I'm not going to wade into a race row between you and Jim Sterling (I don't need the aggro), but I have two points to make.

1) Is this really related to games or games journalism? The link seems tenuous to me. Certainly a debate on Twitter between you and him about that word has nothing to do with games.

2) Your selective quoting without even linking to the article speaks volumes about the validity of your point in relation to it.

For those unfamiliar with it, here's the Sterling article in question: http://www.destructoid.com/scary-amount-of-kill-obama-levels-in-littlebigplanet-2-192230.phtml

Now, anyone who has read that will be aware of the tag he gave the article: "#Utterly pathetic". Let's also not forget that in the headline, he described the levels as "scary". That alone should tell you he's not condoning any assassination attempts on Obama. If that's not enough, I think the large capital letters at the end of the first paragraph should make it perfectly clear he was being sarcastic.

He goes on to describe "repugnant teen gamers talking about politics" as "embarrassing" in the second paragraph, and is scornful of what they've done. If I wrote that article, going to great lengths to condemn the creators' actions, and then someone accused me of inciting murder of Obama, I'd be offended.

Secondly, it seems the "kill Obama" nutjobs are already polluting LBP2 with their crap, so how is Jim's "promotion" going to make it any worse? If anything, it'll increase awareness amongst those of us who are sensible, meaning prompter reporting of these levels to Sony and Media Molecule, who can then banhammer them.

You talk about people you respect as a journalist getting blackballed for being racist, yet why would anyone want to talk to a journalist who witholds their source and twists their presentation of it with the clear and obvious intent to mislead their readers?

It'd take some pretty creative misquotation to make him look racist from the article and those tweets. Patti Smith's and John Lennon's reputations seem to have survived too.

He said that he should be able to use the word in a discussion about the word itself. He didn't claim he should be allowed to call someone a "nigger." I fail to see -- and I think you fail to establish -- how that makes him racist.

Are you trying to tell me that if a white person wants to write a history of the experiences of African-Americans in the United States, he or she is not allowed to ever use the word "nigger?" Don't you think it's important for people to understand the history and the negative connotations surrounding the word? How can you have a serious conversation about it without actually using the word?

Furthermore, "faggot" is a pretty strong pejorative word in it's own right, but you don't mind casually tossing around that word to put your own argument in context.

You also use the word "nigger" yourself several times. This makes me think that you're not as familiar with Al Sharpton as you think you are, because he is going to knock on _your_ door too if you don't stop.

Finally, it seems to me that if you were truly concerned about the reputation of a journalist you respected, you would have this conversation with him in private rather than posting what seems to be a personal argument between the two of you on Bitmob (which I also personally think is not the best place for this.)

What? You're trying too hard. Please, just...no. Stop it.

Also, what those other guys said.

The most important question is:  Why did you write this?

Sorry, but I don't give a fuck about your school exprence or political beliefs. This is a gaming site, not your personal soap box. I never even heard of this site before Jim tweeted about it, lol.

Also, you're perpetuating your own stereotype.

I find it incredibly arrogant (and ridiculous) that in an article that you try to call someone out for their use of hurtful and insensitive language, you say the word "faggot" in the third sentence with no qualms about it.

Jim's article about Obama mods had a point, none of which you bothered to touch on, instead - poorly I might add- try to make Jim out as a racist for something he didn't do, nor intended to.

Jim may not be everyones favorite guy in the world, but intentinally trying to paint him as something for your own motives - as it would be to do to anyone- is disrespectful, not to mention ignorant.

JIM STERLING IS GOD!!!!

Also, I am pretty ashamed you had to thrown in mention of attending UMASS-Dartmouth. You just dashed my respect for that school. Racism exists partially out of bringing it the fuck up over and over again.

Holy shit, the "Jim Sterling is God" comment is almost as absurd and horrible as this post.

Backing away from the nutty games blogging community now. Backin' awaaaay...

1) Taking quotes out of context can make anyone look bad.

