prejudice – The Oracle

Gunn gamers share experiences with prejudices in the gaming community

Victor Dang, News Editor — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 05:14:59 +0000

When English teacher Terence Kitada was younger, he witnessed his sister, an avid video game enthusiast, struggle to find acceptance in gaming communities dominated by her male peers.

“(When my sister went) off to college and she was like, ‘Want to play Mario Kart?’ all the boys were surprised,” he said. “They were like, ‘What, you know how to play this? But you’re a girl!’”

This sentiment still persists. Marginalized individuals who play video games in the modern day face toxicity and harassment from other gamers much more frequently than their non-marginalized peers. A 2021 study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, an organization that works to reduce negative stereotyping in entertainment and media, found that 50% of gamers between the ages of 16 and 19 witnessed homophobic language while playing video games. Of the same age group, 47% witnessed racist language, 41% reported seeing sexist language and 41% reported ableist language.

Female gamers today are often forced to guard themselves from sexist and sexual comments from men. According to the 2021 Geena Davis Institute study, men “were found to feel more entitled to express social dominance in the virtual world than in the real world, because men outnumber women in networked video games and masculine behavior is typically rewarded.”

Special Education Instructional Lead and English teacher Briana Gonzalez has been harassed on the basis of her gender by fellow gamers.

“Far Cry: New Dawn had a co-op option that I really enjoyed, and unfortunately I just don’t participate in it anymore, just because the moment they hear my voice, it’s just really inappropriate,” Gonzalez said. “I unfortunately have experienced sexual harassment through online gaming.”

Senior Emma Cao, who is experienced with online gaming, has also found the world of gaming to be dangerous. She takes measures to minimize her chances of being harassed when interacting with other gamers online, though they are not foolproof.

“I protect myself a lot — like I don’t talk when I don’t need to,” she said. “I speak in a lower intonation. It sucks that (harassment) happens. You just have to pray that the loser named CatWoman420 doesn’t choose to hate you.”

Ableist language is also abundant in gaming communities. Senior Vincent Boling, who is autistic, has experienced hostility from other gamers because of his neurodivergence.

“(If) I was trying to communicate with my teammates, and I was maybe a little sloppy, or I was not always picking up on the implications of the signals, then I would definitely get pretty ragged on for that and called a lot of slurs and stuff,” Boling said. “There’s a lot of ignorance surrounding neurodiversity, and they definitely weaponize that.”

According to Kitada, video games’ allowance of anonymity facilitates online misbehavior and harassment.

“If you can’t see the reaction of the person you’re hurting, then it’s the sense of, ‘Oh, I can say whatever I want and just be as mean as I want,’” he said.

Despite the rampant negativity from other gamers, marginalized groups can find safe havens by forming sub-communities with gaming as a mutual interest. Gonzalez was a part of one such group.

“I found a really unique community at my undergrad: other people just like me, other girls also interested in gaming,” she said. “I could talk about Call of Duty: Black Ops, and before, that would never happen.”

Increasing the diversity of video game characters may also help marginalized gamers feel welcome in online spaces. In many games, character customization options are limited and don’t allow marginalized players to accurately represent themselves in the game.

“Especially if your characters are supposed to serve as your avatar, you’re supposed to create somebody who looks like you, right?” Kitada said. “What are the character creation options, or is it just standard like a bald, young white man? So many FPS (first-person shooter) games have that kind of character who’s the standard avatar. You’re like, ‘That’s not me.’”

One way to improve representation in video games is to introduce more diverse viewpoints into the game development process. The field is currently heavily male and white dominated, with 62% of developers identifying as male and 78% identifying as white, according to the International Game Developers Association 2021 Developer Satisfaction Survey.

“I just feel like companies need to be a part of this (diversification) process and re-evaluate their own culture and their own hiring practices,” Gonzalez said. “Because as long as you’re only hiring a certain group of people, that’s the content you’re gonna get in turn.”

According to Boling, harmful comments online often come from miseducation rather than malice. As such, these instances of bullying can be sometimes leveraged as opportunities for growth.

“A medium like a video game where you’re cooperating is a good time for people to learn and grow,” Boling said. “A lot of gamers are stubborn and old and terrible, but most of them aren’t. Most of them are just kind of cranky, but are genuinely willing to listen.”

Minority students speak about prejudice, stereotypes on campus

yangshannon — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 19:09:52 +0000

Written by Shannon Yang

When sophomore Aldric Bianchi walked onto Gunn’s campus his freshman year, he noticed that not many people looked like him. Because he was born here in the United States, Bianchi considers himself an American by nationality, but Bianchi also considers himself a minority at Gunn. His mother is Brazilian and black and his father is French and white, yet Bianchi describes himself to strangers as “mostly Brazilian [and] black.”

According to Gunn’s 2015-2016 school profile, 2 percent of the school’s student population is African-American, while 3 percent is two or more races. “Freshman year, I found it a bit hard finding people who were black or Brazilian or French, and I was kind of solo in a way,” Bianchi said. “There aren’t many at Gunn who are black [or] mixed either. We have a small population compared to a lot of other races, like Indian [and] Asian.”

