Hi y’all, I’m back from a posting break. I’d planned on getting something out earlier but a lot of things have happened over the last few weeks (and indeed are continuing to happen). I didn’t really think it was appropriate for me to wax poetic or melodramatic about the moment or, alternately, ignore it and write about video games. And since this blog concerns itself with the intersection of games and politics, I also knew I couldn’t sit idly by.
The fact is, the Trump regime is trying to tighten the iron grip of the state around America’s most marginalized and traumatized communities. Black Lives Matter did not start in the Trump era but it protests against forces that have become emboldened by Trump and his open white supremacist attitudes. He has emboldened cops to brutalize and murder Black people with impunity. His administration has pursued exactly one consent decree investigation since 2017. He has stood in front of a room full of cops and told them they have his permission to kill. And to add insult to injury, he and his neo-Nazi staffer Stephen Miller have decided to come to Tulsa, OK around Juneteenth. He’ll be speaking at the BOK Center on June 20th, and our fucking governor, Kevin Stitt, is going to take him on a fucking guided tour of Greenwood, the historic Black neighborhood that was burned down by the KKK and other white Tulsans in 1921.
And of course he’s not satisfied just going after Black people. During Pride month, Trump’s Health and Human Services department finalized a rule dissolving discrimination protections for LGBTQIAP+ people seeking healthcare – removing yet another thin protection of queer people’s rights to exist.
Against this backdrop, and in light of the visceral reality that cops have murdered George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks and many, many, many other Black men and women, thousands of people have taken to the streets in every state for nearly three weeks to demand a material change in the social order. Put simply: abolish the police. Put an end to discrimination in every area of life. Confront and dismantle the systems of oppression that are making Black people’s every waking moment miserable.
Video games – and the writing around them – are probably not going to be major factors in affecting that change, all things considered. However, as an industry where people work, as a cultural product people consume and as an artistic endeavor, the industry is – as evidenced by dozens of Black and brown writers, designers, artists and programmers sharing their testimonies of daily racial discrimination over the last two weeks – in need of an attitude adjustment, so to speak.
The fact is, the video game industry treats all of its marginalized communities like dogshit, and it forces good people out on a constant basis. As a result, we’re stuck in the same discourses and having to come around to the same “realizations” over and over again. It’s incumbent on us to stop fucking Black folks, queer folks, other POC, disabled folks, etc. around and commit to doing work that is going to make us uncomfortable at the very least and eventually moves us out of the spotlight, cushy jobs, and positions of power and authority entirely.
The very worst thing one can do in this moment is individualize the collective problem we face. I spent too much time privately asking myself “what could I, some shitty blogger, even do to confront this?” But that really does minimize what I’ve built No Escape into over the last year, which sucks/is a self-own personally, and it enables me to elide my own share of responsibility in working to make this industry – at least on the critic side of things – better, fairer and freer. I’ve got nearly 500 followers on Twitter (which, holy shit thank y’all by the way). I have a voice and a platform. I’m not some baby blog anymore. Which means No Escape has some new commitments moving forward.
First, the politics of No Escape are nominally my politics, which is to say, I am an anarchist who wants to see all systems of domination and oppression dismantled; but I haven’t covered certain topics here because I didn’t want to speak to any lived experience that isn’t mine. Rather than simply ignore those subjects, I want to give folks who do have those lived experiences and a story to tell or a take to share another place to share them. My inbox is open: [email protected], and I have $50 a month per article to give.
Second, I can’t let that $50 sit. That is by far not enough to cover the labor of writing. In July, I will be restarting the No Escape Patreon, and one of our main goals will be, at least to start, to match that initial rate, hopefully doubling what I can pay per article. Once we reach that goal, we’ll keep pushing it forward.
Third, I want to boost folks’ work that I think is notable or neat. Also starting in July, I’ll be doing biweekly roundups of interesting articles, videos and other pieces that discuss the intersection between games and politics. Send your recommendations to the email above.
Ultimately none of this on its own is going to make a change in the industry. If outlets can’t or won’t pay writers fairly – especially Black writers, queer writers, or writers from other marginalized communities – then some small adjustments at a tiny blog aren’t ultimately going to matter. This industry needs a seismic shift to shake loose the old ways of doing things and the bad attitudes and clear them out for a future generation that actually has a future.
I am not an authority or anyone you should listen to. But I will do my best to make things less shitty.
It’s a genuine pleasure to have you here reading our work. Please consider donating to Black Lives Matter, the NAACP and other local organizations doing anti-racist and anti-police brutality work. If you enjoy the site, follow us on Twitter. If you’d like to read a bunch of work like this, you can check out this book-esque object over at itch.io and, soon, other platforms as well!