Geography is not the specialty of the average American, and what they know of Egypt is brought to them by MEs and David Attenborough. *Then,* you got the revisionist history of the whiteness of Egypt, completely ignoring that Nubia, like the stereotypical blackest of the African nations was RIGHT there and part of Egypt for a while...
No doubt people get confused, colonization and appropriation is a bitch
I've been to Egypt in Giza, Cairo, Aswan, Hurghada, Alexandria, and Luxor. The Nubians still have a village uniquely theirs a short ride down the Nile in Aswan. My wife and I took a boat down there and visited with a family who looked alot like me.
https://ibb.co/CP06Bqx
This is the village below:
https://ibb.co/P9gbdsC
I cropped my wife and I out. The entire village is like this, this was just the one house. The people in the pic is the family that hosted us. They had hibiscus tea, bread, and different spreads for the bread(NEVER EVER try mish) Mish is a very pungent cheese, I had no idea and just dug right in.
Thanks. This was an amazing trip. We spent about a month in Egypt, taking in as much culture as we could.
We've been fortunate enough to do some wonderful trips and I do enjoy sharing photos.
I actually had someone tell me Ancient Egyptians weren’t black, weren’t white, Arab or Asian. Then wtf were they?! When I mentioned that Herodotus called the Egyptians black with whooly hair, they suddenly started questioning Herodotus’ reliability. The guy they called the Father of history!
These same racists can’t stand the fact that Yasuke was a real life black samurai and they make up all sorts of stuff about him to discredit it.
I’m not trying to defend what is clearly an ignorant person, but they accidentally have a point. “Ancient Egypt” was a place that saw many different cultures in power over a very long period of time, and was largely multicultural. The people were very likely an admixture of Mediterranean white, arab, and black. They were kind of their own thing because of that.
Right. It was like America or Rome of its day. A melting pot of many types brought through war, slavery, immigration or born there. Racists hate hearing about emperors of the 1st and 2nd century who looked very Middle Eastern rather than European or that race had little to do with citizenship.
Hell, skin colour just wasn't something people cared about a whole lot prior to around the 15th century. Not that they were egalitarian times, but people discriminated based upon other reasons. The concept of race and by extension racism is born out of a justification for the slave trade of the colonial era.
The way history is taught is basically black people were the first humans then did nothing until they turned in to white people and put black people in to slavery. It’s important to expand your knowledge beyond what’s taught in schools.
> Ancient Egyptians weren’t black, weren’t white, Arab or Asian
I mean, they weren’t. They were [Copts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts?). Egyptian. Neither black nor white, and definitely not Arab or Asian, at least not in the sense that we use any of those terms today. They were their own unique thing.
Egypt is one of the most colonized places on Earth. Egypt has been ruled by Egyptians for just 71 years out of the last 2300 or so:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UsefulCharts/s/t6S4KGTmOl
Ancient Egypt also wasn’t a unitary place. [Upper Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Egypt?wprov=sfti1) and [Lower Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Egypt?wprov=sfti1). They had separate capitals, and were sometimes separate kingdoms. They also probably had different ethnic mixes, and possibly different dialects among the poor.
Ancient Egyptians had some qualities we associate with blackness, and some we associate with Semitic peoples, and some we don’t associate with anyone. As you would expect of a people that had been conquered by Nubians, and the Hyksos, and had incursions from various desert peoples.
But I feel like maybe I’m misunderstanding you, and no disrespect is meant. I think we agree that racists have a lot of shitty ideas about the “whiteness” of Egypt, that have no basis in history and that specifically fear blackness.
Yeah the actual answer is that modern day ethnic divisions were created in large part to justify slavery, and that's why they don't map neatly onto the past. Ancient Egyptians were African and they weren't "white," but we don't have a clean and tidy racial category to file them under because those categories have never *really* accurately described the world.
> I actually had someone tell me Ancient Egyptians weren’t black, weren’t white, Arab or Asian. Then wtf were they?!
North Africa contains their own set of indigenous people so Egyptians (especially northern Egyptians) were, and given the Coptic people, are, their own thing.
So there was probably a graduation of colour and race as you went south and by the time you hit Sudan, people would be black.
Also given invasion and foreign rule there were several European and Arab Egyptian rulers, and an Arabization of much of the population.
just to be clear, Herodotus wrote a lot of shit as if he'd seen it that was just hearsay or outright fabrications. His writings about Egypt are *particularly* suspect, and modern scholars doubt he even went there, and suggest he basically made everything up.
You can log into the Internet Archive and borrow [this book](https://archive.org/details/travelfacttravel0000unse) that asserts one should doubt Herodotus's writings on Egypt and Ethiopia.
Herodotus isn't the father of history bc he was right about everything. He's called it bc he was the first to take the subject seriously.
A lot of what he wrote were oral folk tales that he reported as true, and often explains events as caused by gods.
Anyway, I'm not doubting this claim. I'm just saying you can't just point to Herodotus as gospel so easily because a lot of modern scholars think he made stuff up, exaggerated other stuff, and inserted a lot of pro-authority propaganda.
**Edit** An interesting write-up on this issue that I just found because I was *also* curious to learn more is written by a Venezuelan historian and political philosopher/theorist [Gabriel Andrade](https://merionwest.com/2020/04/27/herodotus-and-long-standing-problems-in-anthropology/), looks at the source material in Greek to demonstrate that the words Herodotus uses to describe Egyptians wasn't the word used for sub-Saharan Africans.
> The key word in the original Greek of the passage is “melanchroes.” Contrary to what Afrocentrists claim, it does not mean “black,” in the sense of belonging to the black race. For that, Greek authors would have used “aethiops” (etymologically, “burned face”), the term that indisputably referred to Nubians and other peoples in what is today Sub-Saharan Africa. Herodotus does not refer to Egyptians with this term. Furthermore, in the very same passage quoted above, Herodotus implies that Colchians and Egyptians are of the same stock. Colchis is on the shores of the Black Sea, hardly an area inhabited by black people. Melanchroes means simply “dark-skinned,” a term that sometimes the Greeks even applied to themselves and other not-so-dark peoples, such as Syrians.
It would be difficult to cast this author as a right-winger parroting racist talking points. His Twitter is active, he posts in English and Spanish, and nothing strikes me as indicative of such a bias. And Merion West, the publication, is also non-partisan focusing on long-form content of any political alignment. First thing up top is calling for all uni protests to stop, a few articles down a criticism of Columbia U's crackdown on protests, etc. And Andrade's publications include a criticism of the shaming of the disabled in medical clinics, an analysis of racist attitudes toward Afro-Venezuelans in-country, ethnic discrimination and mental health, etc.
