17471: (Hermantin) Miami Herald-Video game offends some Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Dec. 01, 2003

UP FRONT | 'VICE CITY' CONTROVERSY
Video game offends some Haitians
The words 'Kill all the Haitians' in a popular video game has offended some
Haitians so much they say they'll sue the maker.
BY JANE REGAN
Special to The Herald

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Outraged Haitian officials are vowing to sue the makers of
a video game that includes a character saying ''Kill All the Haitians''
while the instructions ''Kill the Haitian Gang'' flash on the screen.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a prize-winning video game made by New
York-based Rockstar Video Games for Sony's PlayStation 2, calls on the
player -- an Italian mobster -- to defeat and kill a series of Haitian,
Cuban and Colombian thugs and gang members.

At one point, game characters say, ''I hate these Haitians. We'll take them
out,'' and ``Kill all the Haitians.''

The game has been called a ''game that dehumanizes all groups of people'' by
the Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family, The
Associated Press reported.

In the past few weeks following media reports about the game,
Haitian-American organizations have taken to the Internet, the airwaves and
the streets to protest what they call the game's racist nature.

Standing on the steps of New York City Hall last week, Haitian advocates,
the Haitian consul general, local and state officials vowed to fight against
the game's distribution.

JOINING THE FIGHT

Opposition politicians in Haiti joined the fray by denouncing what some
Haitian media have erroneously called the game Killing the Haitians.

Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said government lawyers are looking into
legal action.

''American society is racist, even though there are antiracist laws,'' Lesly
Voltaire, minister for Haitians living abroad, told The Herald. ``It's based
on a formerly slave-owning society, which has left its mark, and there are
people who think they can make money on that racism.''

Rockstar has sold millions of copies of the game since its release a year
ago, grossing more than $160 million even before it hit the stores, making
it the best-selling game ever.

Jim Ankner, a spokesman for Take 2 Interactive Software Inc., Rockstar's
parent company, told the Long Island daily, Newsday, ``We empathize with the
concerns of the Haitian community, and we are giving serious consideration
to them. Some statements made by fictional characters in Grand Theft Auto:
Vice City have been taken out of context.

There was no intention to offend any ethnic group, and we take these claims
very seriously.''

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has also garnered a wall full of honors,
including Entertainment Weekly's ''Best Videogame of 2002'' and
Gamespot.com's ''Game of the Year on PlayStation 2,'' according to the
Rockstar website.

`BLOOD AND GORE'

The game is rated ''M'' for ''mature'' players because of its ''blood and
gore, violence, strong language, strong sexual content,'' the game's box
says.

The player's objective is to rack up points -- calculated in dollars -- by
killing enemies, the police or innocent bystanders.

The game's ultimate goal is to take control of Vice City, where drug
dealers, car thieves, prostitutes and other criminals reign. Critics say the
game includes gratuitous violence and sex.

''Little Haiti'' is a crime-infested neighborhood littered with hulks of
burned-out cars, one Haitian fan said, but that doesn't bother him.

''It's by far the best game I have ever played,'' said the teenager, whose
mother asked that he not be identified. ``But it's not anti-Haitian. You
join the Cuban gang to kill the Haitians, but after that you join the
Haitian gang to kill the Cubans. It's like the movie Scarface. Did the
Colombians sue Al Pacino after it came out?''

A LOOK AT CIVIL RIGHTS

Some Haitian advocates say the game violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
which prohibits discrimination based on race, creed or color, a matter into
which Ira Kurzban, a Miami lawyer who represents the Haitian government, is
looking, Voltaire said.

In South Florida, reaction to the game has been quiet, with some community
activists saying the worst thing they can do is create a controversy that
would generate more sales.

Not everyone agrees that Vice City is negative.

Some players, including Haitian Americans, say that if activists want to
lash out at the game, they should also get upset about the film Bad Boys II,
which portrayed Haitians as gang members.

Roland Montas, a Haitian community activist in Miami, disagrees.

Unlike Bad Boys II, he said, Vice City is sending a ''subliminal, racist
message'' that says it's OK to kill Haitians.

''You are going to have people who play this game and think it's OK to kill
Haitians. That is what I am very concerned about,'' he said.

Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report from
Miami.

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