Modelling systemic racism: mobilising the dynamics of race and games in everyday racism

Abstract

This article is concerned with attempts to pose videogames as solutions to systemic racism. The mobile app, Everyday Racism, is one such game. Its method is to directly address players as subjects of racism interpellating them as victims of racist language and behaviour within Australian society, implicating the impact of racism on mental health and wellbeing. While the game has politically laudable goals, its effectiveness is undermined by several issues themselves attributable to the dynamics of race and games. This paper will spell out those issues by addressing three separate facets of the game: the problematic relationship between the player and their elected avatar; the pedagogic compromises that are made in modelling racism as a game; finally, the superliminal narrative that attempts to transcend the limited diegetic world of the game.