For his first Wired piece, Jamal Michel discussed the duality of being Black in gaming spaces, whether you’re a gamer, developer, or passive fan:
Fringe groups on streaming platforms and social media continue to serve as hotbeds for racism, which percolates and subsequently manifests into hostility at a Black character in a video game or a Black person on Twitch, if not escalating to outright violence.
Navigating the gaming space as a Black person comes with a balancing act that forces you to question whether you ever really belonged. This double consciousness extends to the creators of our favorite games and adds considerable weight to the creative process when you think about the spectrum of our lived experiences.
There’s so much more to be done but I’m grateful for those in the spaces breaking down those boundaries and letting racists know that we’re here and we’re not going anywhere.
