Electronic game simulates slavery and reinforces racism

An electronic game in which the user is a “slave owner” was available until the early afternoon of this Wednesday (24) on the Google Play platform. The player is encouraged to make a “profit” and hire guards to prevent riots. There is even an option for the user to sexually exploit people placed under their power within the virtual world. The game shows images of people in chains, including a black man, who appears covered in shackles in a cartoon-like aesthetic. On the cover, a historical engraving is used that portrays a white man, in elegant clothes, next to a half-naked enslaved black man. The Slavery Simulator had, according to the platform itself, been downloaded a thousand times until the morning of this Wednesday (24). A developer named Magnus Games presents itself as the creator of this and other games available on Google Play. Profiles on social networks do not allow for a clear identification of the company or person behind the product. Gross racism Historian and psychoanalyst Mariléa de Almeida sees “gross racism” in the game. “Naturalizing the enslavement, the dehumanization of these black bodies, as if playing and playing a game, as if this had no effect on black people, identified in their ancestry, but above all on the people who are playing”, emphasized the researcher, who makes part of the network of Black Historians. For Mariléa, the product “reinforces stereotypes, uses all racial stereotypes and the dehumanization produced by racism for the black population as a whole to make a game”. The specialist recalls that the so-called recreational racism is a conduct that was made a crime as of the law passed in January that equated the crime of racial injury to that of racism. In her assessment, people still feel that there is room for this type of conduct due to the historical construction that black people are not human beings equal to others. “This crime sustains, from a historical point of view, the naturalization of black bodies as being dehumanized, objectified”, she emphasizes. “This mentality, which is expressed in the very psyche that validates people to engage in such a game, without realizing the horror. Without feeling a horror, an inconvenience”, adds Mariléa about the reasons why it is possible to create and use this type of product. The report by Agência Brasil contacted Google and is awaiting a response. Repercussion Earlier, congressman Orlando Silva (PCdoB-SP) published on his Twitter account that he will file a complaint with the Public Ministry for the crime of racism, asking for the arrest of those responsible. “The very existence of something so bizarre available on platforms shows the URGENCY of regulating the digital environment”, said the parliamentarian who is the rapporteur for the Fake News PL (PL 2630/220). 🚨 URGENT! SHOCKING DISCLAIMER! The Play Store, Android app store, has a “game” called SLAVERY SIMULATOR, in which the “joke” consists of buying, selling, flogging enslaved black people. It’s inhumane, disgusting, appalling. IT’S CRIMINAL! 👇🏿 @unegrobrasil… pic.twitter.com/QHi8oaaSOi — Orlando Silva (@orlandosilva) May 24, 2023

Agência Brasil