17487: (Senou) Outrage over game urging Haitian, Cuban killing (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Senou <senou@yahoo.com>

Outrage over game urging Haitian, Cuban killing
Wednesday, December 3, 2003 Posted: 10:51 AM EST (1551
GMT)


MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- Miami's Haitian and Cuban
communities are up in arms over a top-selling computer
game that exhorts players to "kill the Haitians" and
"kill the Cubans."

Haitian and Cuban representatives said on Tuesday
"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" incited hate crimes and
they were considering taking action, whether legal or
in the form of a boycott, against creators Rockstar
Games and its retailers.

"The game shouldn't be designed to destroy human life,
it shouldn't be designed to destroy an ethnic group,"
said Jean-Robert Lafortune of the Haitian American
Grassroots Coalition.

Grand Theft Auto III takes players into the
"glamorous, hedonistic metropolis of Vice City," a
Miami-like seaside city teeming with Caribbean and
Latin American immigrants.

In the game, an ex-convict has to recover stolen drug
money and take on the Cuban and Haitian gangs that run
the streets.

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., the parent company
of Rockstar, said it meant no offense.

"We empathize with the concerns of the Haitian
community and we are giving serious consideration to
them," it said.

"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."

'Money out of blood'
Ringo Cayard, executive director of the Haitian
American Foundation, said the last thing the Haitian
community wanted was for the controversy to boost the
game's popularity.

"They've made money out of the blood and tears of a
whole nation," he said.

Cuban American National Foundation spokeswoman Mariela
Ferretti said Cubans felt unnerved at being singled
out.

"The saddest part of the commentary is that there
seems to be a market for these kinds of violent games,
regardless of who they're aiming those guns at,"
Ferretti said.

Grand Theft Auto is already the subject of a lawsuit.

Two teen-age Tennessee boys who went on a fatal
sniping spree said they were mimicking the game.

The suit is seeking $200 million in punitive damages
and $46 million in actual damages against Rockstar,
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., retailer
Wal-Mart Inc., the parents of the boys and the boys
themselves.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/fun.games/12/03/caribbean.outrage.reut/index.html


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