Race and Identity in Digital Media

First and Foremost i apoligize for my late posting....I enjoyed reading Proffesor Nakamura's article, because it deals with a subject that is very present within todays gaming community. She begins by explaing online racists microaggression, which occurs very often in online gameplay. She then goes on to explain neoliberalism which "celebrates freedom, progress, and individualism." She goes onto explain that the virtual mcommunities we play in would be ideal neoliberal space, because through the anonymous avatars that are created gender and race cannot be seen. She then goes onto explain gold farming and how it came about and what its purpose was. She then closes out the article by talking about the game aganist all odds which puts its player in the situation of being a refugee and forces you to make decesions that effect whether or not you make it out alot. This game is seen as a form of education beacsue while playing you get insight into what these refugees experience, also there are links that are provided that allow the players to get more information about issues involving the refugees.

I found it really interesting when professor talked about online microaggression within her article. This is a subject that hits home for me because i experience it often, although i am at times guilty of trash talking i know where to draw the line. We see through online gameing that people are willing to say anything to get into the mind of the person they are playing aganist, this can often lead to racists or sexists comments which are often used. I often wonder ways that this can be controlled or if there can be a penalty enforced to crack down on these issues, and i cant seem to come up with any ways to do this without enfringing the freedom that we all desire within gaming communities.


What are some ways that we can control the online racists microagression that we see in gaming today?