2) I think you're living in a fantasy world if you truly believe that someone will take the time to make a LBP2 level about killing Obama just so Jim Sterling can write about them. Do you honestly believe that? If someone wants to make an Obama killing level, they're going to make it regardless of the hype it brings.

3) Saying you respect him as a journalist seems more like a way to act like you're being a concerned reader, but you're actually trying to make him look bad, otherwise you wouldn't have even written this article.

4) Is this really relevant to video games? Technically Jim writes about video games, but him using the word "nigger" (regardless of the context) isn't relevant to that.

5) This is your third article (that I know of, I haven't read all of them) that you're claiming racism. It seems like you're more attracted to thinking everything in the world is racist than actually writing about, well, anything else.

Molly, you've obviously haven't been on the internet long enough to sense sarcasm. Jim Sterling is a pretty entertaining writer, if nothing else, I was merely implying that.

Laslow, something tells me you weren't using your real last name.

I'm scared to read these comments right now. Not exactly sure why. Wait yeah I do. I'm really vulnerable on this one with the whole race thing, so I'll read these at some point and get back to each and everyone of you. More than likely before the sunrises on the east coast

@Jared if I were trying to make Jim look bad I would have used my original title "Jim Sterling doesn't care about black people" & thanks for noticing my past posts about racism.

I feel like if a game or person in the industry is going to say or do something insensitive I'm going to speak out about it. I could care less if I go against the grain of a predominately white industry. Somebody needs to do it.

and yes it's relevant to videogames. Videogames are a culture. Jim Sterling is apart of the culture and I brought up LBP2 which is in fact a videogame. I didn't say someone made the levels specifically for Jim to talk about. They made the levels for the EXPOSURE. Jim writes an article which leads to some people reposting it other sites, while others make their own story out of what Jim says. He's that big these days.

The fact of the matter is, this article doesn't belong here and it is merely here because this site hits a lot of traffic and anyone can post. If you wanted to make this relevent to the site, the article should have been about the opinions and views of the grief system in LBP2 and community reactions. Instead, you merely swung the hate the other direction.

Yes, racism is bad. This isn't the place.

NOTE: Oh look, Bitmob is crashing AGAIN. Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, will you guys pay someone to fix this site from crashing every ten seconds?

@Errol: Maybe you could tell us what your article IS about. Because what I'm seeing is

(1) A really rambling thing about how Obama is the president and Obama is black and wanting to kill Obama because he's black/the president/liberal is bad. Also you pointed out how Jim Sterling also thinks that's bad. Which is bad? I guess.

(2) A bunch of paragraphs full of the word "nigger" in which you criticize someone for arguing that, when discussing the word "nigger", you should use the word "nigger." I think I got that right, but now my head hurts.

(3) Your friends said "nigga" a lot and thought you didn't care because you acted like you didn't care.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." - Attorney General Eric Holder

nuff said. carry on, errol james.

Yellow journalism at its finest.

Congrats. Jim Sterling Tweeted this article. It is bound to get some nice traffic now. :)

The thing to remember about Jim Sterling is that he's English, and race plays a different role in English society than it does in ours. He was also raised in a very poor area of England, and when you start to enter class into the equation, some of these lines get blurred and things get complicated. It's easy to say "Hey, I grew up poor and made something of myself, so everyone else can," but white people have a litany of inherent advantages, especially in America, that people of color do not; and white people have the luxury of pretending racism doesn't exist, if they want. Sterling's assertion that race is a "red herring" is somewhere between patently ridiculous and offensive, but I think he did what many white people do when confronted with the issue of race: they dig their heels in and refuse to admit that maybe they don't know what the hell they are talking about because, well, they're white, and racism isn't something they'll ever truly experience.

And please, no one respond to that comment with something like "Hey, I'm Italian and someone called me a 'wop' once, so I've experienced racism," or "I'm Irish and someone called me a mick," etc. It's not the same thing by a long shot to what people of color live with every day.