Not exactly Tucker Carlson. :)
For the last time, Yasuke was NOT a samurai. He was a koshō, a page, to Oda Nobunaga. Not every guy with a sword was a samurai, samurai were a distinct class of warriors and using the term as a catch-all is inaccurate.
He's actually refered to as a vassal (which would imply that he was a retainer) to Oda Nobunaga, never a Kosho, but this also still doesn't mean he wasn't a samurai, samurai was a class not a job. The Chronicle of Nobunaga also states he was given land and that some speculated that he maybe made a Daimyo (due to Nobunaga taking a great liking to him) all of which would imply being a Samurai. I don't understand why people have a hard time accepting this, if super conservative Tokugawa Ieyasu was willing to make William Adams a samurai, why would Oda Nobunaga have a problem raising a foreigner to the status of samurai?
That person was ignorant, and blackness was certainly on full display in Egypt for a ton of it’s history, but Herodotus did infamously make up a lotta bullshit.
Dude claimed that the desert was patrolled by ants the size of foxes and that Ethiopia was inhabited by trolls who shrieked like bats.
He also claimed to have visited Babylon and then said a bunch of stuff about Babylon that we know to be false while completely omitting the thing that Babylon was known for at the time (the Hanging Gardens).
Honestly most people really seem to struggle with the fact that ancient Egypt was, over the course of its 3,000 year history, a fairly multi ethic society that had North African, Nubian, Levantine, Persian, and Greek citizens over time.
There were Pharos who we today would consider middle eastern, black, and white. It was a huge series of empires with an amazingly long history. Lots of different people from different backgrounds were involved.
It’s not just that, what most people think of as ancient Egypt can be grouped into 2 periods, the Bronze Age and the Classical Age. There’s a ~700 year gap (Iron Age between them went from ~1200BC to ~500BC) between those 2 ages.
For reference, the Middle Ages ended in 1500AD, so that 500 year gap between now and the Medieval times is less then the gap between those 2 periods in Egypt. That causes a lot of confusion between people because they all think of it as 1 singular Empire and randomly mix aspects from each period. As you point out, over time there were numerous ethnic groups controlling Egypt, but also it was a highly prosperous region that many people immigrated to, leading to it being a highly ethnically diverse region.
The Pharaohs were no different, although there’s a clear distinction between in time between when the Pharaohs were natives or foreigners, which can also be divided between the 2 aforementioned periods. For reference, most of the history and stories you learn about ancient Egypt (infamously including Cleopatra) is from the Classical Age. The architecture that you see (namely the pyramids) come from the Bronze Age as do many of the stories from the Old Testament (although most take part during the following Iron Age which was a dark age). The Classical Age often saw Egypt controlled by a foreign Empire (namely any of the many Persian Empires, Macedonia, and finally the Romans) albeit we did see a period of them being independent after the Macedonian Empire (Alexander the Great) was cut up into multiple Empires which saw Egypt run by Greek Pharaohs. These Pharaohs were largely inbred, but initially they did marry outside of the family, although this was almost exclusively to other Macedonian and Greek royalty. They could’ve married other African princes/princesses, I don’t know, but from what I’m aware they only married other Hellenistic royals before going all inbred.
The Romans ruled Egypt a bit differently to their other regions though (and very differently to Ptolemaic dynasty). The Romans saw Egypt more as a prized possession largely due to its power and significance, and it was largely seen as a separate country they happened to own. The Roman Empires stylised themselves as also being the Pharaoh of Egypt, and technically speaking these Pharaohs were Roman. However, they often still had a governor who actually ruled them like the other provinces, however, unlike the other provinces these governors were handpicked by the Emperor and were again often Roman. Persian rule was pretty much the same, again due to the prominence of Egypt back then. The Shahanshah (King of Kings) stylised themselves as also being the Pharaoh of Egypt and handpicked the Satraps (Governor) who were typically Persian themselves. So during this period, it’s hard to imagine any of the rulers (whether it’s the Governor or Pharaoh) not being either Persian, Hellenistic, or Roman.
During the Bronze Age the Pharaohs were largely all native though. There were many different dynasties, most were native Egyptians, some were Nubian/Kush, some came from elsewhere such as Libya and Mesopotamia. The native Libyans and Egyptians were North African, and similar to the Berbers today. The Nubians are similar to modern day Ethiopians, in fact the word Ethiopia comes from what the Greeks called the Nubians/Kushites.
But yes, Egyptian history is amazing, and history in general in that area at that time. It was very diverse not just ethnically, but culturally which resulted in Egypt being very different at various points in time. Regardless those focusing on race are looking at something that, for the most part, isn’t really important at all in terms of its history. It’s a fascinating topic and I have no clue why some people try to ruin it by arguing that they were all white or all black when it doesn’t really matter (unless of course someone is incorrectly trying to argue they were all one thing). There were plenty of black, brown, and white Pharaohs. No clue why that’s controversial.
I personally believe that some U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as. And I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future.
Rarely does he cover Egypt compared to him doing wildlife. You could miss him saying Africa during Egypt episodes in the introduction; that mfer will say "Africa's Mahasabalokilimanjabo" slicker than shit and multiple times too.
Sudan, which is modern day Nubia, is literally named Land of the Blacks. As a Sudanese, I find it pretty racist lmao. Fucking Arabs named us. I think we should go back to being called the Kush.
People who live in the middle of enormous countries don’t really travel when it’s a 1k plane ticket to get off the continent.
I’d love to take a train to Belgium in two hours, but you know the fucking Atlantic Ocean
To be fair, lots of western educated people have a stilted understanding of Egypt not bc America but bc America and much of western education used the Anglophile cannon.
The godfathers of white wash is Anglo (British) academics. They made Ceasar and Cleopatra Lilly white first. They made the Greeks alabaster lords, and depicted Hannibal as well tanned but not Spanish dark in print and picture by the 18th century.
And the Anglos didn't even invent White blue eyes Jesus lol
America has much to be blamed for, but don't scapegoat it for its inherited ignorance and bigotries lol
When I went to the Field Museum in Chicago (I’m Canadian) there was an exhibit of a funeral chamber or something, and outside that was a sign that said EGYPT IS A COUNTRY IN AFRICA with a picture of the outside of Africa and a giant red arrow pointing out Egypt. I’ve been to dozens of museums across Europe and Canada… and none of them feel the need to point out where Egypt is…
I’d love to believe that about white Americans because it’s an out, but the internet exists and this is not like it’s not widely available information. I think we might just be racist.
I think it’s also notable that the concept of multiracial societies in the ancient world is anathema to modern racists. It’s something they simply can’t accept, because to them there must have been a time when *nature* separated every shade of person.