In comparison, Palo Alto High School (Paly)’s student body is 3.9 percent African-American, a higher diversity level that Bianchi believes would be beneficial for Gunn. “What I see here at Gunn is mostly major races: white American, Asian or Indian,” Bianchi said. “Paly is much more diverse.”

Bianchi says he often receives stares from others who question his race. “Last year, people would make fun of me for looking Arabic or looking a different race that I’m not,” he said. “People would say I’m no race or I’m weird just because I’m mixed race.”

For senior Menna Mulat, one of the ways that prejudice manifested itself was in the classroom. “My teachers ask me if I need help a lot, which I don’t mind, but at the same time it’s like some teachers kind of single me and other black students out and say, ‘Are you doing good?’ or ‘You need help?’”

However, Bianchi says that although he’s been treated differently, the school setting has improved throughout the years. Teachers have begun to listen to him more attentively and he finds Gunn to be more of an inclusive place. “When I was younger, teachers would ignore me maybe or brush me off a bit more than other students, but here at Gunn I wouldn’t necessarily feel that way,” Bianchi said. “Most teachers are very inclusive, kind and caring towards all the students.”

However, Bianchi believes that there are two sides to the situation. According to Bianchi, Gunn sometimes treats all black students as students who require more help and assistance. Although the extra attention can be helpful and increase the chances of going to college—as has been the case with students from Black Student Union (BSU)—Bianchi believes there is a fine line between offering help and racism. “At the same time, I feel like those kind of things can only go to a certain extent before it becomes patronizing and racist in a way and kind of racially profiles students for certain traits or certain actions,” he said. “People act weird [when] wanting to help us because it seems that we need help [and] like we’re in a difficult position.”

Senior Marek Harris agrees with Bianchi and recognizes that there is a problem with the way that teachers address minority students. “I don’t think that the way [district is] approaching the situation is very good because they’re mostly focusing on the negatives,” he said. “They need to focus on a solution and making sure everyone is on board and the solution is the most accurate way to help everyone.”

Mulat also feels treated differently as a minority. Growing up in Atlanta, Mulat was used to a larger black population. “It’s hard to be a minority at Gunn because not everybody comes from the same route that I come from,” she said. “When I moved here and I went to Terman [Middle School], I was different. It was kind of hard to get used to that.”

Mulat and Bianchi agree that black students are often put into a box and expected to meet certain stereotypes. This expectation made Mulat’s transition more difficult because although she is a social person, non-black students would stereotype her. She says she often received comments such as: “If you’re black, you’re only good at sports.”; “If you’re black, you do bad at this test.”; “How do you have such good hair? You’re black.”; “How’d you do [well] on this test? But you’re black.”

Bianchi points out that black people are portrayed more negatively in the media, which affects how others see him. “There’s supposedly [so] many different kinds of white people, but when people look at us black people, they usually see someone who is very ghetto, doesn’t have [a] good education, does drugs or drinks alcohol and has a temper and is likely to get in fights with people,” Bianchi said.

Bianchi believes that although white students’ actions reflect on themselves as individuals, black students’ actions seem to reflect upon the whole race. “I think that people shouldn’t try to focus on this aspect,” he said. “They should focus on the person in front of them instead of putting this veil around them and turning them into someone they’re not.”

To deal with these issues, Mulat and Bianchi turn to BSU, a club at Gunn that is open to students of all races. Mulat describes it as a family. “We talk about how we can stop [stereotypes] and how we can have other people not think the same way,” Mulat said. “If you’re having a bad day or if you had someone talk bad about you or stereotype you, we talk about that and we try to solve it and kind of deal with it.”

In addition, Mulat ignores mean comments she receives from people. “I don’t let it get to me,” she said. “I usually just ignore it and move on with my day or let them know just because I’m black, [it] doesn’t mean I’m dumb or my hair is fake.”

Junior Sofia Murray, founder of the Latin American Culture Club, feels like her culture has been overlooked at Gunn. “A lot of people assume that all Latin Americans look Mexican, and when you think of someone who speaks Spanish, most people assume Mexican stereotypes,” she said.

Murray’s status as a “white-passing Latina” makes it easier for her to assimilate into Gunn culture. “People don’t assume that I’m Latin American because I look white,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of assumptions that aren’t made about me. I don’t think I get put under any of the stereotypes or anything like that because of the fact that I look white.”

Murray identifies 50-50 in between white and Mexican stereotypes, and her identity shifts based on whether she is at home or at school. “At home, I identify a lot more with my Latin side because I hang out with my grandma a lot,” she said. “She lives with us, so I speak a lot of Spanish at home. I think when I’m at school, I’m a lot whiter.”

Bianchi has not learned much about minorities from his experiences at Gunn. “I think it’s really left out in some places,” he said. “People are aware of recent things like Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I saw my friends talking about it, but I think only one of my teachers talked about it. You really could have gone deep into those kinds of things, but now it’s more of an emphasis on math and science and going to college.”

Looking forward, Bianchi hopes that Gunn can implement more programs to include minorities. “Maybe in the next few years, we could include programs to increase awareness of the minorities here and open our eyes to some of these things,” Bianchi said. “I think it’s important to be really aware and open-minded about not just the black community but other races as well.”