The past three weeks have been difficult. Not for me personally, but for an aspect of progression in the world where we attempt to have a civil discourse regarding everything from race to gender to religion to science.
Last week, and the week before, Ferguson, Missouri became akin to a war zone that you see in some foreign country. Some wind swept place in a distant land with names that you can’t pronounce but over time they become common place because they’re on the new cycle 24/7. Ferguson became that, and so did Michael Brown and the scores of other unarmed, black youth who were executed by police.
Further.
If you aren’t familiar with Anita Sarkeesian, then you should be. She makes excellent comments on social situations faced in video games, movies and even television and books. Anita focuses on women and their treatment in video games, and has sometimes shifted the focus onto women of colour. She runs a blog and has a video series at Feminist Frequency, and currently has a mini series called Tropes versus Women in Video Games.
Sarkeesian has received a huge amount of hate from a large portion of the (male) video game audience. This hate has even gone to rape and death threats. Which only goes to prove Sarkeesian correct. Now, she’s been threatened so badly, that she’s had to retreat from the world and hide. Her address and the address of her family was posted in a very public place, with continued threats of rape, death, arson of her home and her family’s home, and other rather disturbing things.