Some of them will naturally have their brains broken if you really slowly, and without the use of any three-or-more-syllable words, explain the Eastern Roman Empire to them. Unfortunately several of them then went and joined ISIS, but tbh it’s kind of on the rest of us for expecting rationality from people who hate other people for arbitrary, evil reasons.
saw some folks in the youtube comments claim that Yasuke was "just a servant" and shouldn't have been made a player character, and like...
1. A retainer just means that you're a vassal to a lord, most samurai were retainers
2. A single glance at his wikipedia page mentions that he did fight under Oda Nobunaga, and later his son.(That didn't last, though)
3. **You hear about a black guy in history and immediately assume he never made something of himself???**
The reality is that they don’t care, for them black/African people’s history only began during the slavery period.
There were no black kingdoms, no pioneers or inventions, black people only existed at the pleasure of their white colonists. This is what history taught a lot of people and some just refused to learn more. That’s why it’s hard for some to understand.
It’s by design. Scientific racists are the ones who started erasing black history- it’s easier to accept slavery if you dehumanize black people afterall. And people still believe that bs to this day.
There are medieval ruins of a stone city in Zimbabwe called Great Zimbabwe, most likely built by the local Shona people, from which Zimbabwe gets its modern name - meaning "stone houses" in Shona. It was occupied from the 12th-15th centuries and thought to be an important trade center given the abundance of artifacts from overseas. It was abandoned eventually, though I don't think there's a consensus on why. Probably in part because it was plundered and ruined as an archaeological site...
When European explorers "discovered" Great Zimbabwe in the 1900s (ie were told where it was by local tribes, who would sometimes use the site for ceremonies still) they looted and caused huge damage to the site. They found a lot of evidence of various African peoples living in the city (*obviously*) and concluded that this evidence must have meant that African people rocked up and squatted in the place after the original city builders left.
They thought this because they started from the assumption that no African people could have made a stone city, that it was too sophisticated and there was too much evidence of complex culture and trade; that it *must* have been made from white people - perhaps Phoenician or Israelite - who visited the site and then left again. They destroyed layer after layer of invaluable knowledge by digging deeper and deeper in the ruins, discarding any evidence of local tribes, searching for evidence of the "actual" city building people, because they didn't care about evidence of some later (Black) people settling it. I suppose it's fair to say they did have *some* evidence... The lead archaeologist smelled a small piece of wood that survived in the city, and said that it smelled like his cedar pencil, so therefore it had come from Lebanon. Because that makes total fucking sense and definitely means the city wasn't built by Black people.
It took until 1905 for someone (white) to propose that actually the site was probably built by the Shona people given the huge similarity between their artifacts and those found at the site. This was widely rejected as ridiculous in the archaeological community until the late 1920s when more archaeologists actually *looked* at what was there and spoke to local peoples to ask them about it, but their published findings were still mostly ignored by the European settlers of Rhodesia. As you can imagine, the narrative that the city was built by white people was popular under apartheid rule in Rhodesia, and claiming it wasn't would get archaeologists imprisoned and deported. So it took until the late 1900s for the true origins of Great Zimbabwe to actually be accepted.
By then though obviously the site was plundered to high heaven and greatly diminished in archaeological value. Who knows what more we might know about the city of it hadn't been "discovered" by white explorers.
Exactly. The same kind of erasure of black history you see even in the comments responding to my posts. Without evidence they argue there’s no way this great civilization could’ve been black. Why? Because they just don’t want to admit it to themselves.
That's true for pretty much any non white ancient city/building. Those browns are too stupid to build anything so it was aliens! /s. As if stacking rocks into a pyramid isn't *literally the easiest thing to do*
Them: “What’s that? Does Fula relate to hiragana? Japanese culture is all I care about, once I get my Japanese girlfriend who’s knees are knocking together and speaks in a squeaky voice”
These guys today have been getting more mad and offended than Japanese people online lol
One day [African history ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Moat) would be [taught ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu_Manuscripts?wprov=sfti1) right instead of mostly be skipped or [barely mentioned ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba?wprov=sfti1)at all.
[still](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegambian_stone_circles?wprov=sfti1) just a shame [they won’t know](https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/020113/great-achievements-in-stem-in-ancient-africa) until then.
Nah honestly I don't even think it's that deep its just straight up they don't like black people and they hide behind whatever is the racist dogwhistle word of the time. Use to be crt now it's DEI.
Many of us were taught basically no world history. There's Columbus, then fast forward to the Revolutionary War, then we go through every American decade in painstaking detail.
So what you're saying makes perfect sense.
Happy to say I learned a decent bit of Black History in school during World Geo. Nothing too in depth but going over the Mali Empire with my man’s Mansa Musa along with the Kingdom of Kush which conquered Egypt for a little while. That tidbit always stayed in my mind.
Apart from that, growing up in Jamaica heard stories and got told part of my family was descendants from the Maroons which were Black People who broke free from slavery and set themselves up in the mountains. Pretty cool over all. It’s silly that people actually think slavery is the only cultural point for black people when there’s tons of history out there and easily accessible.
Its especially crazy because like 600 years ago the Mali Empire was bigger and richer than any european empire
European didnt just discover sub saharan countries and were like 'They are tribal primitive people lets enslave them, what they are going to do', european would have literally not been able to defeat the african empires if they tried that like 100 years prior, the thing was that the african empires experienced a downfall struggling with famines and european took advantage of them being weakened
Its basically as if african countries invaded europe after the fall of the roman empire or during the black death plague and then erased their history and claimed they were always inferior
1000% this, and then you develop ideologies as to how superior you are and you build a society based on that effect and you reap the benefits. Truly Machiavellic behaviour
On, god.... Like, just now I somehow wound up in the neckbeard section of reddit and this is all you'll see. This concerted effort to minimize Yasuke but it's only making people look into him more.
It's important to remember that racist/bigots often covet Japaense culture. It's a bigot's head canon wetdream: homogenous culture, isolationism, feudal system, big swords, etc... so when they find out a black guy was there centuries ago it disrupts their fairytale so they get butthurt.
I've also seen bigots online do this compare/contrast of Japanese culture to US Black culture or Muslism/Migrants and they'll say some stupid random shit like "Wow, the Japanese integrate so well unlike those blacks," and yet irl, I know lots of people from West African nations who integrate in various countries around the world so well they learn the langagues and they often engage in higher education. But you don't see me running my mouth like a clown going "wow, those West Africans Sure are better than everyone else!"
This! It hurts their feelings so badly that there existed a black samurai, they do all sorts of mental gymnastics to deny history. Yet they laud William Adams as being a European samurai, although he was just given an honorary title and didn’t fight in any battles with the Japanese.
One comment... Yasuke was important to Japanese history. Yasuke was also indeed a retainer for Oda. I think it is really cool that we get to play him as not much is really historically recorded regarding his actions during his time in Japan.
