Bioshock: Infinite - A racial look at a racial game

Heads up: Here be spoilers.

Bioshock: Infinite has a storyline filled some some of the most disgusting racists of all time.  It's a world where a bunch of racist elites leave mainland America to start their own floating colony called Columbia.  In the early 1900s.  It really is the kind of shit we all expect the rich to do, anyway, except in 2015, they'll call it "Elysium."  They're going to leave us all behind and create a world where they can do what they want, without us begging for "their fairly obligated tax dollars," or "a living wage."  

Columbia is just a more racist version of that, because they plaster that they hate black people on their walls, in posters, and in statues, all over the city.  Problem is, they have black people living up there, because everyone knows that racist elites can't be expected to do for themselves.  They need an oppressed underclass to serve them, otherwise, we might not know that they're rich.  

So these rich white folks brought black people to their new enclave and insulted and demeaned them at every turn.  And that's the undercurrent of this story where you're a white guy that's coming to rescue a white girl being chased by a giant bird.

All of which is fine with me, because I expect this racist society to be brought down by a black uprising.  You can't put that much racism into a game without the racists getting what's coming to them.  You just can't.  Otherwise, I'd wonder exactly how racist the staff at Irrational Games actually was. 

And that's exactly what happens.  In between Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth running and shooting and jumping between alternate universes, the black folks get guns and airships and start killing white folks.  As you do when you're an oppressed underclass fighting for your dignity.  Booker DeWitt gets caught up in their story, even though he doesn't give a shit about their rebellion, and in one of the universes, becomes a hero to these rebelling Negroes.  

This is where my problem with the game starts.  

Because up until this point, there was a very clear racial divide and in the story, there was expectation that the black folks were going to rebel and the white elites were going to get what was coming to them, and it was going to be amazing.  Honestly, it was the main reason why I kept playing the game.  But when we got to the rebellion, and the black folks started killing these crackers, the writers of the game decided that, morally, these murdering black folks were just as bad as the people who sought to oppress them. 

And that's fucking insanity.  

It's a very "color-blind" way of looking at things, and not at all based in reality when it comes to fighting for freedom.  It's the kind of thinking that has removed Martin Luther King from the list of black revolutionaries and added him to the list of people who want us all to hold hands and love each other.  Which he did, but he wasn't a fool.  And he was way more radical than he gets credit for.  But after 60 years of people only listening to the part of his message that makes them feel good, we're left with "I Have A Dream," and no understanding that freedom has to be fought for and people might have to die to accomplish that.  

The people of Columbia were never going to give up what they had in order to allow these people that they viewed as "inferior" and "subhuman" to sit alongside them.  They weren't.  And they would have killed them all and replaced them with some other black people before they let that happen.  The black people in Columbia were not viewed as human by the white people.  So I don't know how Booker DeWitt expected the black folks to gain their freedom without an armed rebellion, and yes, killing a bunch of white folks.  For him to judge them as being "no different" than the people in Columbia really turned me off to the game.  

To put it simply, you can't oppress people, and then expect them to talk to you when they've had enough.  You weren't willing to talk when you were oppressing them, so when folks have had enough, the time for talking is done.  

Because, to put it in it's proper context, this was 1912.  The Civil War ended 47 years ago.  There were people in Columbia who had fought in that war.  We were knee deep in Jim Crow at this time, and Columbia is an ultra right-wing community, filled with people who thought less of black people than the people who actually fought in the war.  The Klan was practicing open terrorism at this time.  Black people were still not allowed to do much of anything, aside from working for white people for low pay, then walking back to their segregated neighborhoods across town.  Which were not nearly as nice, because there was no money coming into them.  And this was considered "freedom."  

Yeah, the rebels were "no different."  Get outta here with that.  

Normally, the politics of the game makers doesn't really bother me, because being black, you learn to tune these things out.  But this game made black people and our history part of the story.  We weren't playable characters (still pushing that rock up that mountain), but we were a major part of what was happening.  And suddenly, these people were making judgments on things that still happen in the real world today.  It really took me out of what was a pretty fun game.  I haven't played it since.  Maybe one day, I'll get around to finishing.  In the meantime, I'll play something that doesn't make sweeping judgments about racial issues.