Ouch!

It is certainly part of it.

But seriously, fuck that noise.

I agree that MK definitely needs more non-white female characters. Personally I am hoping for a new black female character. Well, other than Ferra I mean. A solo character.

um... yeah let's add some "minorities" so they could feel better about their inferior selves because um... we might like.. sound like racist???????
I'd love to see some.. um.... yeah like non-white girls.



Fucking hell this is the worst shit I've ever read.

You're not exactly qualified to talk about anyone being inferior, what with you being a bigot, the lowest form of life.

An unnecessary thread about race on MKO turning ugly.

Are we all surprised? I'm not.

How was it a bad thread, exactly? Because I didn't act like we live in a post-racial world where most characters in fiction are still overwhelmingly white?

Always the same old shit anyway. Libs say "Race doesn't matter! There's no more racism in the media! Everything's fine and peachy!"" and then you get cons accusing non-white characters of only being there for the sake of racial diversity.

And all I did was innocently suggest that we get more non-white female characters. Guess that was just as racist as whatever that moron I just replied to said, heh?

Alright then, I'll just pretend playable female minorities in fighting games, or any genre really, aren't rare. Wow! I never thought wearing those rose-colored glasses would work! Everything is so peachy, and perfect now! Yep, never gonna take off those glasses, ever!

The fact that your all debating skin color must mean it's been far to long since we got anything Gameplay relevant to discuss.

News seems to be releasing allot slower than MK9

Never really knew this was an issue.

I like the diversity MK already has. Plus we don't know about these other newbies who have yet to be revealed.

Then again, when I delve into the list of attributes I like about a character, race doesn't even come up.

I certainly wasn't debating skin color when I posted this thread. It was just an innocent suggestion. But some people can't stand being reminded that we haven't acieved racial equality (thus making suggestions like mine a necessity), and some other people of course, are racist, but it's not like they matter, anyway.

It's a video game, not the Civil Rights Movement. And speaking as a minority myself- I don't even see an over abundance of white women based females in the first place. Seems more like you along with a few others are simply labeling every light skin female in the series as being "white based". It's ridiculous.

But, go ahead and all jump on me like a batch of screaming harpies from the hottest new season of Bad Girls Club. I'm out of here.

Whoa, really? I don't really have the sense that Ferra is black.

In any case I'd be pleased to have more fighters of color in the games. The vast majority of characters are white, east Asian, or of bizarre fictional races. It'd be nice to see more diversity and color (especially now that Jade, our racially ambiguous heroine of color, is dead).

But even more would I like to see NRS not absolutely beating us over the head with the fact that its characters of color are representative of their ethnicities. Nightwolf and Jax seem to be guilty of this. Jax's portrayal has gotten a lot better, but there was definitely a period where the entire concept of his character was 'LOOK HOW URBAN HE IS!' (Remember the bling from MKDA?)

I'm going to go ahead and say I don't care either way. I've never been concerned with race when looking at characters.

With respect, I don't think it's unnecessary. This is a franchise we all love, and for many people, it's really rewarding when a franchise we love reflects our personal values. If it doesn't reflect them, it's important to many people to examine how and why.

This assumes talking about any aspect of a video game is "necessary." I don't exactly put my MKO membership on my resume.

@ProfesserAnkha

"It's a video game, not the Civil Rights movement", yes, because obviously, asking for a little more racial equality in a video game would make said game less entertaining. Like you know, racial diversity cannot possibly make a game more entertaining.

Well, racial diversity is only a problem if you design minority characters just like Jax, and give them little character. Cyrax is a character. Jax is just the angry black man. Yes, I know MK has some stereotypical characters, but some of them have at least a little depth. Jax has almost none. Funnily, he's accepted by the fanbase, more than my suggested characters. Must be because the angry black man's considered a staple of fiction, while Native American women rarely appear even in minor roles.

And LOL at you saying that I consider any light-skinned character white. No, I don't. There are barely even any lighter-skinned non-white characters. I wouldn't care anyway. Li Mei's got a rather light skin tone, but to me she's obviously still Asian, or rather, looks Asian. Oh yeah, to these people saying they didn't deliberatly design her to be Asian(-like), being from Outworld and all, then tell me: why did they give her such an Asian-sounding name? And why was one of her outfits in MKD a Samurai armor? Heh.

She's not black.

What do you have against white women anyways? If they added 5 middle eastern women into the mix, would you be happy, or is there a certain ethnicity that you would like to see represented?