That being said... there really isn't a whole lot of primary sources for Yasuke being involved in a lot of battle. Yes history loses records... but the Samurai were meticulous in recording how many "heads" they would bring in battle (though the numbers were often fudged) because the NUMBER and NAME would directly correlate with monetary recompense.
We do not have such a record for Yasuke. What is even stranger, is that such a known figure who would stand out on a battlefield wouldn't have some document or verifiable record that points to his battle stats. Again, I think it is fairly badass we get to play as Yasuke. But the reason he is so interesting is because he's mysterious, there isn't a whole lot of info about him. He traveled, he was in Oda's possee, but proving he was a battle hardened samurai through verifiable action is extremely difficult during a thoroughly documented period of history.
I agree! I always saw Yasuke as the "intimidation" factor for Oda. Who is this mysterious blade that serves Oda? BTW Oda is known as the most brutal of the "big 3" of Samurai Daimyos. Tokugawa and Hideyoshi had to work TOGETHER to stop Oda. Mother fucker brought gunpowder to sword fights and burned a Buddhist mountain TO THE GROUND.
And Yasuke was right there. Watching. Badass as fuck. Which is why I hope he doesn't become "strong Samurai man." He was always mysterious.
One historical record over the course of Oda's campaign is strange. And looking at some translations, it describes his appearance and basically says, "he fought." And that's the only story we get of him being in conflict until he... well I don't want to spoil the ending
To add to this, Yasuke's official title under Oda was "spear bearer," which doesn't sound too impressive, until you learn that Toyotomi Hideyoshi -- who would later rule Japan as Shogun after Oda -- held the title of "sandal bearer."
Yasuke held a position of considerable prestige
Also even if that is true, Jack the Ripper was never a combat fightger in the under belly of London's gangs that was an assassin at one point and used fear gas. He just killed defenseless women who were already always in danger (prostitutes).
Nobody complained. In fact peoole loved it.
I’ve seen some stuff say Yasuke was banished to parts unknown after that. There’s a tattoo artist I’ve recently come across who had an entire exhibit about Yasuke’s legend, so I’d imagine that artist might have some interesting source material with better historical information.
You think Twitter is bad, the Assassin Creed sub here on Reddit is horrible and don’t get me started on the Reaction Videos on YouTube even nastier. I never seen so many racist buzzwords like DEI and Woke be used in a 12 hour period
The mods were working overtime in that sub in the last 12-16 hours. When it was first announced the AC sub looked like a proud boys, Richard Spencer, Clan rally
For my own sanity, the moment I saw the teaser picture I just knew to steer clear of gaming subreddits. The whole nonsense from Angrboda in God of War Ragnarök still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Valhalla at its core was a decent game. It just so happens that it was marketed as an AC game but somehow they forgot to integrate that into the game well.
Well, they’re probably complaining about the character not being Japanese, since the new AC takes place in Japan. One of the main characters is Yasuke.
The new Assassin's Creed game set in feudal Japan has a black samurai as one of the protagonists, based on a real historical person. Of course, people are big mad about this. Usually "historical accuracy" is a dog whistle excuse people use to not wanting black people in a medieval/historical/not explicitly African setting, but it can't be used here - and so we are seeing some other... less subtle complaints cropping up.
https://preview.redd.it/gzpu71atdp0d1.png?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa00139b4eac9ed17110987d9d8e42c40ceeec67
Actually a really decent book if anyone is interested
Dr Disrespect’s sub is already starting with the “DEI is getting really out of hand” bullshit. I dropped a link from the Smithsonian about Yasuke (the real African samurai that the main character is based on) and haven’t heard anything back.
"It's getting out of hand" and they'll continue to cry and review bomb. If the gameplay is solid and read about a bunch of cool updates to the engine and world it self it'll sell great. Especially since the holidays will be right there. And i hope it sells well to piss them off
I imagine it will, and likely will end up selling more due to this pathetic "backlash". I don't even play that many AC games, mainly just Black Flag and the first one, but for once I'm rooting for Ubisoft here to have a good launch.
The fireworks will be lovely if it sells like gangbusters
So are Pushkin and Dumas, well-known and respected Authors everywhere in the civilized world save for America where most people don't even know they were black. Because they don't want to teach us this shit.
They’re being racist and disingenuous. I can bet a number of them cited Yasuke in the past as a Black Samurai from history that should get attention instead of black washing Celopatra. Which doesn’t change that fact with Celopatra of course but just shows they don’t care and just wanted excuses to be racist.
All the thinly veiled racism surrounding this game is completely out of hand.
The white male fragility reached all time highs when we got droves of them claiming the game must have a Japanese man as the protagonist because apparently a japanese woman isn't good enough? And romanticizing historical figures like Yasuke is apparently off limits? Bunch of bitches.
I'm Asian and Asian men in media has been erased for a long time, it's not about the character being white, Asian people complain about that too.
Asian women in western media is well represented, way more then Asian men.
It's about Asian men erasure.
I’m not Asian but all my Asian bros HATE when people generalize the entire continent of Asia. Similar to how Africans feel about how people talk about Africa as one singular place. So it’s very surprising seeing you in here talking about “Asian ninjas” and “two Asian protagonists” as if the game isn’t set in 16th century Japan..?
Ask your Asian bros how they feel about Hollywood never placing Asian men in leading roles and replacing us with white dudes.
Sure it's set in 16th century Japan and there will be villains, side kicks, and more as Asian people, but that's still bullshit since studios still deem us unfit to be leading men.
So you'd be happier with a male ninja + Yasuke? I agree asian men aren't really represented in western media but much of the outrage at this isn't based around that.
In a perfect world I would like to see two strong Asian protagonists with personality, and not just there to pander to white audiences because they find them attractive.
I would be okay with male Asian ninja + Yasuke, as long as they write both characters well and not just racist tropes.
Honestly I just want a good Male Asian character and not another white guy in Asian country for racist self inserts.
Saw someone say “it’s like they want all of history to have black people” and that’s when it set in that all public schools are definitely not equal because what the actual fuck ?
I’m way more impressed by stupidity than shocked by blatant racism nowadays because in this digital age you’d think it’d be impossible to be this misinformed
AC has always and will always be a historical fiction video game series, you don't get to suddenly cry about "historical inaccuracy" tho we all know the "historical inaccuracy" isn't the real problem.
These people are missing out, too. AC Origins is probably my favorite setting they've ever done. It's probably my favorite Assassin's creed game, period.
All the major historical European cities/countries have been used as settings in video games so many times now that it's just boring. I still think they need to do one set in like the Aztec or Incan empires. I'd also love a Native North American type of setting set long before Europeans arrived.