I have to agree that this article didn't really belong on Bitmob as it's not actually about video games. I don't buy that it's about video game culture, either. Were this an article about race and video game culture, the author might have been talking about representation of persons of color in video games, or how underrepresented persons of color are in game development, etc. This isn't about any of that, it's about an argument with Jim Sterling.

It's also really important to give context when quoting a person. Weren't Sterling's comments originally related to the censorship of Huckleberry Finn, and replacing the n-word with "slave" throughout the text? That deserved to be stated right up front, rather than being alluded to by an image at the very end of the piece. It wasn't as though Sterling went off on a random tiff regarding his right to toss about the n-word, even if that's what the conversation eventually disintegrated into. "Concern trolling" is when someone attacks another person but says they're doing it because they care about the person they're attacking. To a point, that's what took place here.

That said, I'm a little perturbed by some of the comments because I don't think anyone understands just *how* difficult it is to talk about race in this country, especially to a white audience. Prior to being exposed to all the reading and theory that my wife studied in pursuit of her Masters Degree in Gender and Culture Studies, I didn't understand *anything* about racism other than it was wrong, and that I didn't share the sentiments...but I reacted initially to ideas like white priviledge and institutionalized racism in much the same way that Jim Sterling did when my wife engaged him on Twitter. I dug my heels in, and just didn't want to hear what she had to say, because it's uncomfortable.

Race issues are largely invisible to white people because it doesn't directly affect us. I think, if one is white, that this is a topic to be approached with some humility and that admission. Was this the most adroit discussion of the topic? No - but I sincerely hope we're not going to tell Errol that he isn't allowed to discuss racism on Bitmob simply because some of us don't feel like reading about it. I think his obligation is to make sure he's actually talking about racism in relation to gaming when he writes about the subject here on Bitmob, but he absolutely has a right to write those pieces **and they have value** and if you don't like it, don't accuse him of "seeing racism everywhere" or any such bullshit. Just skip reading the piece and move on.

I think racism is a topic that should be discussed on here, should a writer wish to discuss it (and, of course, has the knowledge/research to do so). I 100% appreciate Dennis' comments, which is why I don't wish to wade into a race row. As a Brit I really can't comment on racism in America. It's not my place to do it, and if I were to do so it'd be incredibly ignorant. There are some things that Dennis said which do happen over here too, such as institutional racism (especially in the press), but again that's not something I wish to get into.

However, there are a lot of issues with this article that go beyond whether Sterling is racist or not. No matter how strong Errol's assertion is that Jim Sterling could be perceived as racist, and even if he does have a point, the fact of the matter is that he's undermined his whole article with the way he's handled it. I have no qualms with him calling Sterling out -- though maybe Bitmob isn't the place for it, and I hope that the pair can discuss this privately and come to an understanding -- but when he goes out of his way to quote mine an article of Sterling's with the clear intent to mislead his readers, that is unacceptable.

If Errol wishes to be a journalist/writer in any field, he can have convictions, and he can stand by them, but to misquote in the manner which he has done abuses the trust of his readers.

So since you need to be "african american" to understand the issue, does that mean that Charleze Theron does, and Chiwetel Ejiofor doesn't?

As one of few blacks who actually post on this site...I feel for you Errol. For a lot of reasons.

I wish I could agree wholeheartedly with you, but I'd like everyone [even the haters of this article] to read Dennis Scimica response above.

When I first got to college I had a lot of white friends [as is the norm for most black folk who come from the hood to Mayberry], they fascinated me, because I didn't realize how much of us were alike. However, much like in this thread, whenever we bring up differences its really odd to see the reaction to, in not so many words, 'sweep it under a rug'.

Whenever I've heard the term, "blacks have it better now" I always say "relative to what?" Much like in college, I'm incredibly open to talking and using the word nigger [say it a hundred times a day actually] and its many linguistical modifiers. But I always tell my non-black friends, "I don't have a problem with you using it...I will look at you differently. And if you come to my old neighborhood, I can't guarantee your safety."

