t as black or white as you would prefer it to be; we don’t all fit inside your tiny box of preconceived notions.
Ha.
Funny.
Downvoted for pointing out the facts.
Sounds like it’s the anti-SJWs who are the ones who can’t handle facts.
What facts? All you presented were a bunch of anecdotes taken from stuff that you happened to remember being in the news.
Edited 2016-07-10 22:34 UTC
there’s no race war in america, unless you are a cop or someone targetted by a cop.
the cops have shown no real interest in non-lethal traffic stops. they are getting more militarized.
2 wrongs don’t make a right, i know this. but in my town the cops have *murdered* several african-american people, including a 13 year old boy with a plastic gun, in the last year.
i don’t know how many members of my family or community would need to get gunned down by a trigger happy cop before i started shooting back. it wouldn’t be many. i don’t even have a gun b/c of the crazy chit i see in my life.
Just a bunch of Whitesplainin’ there.
The Dallas police chief is black. His son (a drug addict) killed a police officer and was in turn shot killed by a police officer.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dallas-police-chief-david-brown-000000980…
The suggestion that white vigilante cops are routinely killing law abiding black men is total BS
in my town the white cops shoot first then cover it up. tamir rice was a 13 year old playing with a plastic gun. an old neighbor called 911 “I think it’s a kid with a toy” he reported. the 911 operator translated that to “armed black male” and the cops arrived shooting first. they sped their car through the bushes, directly next to the kid, and shot him in his chest at point blank range, killing him.
how is that not murder? they have bullhorns, mouths, radios, etc. to warn that kid. to tell him he’s scaring people. to put the plastic gun down. none of that happened. they drove next to him and killed him.
if there’s evidence the prosecutor ignores it.
those cops did no time, i bet they still have a job, i bet they do the same behavior again, and more dead innocents.
Where those sustained in Court? If so, that kid case is very depressing.
I’m a little out of the loop game wise, but this is a game right? Does the linked blog focus much on the technology behind it, or is he all about gamer demographics? Which is cool too if you are fan of the franchise.
I really would like to see things handled other way. Yes, USA society is very racist, it was already the time I lived there 15 years ago and the current climate exacerbated it. I had white and black friends and one group was always complaining about the other in off.
I really think that it is as mistake to handle things with strong emphasis on race, religion or things like that. It make things even more divisive. I am also very aware that these may be very well at full play in many cases but I would prefer things to be treated in the most impersonal way as possible, you did wrong things, got catch, pay the price. Similar wrongdoing, similar penalties and, yes, I know this is not how things are handled on USA right now, specially if you are poor and black.
I also have advocated the social incentives should be at play based on economics instead of genre, race, religion, sexual identification or else so as to lower the “us against them” typical view.
People are already very defensive and have this habit of offload their mistakes to external influences and, even though they have some impact, most of times most of the burden are a direct consequence of their own choices and acts, many carried out by years of inconsequential ill-thought choices.
Scientifically speaking there is one race, the human race, lets not get divisive appointed things make things even worse and get in our way to improve the whole society and take the center of the discussions.
White people shouldn’t be calling the police anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHy_gNnBDuE
(I’m sort of joking, hopefully that is OK on this topic)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/07/13/pokmon-go-addict-s…
White guy got stabbed while playing it as we are playing these days.
Edited 2016-07-13 10:55 UTC