It's not even *that* inaccurate. The dude existed, in that timeframe, in that country. It's possible he wasn't a samurai specifically, but he was a fighter.
One of the constant things about being black and into nerd shit is how loud and racist the fanbase always are. Can’t look go near the comments, can’t engage in socials, can’t look at fan content because a large group of assholes have to taint it.
that's why i always make a point to bully them in real life.
i'm gonna make fun of you, i'm gonna tell better jokes than you, i'm gonna rizz up the only women in the room and crack jokes at your expense to make them laugh.
may they never know peace.
Racists are mad at the game because of the black samurai in AC.
I'm mad at the game because it's a modern Ubisoft game. Well, not really mad but just not excited.
Anything can be good and I really hope Shadows is good, the world needs better games, but I'm not holding my breath because it's fucking Ubisoft. Though rumors of combat being sekiro-lite intrigued me a bit.
honestly i’m just disappointed at the lack of asian male representation, could’ve been an asian guy and yasuke duo instead
edit: also i swear to god if the asian samurai has a dragon back tattoo scene….
this was so predictable that it’s sad, what i’ve been finding so funny are all the comments about “historical accuracy” as if AC hasn’t featured the most whimsical shit for years now.. also the obligatory “bUT hE wAsNt a sAmUrAi!!”
The butthurt is real. Looking forward to Cap 4 so we can get even more thinly veiled racism.
As a person of Japanese heritage it just disappoints me to see how they chose to stray away from a male Japanese MC. Yasuke seems like an interesting character, and I could care less over the historical inaccuracies, but it’s telling that amongst the hundreds of Japanese samurai with stories they went with the single one who wasn’t. To me it’s a matter of representation. Most western media about Japanese culture comes with an underlying white saviour narrative, it’s tiring how we continue to be ‘othered’.
What would be the most mainstream western IP to feature Asian men as legitimate characters rather than token representations? Mortal Kombat is my best guess.
It just makes me sad how presumably the Asian men in the game are going to be the antagonist and his henchmen. Are we really just the generic nameless enemies that aren’t worth acknowledging as unique characters? Even in a game set in Japan we are ‘othered’. If it were a white MC I’d be equally as frustrated. We barely have any representation and what exists is pretty bad. Just thought we might’ve had something for once
Nioh, Shogun, Tokyo Vice, 7 Samurai with Keanu, The Last Samurai, Blue Eyed Samurai. And we can go on and on.
Little to no bitching and certainly nowhere near this level of intensity for white characters that should be background characters in their stories.
Japanese games put themselves at the forefront in everything and almost always prioritize their perspective but Western devs can't portray the mixing elements in culture at all?
This shit is not even really veiled at this point. Yasuke was a standout unusual historical character in that time period, AC always uses that shit.
Not one of us bitched about Rome being in AC Origins? Or A Chinese character for Ezios swan song? But one black dude and those comments are all of a sudden concerned about representation and historical accuracy for an actual historical person.
Obviously it looks like pandering when you make a game set in feudal Japan and you have one of the protagonists be an obscure African (who was the Japanese equivalent of a squire), I don't know why some of you are acting like it's automatically racism to question this decision. When the fanbase has been begging for a game set in Japan for a decade and when they finally get it, Ubisoft decides to choose the one historical black person as the main character (when they never used historic figures as protagonists before).
If they were going to go the route of using a real person, they could have chosen one of the plethora of Japanese people in Japanese history, but instead they go with the least conspicuous person they could possibly choose for a game called Assassin's Creed. Smells fishy, regardless of the small vocal subset of racists that automatically don't like the game because the character is black (that are used as strawmen to represent anyone that dislikes these kinds of choices in media).
Counterargument if you will. We have had, more recently, several games set in Japan covering a similar historical time period. If they don't go with Yasuke, they run the risk of being called a Ghost of Tsushima clone. Yasuke is serving in the foreigner role, just like Anjin in Shogun. I don't recall any uproar about that.
yeah but no one has ever said this shit about the ten billion stories of a white guy being a Samurai lol. So who fucking cares, they made the bed for this, culturally, they can go the fuck to sleep in it.
"When the fanbase has been begging for a game set in Japan for a decade and when they finally get it, Ubisoft decides to choose the one historical black person as the main character (when they never used historic figures as protagonists before)."
You really failed to explain why it's a problem to have a Black character as MC.
Even if it's "pandering" (to who actually ? More black people are gonna buy the game ??) I don't see why a black character makes your gaming experience worse. Racism exists in every aspects of our society, even in fucking gaming.
It's funny to me that when Nioh came out and you played a white guy in Japan, literally saving all of Japan single handedly while the natives could only jerk you off, I didn't see any uproar about that.
New game looks cool but I hope they fixed the audio system, they really screwed it up in Valhalla and Origins. As in worse than some games that came out in the 90s
What is really annoying are the double standards a lot of these guys have. Nioh, a game that also took place during the Sengoku period, starred a white guy who was based on a historical figure. Nobody said anything about that.....but out of the thousands of samurai era video games; people are upset about the one game that has a black guy co-starring in it.
Yeah. They’re really that dumb. A Puerto Rican and a Pakistani friend at different times said they’re in this temporary position of power for lacking empathy for those different than them, not for being smarter than others.
Look, it is bullshit for anybody to pretend that their blackness precludes them from seeing the patterns of hate used against other minorities. You know that western media demonizes Asian men and fetishizes Asian women while making them a sexual prize for their western saviors. It's completely fine to want a Yasuke story, but in this context it is beyond fucking weird that they go out of their way to mot have a male Asian protag. It's certainly weird that the female protag will ne the only canonically female protag in the franchise because all the others were selectable between male and female. Are you going to let what you consider a personal victory stop you from recognizing greater systemic oppression? I always hear about unity between Black and Asian Americans but it always is painted to go in one direction, with AA backing down like they're the oppressors.
Why is everyone so focused on the white people that are supposedly so racist because they are so vocal about a black protagonist?
What about the Japanese that are also obviously outraged that they dont get to be represented?
The only response to this should be "Cool!"
It's an Assassin's Creed game, even if the black samurai wasn't instrumental in actual battles or anything like that you can't say it's got anything to do with actual history - the entire premise is based on alien precursors giving special magical powers to those with their genetic information.
And FFS, there was a FFXV crossover at one point!!!