That last part should speak enough volumes to say, yeah, we still have a lot of work to do.

I just want to say as a Mexican growing up in a place with no other minority students where some trucks had confederate flags placed on the windows, I went through some very, very horrible things. Having said that, I didn't find Jim's argument to be hurtful or full of venom, having faced words like spic before in high school. Sometimes Jim is an idiot, and sometimes he's funny. I think what he wrote about was something he didn't understand, but not mean.

For those that say my article doesn't belong here. I'd argue that videogames are a culture, and the people that report about them are apart of the culture so why not put it here?

For those that say my article doesn't belong here. I'd argue that videogames are a culture, and the people that report about them are apart of the culture so why not put it here?

@ozzy Why did I write the article? because I do a better job explaining myself in a blog post than on Twitter. Because thought mayber someone would be entertained by what I have to say. & because I'm a writer.

@Molly trying to hard to do what?

@Jay I did contact Jim personally. I sent the article to him days before I posted it. Told him if he had a problem with anything to let me know.

@jake what's yellow journalism? I'll google it later

and for everyone getting upset that i didn't put the word "faggot" in quotes. I think you're kind of missing the point, but I will put it in quotes if Bitmob doesn't crash on me lol

@Mechman I'll admit my use of the words black and African American in the article can be misleading. I was referring to Black Americans born in the United States. The Census still calls us Negros, but I'll call us African Americans

If you think the lack of quotation marks is what everyone is getting upset about, I think you're the one missing the point. You're criticizing someone else for using words that offend you. Would it suddenly make it ok if Jim put quotes around it?

Errol, in future, if you could post your responses to multiple people as one response, that might be better. Like this:

@ Dennis - (blah blah blah)

@ James - (blah blah blah)

@ Louis - (blah blah blah)

That seems to be the convention around here...and I think it works. :)

In terms of your piece belonging on Bitmob or not, the heart of your argument with Jim Sterling, and the piece you wrote for Bitmob, doesn't really have to do with video games whatsoever. You tried to make it so by referencing the LBP2 blog post Jim authored, but by the fifth graf you've completely abandoned that and moved on to "Jim Sterling shouldn't use the n-word."

I don't disagree with you...but that's not a conversation about video games just because Jim Sterling writes for Dtoid. If you and Jim Sterling get into an argument about whether chicken or beef is better, should you write a Bitmob piece about *that* simply because you had the argument with Jim Sterling, who writes for Destructoid?

I think it's disingenuous for you to argue that you were writing about video game culture in this piece. You weren't.

Holy smokes.  BTW: Good choice, @Juan, not to use the "pot/kettle" saying. Good choice.

I'm divided on this.  Obviously, seeing as how this is a community site, I don't think it's fair to tell any writer what they can and can't post about here.  As others have said: If it doesn't interest you, or you feel uncomfortable by the subject matter, there's plenty of other articles to keep you busy.  Move along and read something else.

And yet I feel Errol misinterpreted Sterling's tone (his sarcasm when describing the LBP2 levels in question) which lead to the writing of the article.  So yes, there could have been some due diligence performed here.  But plenty of articles go up on Bitmob that probably don't use quotation perfectly or stray from their initial games-related topic... it's just that this one is about a particularly touchy subject, not, say, the use of waggle in Galaxy 2.  As for new readers to this page, I second the advice to read Dennis Scimeca's original comment above.  In a way, it's refreshing to think about "real world" issues here, instead of just another insular conversation re: games.

@ Dennis I'll keep that in mind. I read one comment at a time and try to reply right away that way it gets my full attention. I have a request for you. If you have a respons that's longer than 3 paragraphs make it a new blogpost. That way more people can read what you have to say, and weigh in on your opinion. Mention that it's a reply and it's all set

@Jon word yo.