Currently there are no playable black female characters, but Sojourn is suppose to be included with OW2.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Overwatch's new Mei skin draws criticism for cultural appropriation (Read staff post)
- Thread starter bye
- Start date
Currently there are no playable black female characters, but Sojourn is suppose to be included with OW2.
User banned (1 month): dismissing concerns around cultural appropriation
I don't see the problem. It doesn't matter if you're white, black, green or blue you can have any hairstyle you want.
Activision Blizzard doesn't have enough good will left to pull this off without getting complaints, but Activision Blizzard also doesn't care period
If you're seeing green and blue humans you should probably put the pipe down.
If you're seeing green and blue humans you should probably put the pipe down.
I mean if the past week has indicated anything they don't give a shit
In different circumstances I would feel negative about this, but she's obviously modeled after MMA fighters who have to braid their hair so that it doesn't get pulled out, caught in the cage, etc.
Eeehhhhhhh....
Certain hairstyles carry certain cultural significance.
Kinda like if someone wore a yarmulke, but they weren't Jewish. That's really how deep some of them go.
From the previous page:
Many black women have to put up with a lot just to have those braids in public.
And yet people are discriminated against for having certain hairstyles.
5 years and still no black women in their game, whole dev team needs to be sacked or forced to churn out Call of Duty content forever.
User banned (1 week): dismissive commentary around cultural appropriation
so why has no one told the mma fighters not wear it then
User Banned (2 Weeks): Dismissing concerns of cultural appropriation
Is there not more important things to get worked up about in our society than trying to dictate who can use what hairstyle or clothing? Between this and the Jeopardy guy this place is not having a great week for faux outrage.
(but that doesn't change the fact that no black women in OW is somehow still a thing and Blizzard deserve the shit they get for that)
(but that doesn't change the fact that no black women in OW is somehow still a thing and Blizzard deserve the shit they get for that)
There's literal books on the history of Black hairstyles and how they represent the history of and hold value to Black people specifically but go off.
I'm more concerned by the fact that her thighs are so big that they're literally eating each other.
If there's one thing I can't stand about the world in 2021, it's the number of stories on websites that amount to "some people on social media are saying/outraged", as though such people automatically speak for some kind of greater consensus.
This isn't even a cultural thing, it's a functional "don't get your hair ripped out in clumps" thing. Short of buzzing your hair off your choices are limited.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Dismissing concerns of cultural appropriation
It's a lot easier to complain on the internet about trivial things than it is to get out there and make an actual difference.
People are discriminated against for a great many things and it sucks for sure.
Nobody is going off? I just said I don't see the problem here. It's a character in a game that has a certain hairstyle. There doesn't have to be a huge controversy about everything does there?
The fact that several real people did this first doesn't make it ok either.
Certain hairstyles*
Braids alone don't qualify. It depends on the specific braid. For example, Bantu knots are a specific braid originating from South African culture. If that was used, I'm sure there would be an issue.
1. Cornrows are black. Those ain't french braids, those are cornrows and cornrows is black as hell.
2. Black people create shit that is useful for all kinds of people. Like styles that keep your hair from being ripped out when you're doing physical activities like getting punched in the face.
3. Non-black people wearing cornrows is fine, just give us our dap.
4. Overwatch needs black women characters in the goddamn game already.
2. Black people create shit that is useful for all kinds of people. Like styles that keep your hair from being ripped out when you're doing physical activities like getting punched in the face.
3. Non-black people wearing cornrows is fine, just give us our dap.
4. Overwatch needs black women characters in the goddamn game already.
If you're a type of red green colorblind, a lot of people will look green to you. Just saying.
The majority has a strong tendency to tell Black people who wear their hair natural or in cornrows that they look unprofessional, but when non-Black people wear their hair in Black styles it's "cute" and "bold" and gets renamed so that its association with Blackness is gone. Overwatch is a game with ZERO Black female heroes. They also have a Black male hero with a background in MMA competition, but his name doesn't make a funny pun.
So while the significance of Black hairstyles might not mean anything to you, it does mean something to the people who get criticized for them, then have them stolen and "reinvented" by others.
re:no black women in Overwatch Aren't Pharah and Ana egyptian?