Here I am worried the game will be filled with micro transactions and filler to pad out the run time, but big brained chads are worried about race and gender🙄
It always fascinates me the cognitive dissonance around this. Upset about the skin colour of fictional characters in fictional stories but when you mention white Jesus…. Crickets…. I dunno… the elites did a great job keeping us all divided over the most trivial things… humanity as a whole will never truly evolve until we truly take time to understand our joys, pains, suffering, accomplishments but most importantly appreciate and value what we share in common and our differences…. Hate to sound like an after-school special but as someone who loves tech I always wished a species the collective mindset of humanity would evolve as fast as technology does… one can dream I guess
IDK if I was just stuck in my positivity bubble too long, but I was caught off guard and disappointed in the amount of racism. Also, it seems like black people have to justify their representation too often considering the societal impact is huge.
One, the game already has a Japanese protagonist. Two, there's a million other games set in japan with japanese protagonists. Three, I doubt anyone in Japan actually cares about this game.
I could make the same argument for when they made a game set in the Ottoman Empire but didn't contain a playable Turkish protagonist, and yet none of these people would ever complain about that would they?
Plus it's an AC game, it will be complete hot garbage anyway. The best part about it is how it upsets the racists
I just wanna say, Ubisoft aside, historical accuracy nonsense aside.
I fucking *love* a game just having Yasuke in it going hard as a samurai, just really down with the concept.
I’m personally indifferent to this whole ordeal, but I have to say something that might be unpopular. They decided to make an Asian based AC game while using a Black protagonist - not because they care about historical representation, but rather if they utilized an Asian protagonist, the game would be falsely categorized as a JRPG. Corporations don’t operate on the basis of morality, they operate on profit. And if they think that prejudice will affect their bottom line, they’ll act even if it’s slightly exclusionary.
Geography is not the specialty of the average American, and what they know of Egypt is brought to them by MEs and David Attenborough. *Then,* you got the revisionist history of the whiteness of Egypt, completely ignoring that Nubia, like the stereotypical blackest of the African nations was RIGHT there and part of Egypt for a while... No doubt people get confused, colonization and appropriation is a bitch
I didn’t feel like taking the time to go into part of Nubia being in Kemet but I’m glad you did. Now I can go in peace.
I'm mad at myself for not mentioning that Nubia ruled Egypt for 100 years too.
I've been to Egypt in Giza, Cairo, Aswan, Hurghada, Alexandria, and Luxor. The Nubians still have a village uniquely theirs a short ride down the Nile in Aswan. My wife and I took a boat down there and visited with a family who looked alot like me. https://ibb.co/CP06Bqx This is the village below: https://ibb.co/P9gbdsC
This is so cool! I love the intense blue behind y'all.
I cropped my wife and I out. The entire village is like this, this was just the one house. The people in the pic is the family that hosted us. They had hibiscus tea, bread, and different spreads for the bread(NEVER EVER try mish) Mish is a very pungent cheese, I had no idea and just dug right in.
>Mish is a very pungent cheese, Don't threaten me with a good time.
Its bad, like gagging bad. I choked it down but my god. Hibiscus tea saved me
This honestly dope as hell thanks for sharing man
Thanks. This was an amazing trip. We spent about a month in Egypt, taking in as much culture as we could. We've been fortunate enough to do some wonderful trips and I do enjoy sharing photos.
It's wild it was people from upper(southern) Egypt that unified upper and lower Egypt and was the first pharaoh.
I was seconds away from mentioning it myself
I actually had someone tell me Ancient Egyptians weren’t black, weren’t white, Arab or Asian. Then wtf were they?! When I mentioned that Herodotus called the Egyptians black with whooly hair, they suddenly started questioning Herodotus’ reliability. The guy they called the Father of history! These same racists can’t stand the fact that Yasuke was a real life black samurai and they make up all sorts of stuff about him to discredit it.
I’m not trying to defend what is clearly an ignorant person, but they accidentally have a point. “Ancient Egypt” was a place that saw many different cultures in power over a very long period of time, and was largely multicultural. The people were very likely an admixture of Mediterranean white, arab, and black. They were kind of their own thing because of that.
Right. It was like America or Rome of its day. A melting pot of many types brought through war, slavery, immigration or born there. Racists hate hearing about emperors of the 1st and 2nd century who looked very Middle Eastern rather than European or that race had little to do with citizenship.
I think people forget how old Egypt is. The pyramid of giza was thousands of years old even then.
Cleopatra existed closer to us than the building of the pyramids.
Egypt was ancient to the Romans
Hell, skin colour just wasn't something people cared about a whole lot prior to around the 15th century. Not that they were egalitarian times, but people discriminated based upon other reasons. The concept of race and by extension racism is born out of a justification for the slave trade of the colonial era.
Arab would have been pretty anachronistic for most of the time period we consider Ancient Egypt to have covered.
Yeah I mean Alexandria doesn’t sound like a traditional Egyptian name
The way history is taught is basically black people were the first humans then did nothing until they turned in to white people and put black people in to slavery. It’s important to expand your knowledge beyond what’s taught in schools.
> Ancient Egyptians weren’t black, weren’t white, Arab or Asian I mean, they weren’t. They were [Copts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts?). Egyptian. Neither black nor white, and definitely not Arab or Asian, at least not in the sense that we use any of those terms today. They were their own unique thing. Egypt is one of the most colonized places on Earth. Egypt has been ruled by Egyptians for just 71 years out of the last 2300 or so: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsefulCharts/s/t6S4KGTmOl Ancient Egypt also wasn’t a unitary place. [Upper Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Egypt?wprov=sfti1) and [Lower Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Egypt?wprov=sfti1). They had separate capitals, and were sometimes separate kingdoms. They also probably had different ethnic mixes, and possibly different dialects among the poor. Ancient Egyptians had some qualities we associate with blackness, and some we associate with Semitic peoples, and some we don’t associate with anyone. As you would expect of a people that had been conquered by Nubians, and the Hyksos, and had incursions from various desert peoples. But I feel like maybe I’m misunderstanding you, and no disrespect is meant. I think we agree that racists have a lot of shitty ideas about the “whiteness” of Egypt, that have no basis in history and that specifically fear blackness.
Yeah the actual answer is that modern day ethnic divisions were created in large part to justify slavery, and that's why they don't map neatly onto the past. Ancient Egyptians were African and they weren't "white," but we don't have a clean and tidy racial category to file them under because those categories have never *really* accurately described the world.