Jax has plenty of characterization though. Before Hsu Hao fucked with the OIA he was probably one of the calmest and most sensible characters. We get it, you don't like Jax but it's obnoxious how you keep reducing him to a racial stereotype when he exhibits like zero qualities of one.

Thing is... does any of this matter?

Personally, I don't care what ethnicities are represented, as long there is enough variation between the characters. ALL of them could be Asian for what I care, as long they don't look the same.

Take Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, for example. ALL of them (except maybe a few) are all Asian, more specifically Chinese and Japanese respectively. And though there are a few who appear alike, due to the quantity of characters, they are mostly very different from one another appearance wise and gameplay wise. There are even a few very pale and some very dark characters amongst them.

Overall, it doesn't matter what ethnicities there are. What matters is variation amongst the characters. Hence why I don't like the palette swap look.

Sometimes I think setting and style can make the matter more important. I'm not expecting a lot of black and latin people to pop in Dynasty Warriors because of the place and time but with something more modern I expect a bit more minority representation especially with talking reptiles running around.

What makes you think I have something against white women? All I'm asking is for them to stop immediatly picking white as the default ethnicity. That doesn't mean no more white women, that just means that when they come up with new characters, they shouldn't act as if any ethnicities other than white are "inappropriate" for them.

I mean, did Frost, Nitara, Ashrah, Kira and Kitana have to be white? Not saying it ruined them, and that NRS should change their race. I like them as they are. But the abundance of white characters in fiction means that when they designed those characters, they probably didn't think any race other than white would fit them.

Do feel free to tell me they would have made all of these women black if they wanted, but somehow ended up making all of them white by complete accident. Since whites aren't favored and all.

As for five new middle-eastern female characters, I'd like it, if they made sure to also give all of them interesting stories and designs. To design them like they designed characters such as Kitana and Sub-Zero, you know, with care and passion. Why care about new female characters being non-white then, well because it would be refreshing. And because I admit to wanting attractive female characters of the more rarely shown ethnicities within the roster.

Guess I'll be accused of only wanting eye candy now.

I'm sure that you've heard the phrase “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. That's what category this falls into.

If the characters ethnicity was default black, some people would be upset. If it was default white, some people would be upset. No one can win. The only thing that can be done is add more people of different skin color/ethnicity. Makes the most sense, right? Maybe not.

If you add a bunch of female characters of an ethnicity other that white, you're just flipping the problem on its head, because then, in the eyes of someone else, we won't have enough white women in the game. Unfortunately, this is a no-win scenario. Equality can never truly be reached until we are all one people ...... one race ...... the human race.

Unfortunately the way you started this thread and the way you are discussing it aren't translating the same.

More minority ideas, yes. It would feel nice if we as players felt that strong ideas for asian, black, middle eastern characters came up as frequently as white characters. I do also think we have to realize who is making the game and what they believe the audience will be. Maybe if more of a minority audience was visible they would get more presentation.

I agree that Jax and his past alt was ridiculous. Also Darrius had a pretty bad one as well back in MKD. Midway could've kept those, but it didn't matter to me anyways I don't like EITHER of the characters. It'd be nice if one of the ninjas was darker skinned or more ambiguous, but NRS doesn't need to make a new one for the sake of it. Hmmm maybe Tremor.....

"Honestly I'm really hoping for some ethic, jewish, lesbian women in wheel chairs who are mentally disabled. Also they're cybernetic vampires. But maybe thats just me because I'm so incredibly not racist or sexist unlike most people on this site! Go ahead and accuse me of being a fantastic human being you sick racists!"

-DG1OA

I'm all for more non-white women, but I don't have a racial quota when it comes to my fighting games. Its just not that important to me compared to other things. Maybe that means I'm trying to pretend racism doesn't exist, or maaaaybe I don't feel the need to be a self righteous asshat whenever I get the moral high ground. Congratz on finding some racial injustice though man, I'm sure everybody but you had forgotten how unfair the world can be. And twist my post into an attack on you for "innocently suggesting more racial diversity" and not for acting like such a combative dick about it. And say you just got passionate about the issue too, that way you can continue to talk down to people. Even if doing so greatly distracts from the validity of your argument, but what do you care you're an asshat.

DG1OA, do you even follow Jax's storyline and character? It's clear you don't like him, but he's the calm one while Sonya has the personality of the "angry black man" you speak of.