EDIT: Looks like egypt is typically considered middle east
I'm not sure if bodyshaming one of the few plus sized female characters in mainstream games is really the right pivot here.
Are there any women in MMA who don't braid their hair this way? I feel like this is the dominant hair style in mma/boxing for people with long hair.
I understand Blizzard not having a lot of good faith here, but this might just be a misunderstanding.
I understand Blizzard not having a lot of good faith here, but this might just be a misunderstanding.
The only problem I can see is me, having not played Overwatch in ages, cannot see Mei as a MMA fighter. I mean seriously. Is it just that now they have reached the point where every character now has every possible permutation of skin?
Swimming Trunks with Inflatable Giraffe Life Preserver McCree?
Mr T themed Bastion?
Catgirl Twitch Streamer Pharah?
Swimming Trunks with Inflatable Giraffe Life Preserver McCree?
Mr T themed Bastion?
Catgirl Twitch Streamer Pharah?
Saw this earlier from the Gita Jackson tweet thread, so yeah I can see why after having no black representation for five years and then revealing a new skin for a character featuring a hairstyle with history behind it can frustrate people.
Don't see why people are being so reactionary to it here, even the article makes mention there hasn't been a black woman in the roster yet and some of the criticism centers around that.
Don't see why people are being so reactionary to it here, even the article makes mention there hasn't been a black woman in the roster yet and some of the criticism centers around that.
I hope this is just referring to some clipping issue in her model and not a commentary on her body type.
Ackchyually Mirage is "mixed race" according to the Apex devs.
his exact ethnicity hasn't been confirmed and probably wasn't important for me to note but I can easily imagine a scenario where the devs do something completely egregious with Mirage and they use his ethnicity to excuse it...? Like how Pharah from Overwatch suddenly became half Native after her launch Native American skin was somewhat criticized
I know nearly nothing about overwatch but I vaguely recall them saying that they're not adding any new characters until 2 is released? I mean, it's messed up they haven't added one yet, but at this point they're basically locked in until the next game comes out. I cant' seem them pausing to add Sojourn early.
Egypt is 100% in Africa. The bigger issue is that simply being African does not make someone Black. Being Black imo is it's own separate thing from being African. Yes you can be African and Black, but you can also be Black and not African. For example I don't like being called African American. It means absolutely nothing to me. I don't connect with Africa and I'm not from there in a local sense , I know I likely have ties to Africa but I mean nothing about me is African and I know many other Black folks who feel the same.
Thank you for saving me the effort of writing 400 paragraphs in yet another thread.
This is a tone deaf ass post, I just want you to know that.
Understand that I know there's nothing malicious behind it, but it's a dramatic display of your lack of perspective and a prime example of why we continue to get threads about this in the first place. Everything you engage with on a daily basis likely has some cultural significance and coming at whatever subject in the wrong way will grate people. If that is understood and people rectified it when it's addressed, it's a non-issue.
For example, this is a controversy because you're making it controversial. Not just you, but people with your same mentality. Your pushback, minor or not, makes it a controversy and a point of contention and argument.
Depicting something that was devised by and consistently (and often times used as a means of stereotyping) worn by black people by someone other than a black person when you haven't even bothered to release a black character is an issue that needs rectifying. Blizzard probably meant nothing by it, but it does highlight their mentality. It'd be like if a game had a bunch of Chinese homage qipao's and other traditional outfits for all of their characters and not a single Chinese character.
Yes, it's just clothes, but those clothes are from somewhere and they're not being given their rep.
I wish this article was better written. It talks about how the skin "draws criticism" but gives literally no examples of it.
Either way, it's hard to deny that it looks bad for this skin to be in the game before a black female character. It's something that someone should have caught.
Either way, it's hard to deny that it looks bad for this skin to be in the game before a black female character. It's something that someone should have caught.
It's a posed render outside of gameplay, you know what it's in reference to.
heard, tbh i always felt like just saying black american would make more sense, but i'm a literal african american/nigerian american
Yeah.
I try to give the benefit of the doubt to someone using such a hurtful choice of phrase on this forum, they can't possibly mean it like that.
But yeah...
EDIT: For clarity.
Last edited:
What do you mean by "eating each other"? That's how big thighs interact with one another irl. Wtf is this post.