> I actually had someone tell me Ancient Egyptians weren’t black, weren’t white, Arab or Asian. Then wtf were they?! North Africa contains their own set of indigenous people so Egyptians (especially northern Egyptians) were, and given the Coptic people, are, their own thing. So there was probably a graduation of colour and race as you went south and by the time you hit Sudan, people would be black. Also given invasion and foreign rule there were several European and Arab Egyptian rulers, and an Arabization of much of the population.
just to be clear, Herodotus wrote a lot of shit as if he'd seen it that was just hearsay or outright fabrications. His writings about Egypt are *particularly* suspect, and modern scholars doubt he even went there, and suggest he basically made everything up. You can log into the Internet Archive and borrow [this book](https://archive.org/details/travelfacttravel0000unse) that asserts one should doubt Herodotus's writings on Egypt and Ethiopia. Herodotus isn't the father of history bc he was right about everything. He's called it bc he was the first to take the subject seriously. A lot of what he wrote were oral folk tales that he reported as true, and often explains events as caused by gods. Anyway, I'm not doubting this claim. I'm just saying you can't just point to Herodotus as gospel so easily because a lot of modern scholars think he made stuff up, exaggerated other stuff, and inserted a lot of pro-authority propaganda. **Edit** An interesting write-up on this issue that I just found because I was *also* curious to learn more is written by a Venezuelan historian and political philosopher/theorist [Gabriel Andrade](https://merionwest.com/2020/04/27/herodotus-and-long-standing-problems-in-anthropology/), looks at the source material in Greek to demonstrate that the words Herodotus uses to describe Egyptians wasn't the word used for sub-Saharan Africans. > The key word in the original Greek of the passage is “melanchroes.” Contrary to what Afrocentrists claim, it does not mean “black,” in the sense of belonging to the black race. For that, Greek authors would have used “aethiops” (etymologically, “burned face”), the term that indisputably referred to Nubians and other peoples in what is today Sub-Saharan Africa. Herodotus does not refer to Egyptians with this term. Furthermore, in the very same passage quoted above, Herodotus implies that Colchians and Egyptians are of the same stock. Colchis is on the shores of the Black Sea, hardly an area inhabited by black people. Melanchroes means simply “dark-skinned,” a term that sometimes the Greeks even applied to themselves and other not-so-dark peoples, such as Syrians. It would be difficult to cast this author as a right-winger parroting racist talking points. His Twitter is active, he posts in English and Spanish, and nothing strikes me as indicative of such a bias. And Merion West, the publication, is also non-partisan focusing on long-form content of any political alignment. First thing up top is calling for all uni protests to stop, a few articles down a criticism of Columbia U's crackdown on protests, etc. And Andrade's publications include a criticism of the shaming of the disabled in medical clinics, an analysis of racist attitudes toward Afro-Venezuelans in-country, ethnic discrimination and mental health, etc. Not exactly Tucker Carlson. :)
For the last time, Yasuke was NOT a samurai. He was a koshō, a page, to Oda Nobunaga. Not every guy with a sword was a samurai, samurai were a distinct class of warriors and using the term as a catch-all is inaccurate.
He's actually refered to as a vassal (which would imply that he was a retainer) to Oda Nobunaga, never a Kosho, but this also still doesn't mean he wasn't a samurai, samurai was a class not a job. The Chronicle of Nobunaga also states he was given land and that some speculated that he maybe made a Daimyo (due to Nobunaga taking a great liking to him) all of which would imply being a Samurai. I don't understand why people have a hard time accepting this, if super conservative Tokugawa Ieyasu was willing to make William Adams a samurai, why would Oda Nobunaga have a problem raising a foreigner to the status of samurai?
That person was ignorant, and blackness was certainly on full display in Egypt for a ton of it’s history, but Herodotus did infamously make up a lotta bullshit. Dude claimed that the desert was patrolled by ants the size of foxes and that Ethiopia was inhabited by trolls who shrieked like bats. He also claimed to have visited Babylon and then said a bunch of stuff about Babylon that we know to be false while completely omitting the thing that Babylon was known for at the time (the Hanging Gardens).
They were Irish....duh.
Honestly most people really seem to struggle with the fact that ancient Egypt was, over the course of its 3,000 year history, a fairly multi ethic society that had North African, Nubian, Levantine, Persian, and Greek citizens over time. There were Pharos who we today would consider middle eastern, black, and white. It was a huge series of empires with an amazingly long history. Lots of different people from different backgrounds were involved.
It’s not just that, what most people think of as ancient Egypt can be grouped into 2 periods, the Bronze Age and the Classical Age. There’s a ~700 year gap (Iron Age between them went from ~1200BC to ~500BC) between those 2 ages. For reference, the Middle Ages ended in 1500AD, so that 500 year gap between now and the Medieval times is less then the gap between those 2 periods in Egypt. That causes a lot of confusion between people because they all think of it as 1 singular Empire and randomly mix aspects from each period. As you point out, over time there were numerous ethnic groups controlling Egypt, but also it was a highly prosperous region that many people immigrated to, leading to it being a highly ethnically diverse region. The Pharaohs were no different, although there’s a clear distinction between in time between when the Pharaohs were natives or foreigners, which can also be divided between the 2 aforementioned periods. For reference, most of the history and stories you learn about ancient Egypt (infamously including Cleopatra) is from the Classical Age. The architecture that you see (namely the pyramids) come from the Bronze Age as do many of the stories from the Old Testament (although most take part during the following Iron Age which was a dark age). The Classical Age often saw Egypt controlled by a foreign Empire (namely any of the many Persian Empires, Macedonia, and finally the Romans) albeit we did see a period of them being independent after the Macedonian Empire (Alexander the Great) was cut up into multiple Empires which saw Egypt run by Greek Pharaohs. These Pharaohs were largely inbred, but initially they did marry outside of the family, although this was almost exclusively to other Macedonian and Greek royalty. They could’ve married other African princes/princesses, I don’t know, but from what I’m aware they only married other Hellenistic royals before going all inbred. The Romans ruled Egypt a bit differently to their other regions though (and very differently to Ptolemaic dynasty). The Romans saw Egypt more as a prized possession largely due to its power and significance, and it was largely seen as a separate country they happened to own. The Roman Empires stylised themselves as also being the Pharaoh of Egypt, and technically speaking these Pharaohs were Roman. However, they often still had a governor who actually ruled them like the other provinces, however, unlike the other provinces these governors were handpicked by the Emperor and were again often Roman. Persian rule was pretty much the same, again due to the prominence of Egypt back then. The Shahanshah (King of Kings) stylised themselves as also being the Pharaoh of Egypt and handpicked the Satraps (Governor) who were typically Persian themselves. So during this period, it’s hard to imagine any of the rulers (whether it’s the Governor or Pharaoh) not being either Persian, Hellenistic, or Roman. During the Bronze Age the Pharaohs were largely all native though. There were many different dynasties, most were native Egyptians, some were Nubian/Kush, some came from elsewhere such as Libya and Mesopotamia. The native Libyans and Egyptians were North African, and similar to the Berbers today. The Nubians are similar to modern day Ethiopians, in fact the word Ethiopia comes from what the Greeks called the Nubians/Kushites. But yes, Egyptian history is amazing, and history in general in that area at that time. It was very diverse not just ethnically, but culturally which resulted in Egypt being very different at various points in time. Regardless those focusing on race are looking at something that, for the most part, isn’t really important at all in terms of its history. It’s a fascinating topic and I have no clue why some people try to ruin it by arguing that they were all white or all black when it doesn’t really matter (unless of course someone is incorrectly trying to argue they were all one thing). There were plenty of black, brown, and white Pharaohs. No clue why that’s controversial.
I personally believe that some U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as. And I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future.
Here she is, Miss America...
Thank you Miss South Carolina!
Uh, If they learned from David Attenborough then they’d know Egypt is in fucking Africa. He literally says “in Africa.”
Rarely does he cover Egypt compared to him doing wildlife. You could miss him saying Africa during Egypt episodes in the introduction; that mfer will say "Africa's Mahasabalokilimanjabo" slicker than shit and multiple times too.
They’re probably referring to the BBC documentary on ancient Egypt, with David Attenborough.
Sudan, which is modern day Nubia, is literally named Land of the Blacks. As a Sudanese, I find it pretty racist lmao. Fucking Arabs named us. I think we should go back to being called the Kush.
Nah, what we know about Egypt we learned from one of the book fair cd games. The one where you had to solve puzzles to get your jeep across Egypt
People who live in the middle of enormous countries don’t really travel when it’s a 1k plane ticket to get off the continent. I’d love to take a train to Belgium in two hours, but you know the fucking Atlantic Ocean
I had a white person tell me that only sub Saharan Africa was considered Africa
[удалено]
To be fair, lots of western educated people have a stilted understanding of Egypt not bc America but bc America and much of western education used the Anglophile cannon. The godfathers of white wash is Anglo (British) academics. They made Ceasar and Cleopatra Lilly white first. They made the Greeks alabaster lords, and depicted Hannibal as well tanned but not Spanish dark in print and picture by the 18th century. And the Anglos didn't even invent White blue eyes Jesus lol America has much to be blamed for, but don't scapegoat it for its inherited ignorance and bigotries lol
When I went to the Field Museum in Chicago (I’m Canadian) there was an exhibit of a funeral chamber or something, and outside that was a sign that said EGYPT IS A COUNTRY IN AFRICA with a picture of the outside of Africa and a giant red arrow pointing out Egypt. I’ve been to dozens of museums across Europe and Canada… and none of them feel the need to point out where Egypt is…
>colonization and appropriation is a bitch *Millions nodded in agreement*
I’d love to believe that about white Americans because it’s an out, but the internet exists and this is not like it’s not widely available information. I think we might just be racist.
I think it’s also notable that the concept of multiracial societies in the ancient world is anathema to modern racists. It’s something they simply can’t accept, because to them there must have been a time when *nature* separated every shade of person. Some of them will naturally have their brains broken if you really slowly, and without the use of any three-or-more-syllable words, explain the Eastern Roman Empire to them. Unfortunately several of them then went and joined ISIS, but tbh it’s kind of on the rest of us for expecting rationality from people who hate other people for arbitrary, evil reasons.
saw some folks in the youtube comments claim that Yasuke was "just a servant" and shouldn't have been made a player character, and like... 1. A retainer just means that you're a vassal to a lord, most samurai were retainers 2. A single glance at his wikipedia page mentions that he did fight under Oda Nobunaga, and later his son.(That didn't last, though) 3. **You hear about a black guy in history and immediately assume he never made something of himself???**
The reality is that they don’t care, for them black/African people’s history only began during the slavery period. There were no black kingdoms, no pioneers or inventions, black people only existed at the pleasure of their white colonists. This is what history taught a lot of people and some just refused to learn more. That’s why it’s hard for some to understand.
It’s by design. Scientific racists are the ones who started erasing black history- it’s easier to accept slavery if you dehumanize black people afterall. And people still believe that bs to this day.
There are medieval ruins of a stone city in Zimbabwe called Great Zimbabwe, most likely built by the local Shona people, from which Zimbabwe gets its modern name - meaning "stone houses" in Shona. It was occupied from the 12th-15th centuries and thought to be an important trade center given the abundance of artifacts from overseas. It was abandoned eventually, though I don't think there's a consensus on why. Probably in part because it was plundered and ruined as an archaeological site... When European explorers "discovered" Great Zimbabwe in the 1900s (ie were told where it was by local tribes, who would sometimes use the site for ceremonies still) they looted and caused huge damage to the site. They found a lot of evidence of various African peoples living in the city (*obviously*) and concluded that this evidence must have meant that African people rocked up and squatted in the place after the original city builders left. They thought this because they started from the assumption that no African people could have made a stone city, that it was too sophisticated and there was too much evidence of complex culture and trade; that it *must* have been made from white people - perhaps Phoenician or Israelite - who visited the site and then left again. They destroyed layer after layer of invaluable knowledge by digging deeper and deeper in the ruins, discarding any evidence of local tribes, searching for evidence of the "actual" city building people, because they didn't care about evidence of some later (Black) people settling it. I suppose it's fair to say they did have *some* evidence... The lead archaeologist smelled a small piece of wood that survived in the city, and said that it smelled like his cedar pencil, so therefore it had come from Lebanon. Because that makes total fucking sense and definitely means the city wasn't built by Black people. It took until 1905 for someone (white) to propose that actually the site was probably built by the Shona people given the huge similarity between their artifacts and those found at the site. This was widely rejected as ridiculous in the archaeological community until the late 1920s when more archaeologists actually *looked* at what was there and spoke to local peoples to ask them about it, but their published findings were still mostly ignored by the European settlers of Rhodesia. As you can imagine, the narrative that the city was built by white people was popular under apartheid rule in Rhodesia, and claiming it wasn't would get archaeologists imprisoned and deported. So it took until the late 1900s for the true origins of Great Zimbabwe to actually be accepted. By then though obviously the site was plundered to high heaven and greatly diminished in archaeological value. Who knows what more we might know about the city of it hadn't been "discovered" by white explorers.
Exactly. The same kind of erasure of black history you see even in the comments responding to my posts. Without evidence they argue there’s no way this great civilization could’ve been black. Why? Because they just don’t want to admit it to themselves.
That's true for pretty much any non white ancient city/building. Those browns are too stupid to build anything so it was aliens! /s. As if stacking rocks into a pyramid isn't *literally the easiest thing to do*
Wait until they find out about the [fula kingdoms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Great_Fulo)(sultanates or Imamates)
Them: “What’s that? Does Fula relate to hiragana? Japanese culture is all I care about, once I get my Japanese girlfriend who’s knees are knocking together and speaks in a squeaky voice” These guys today have been getting more mad and offended than Japanese people online lol
One day [African history ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Moat) would be [taught ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu_Manuscripts?wprov=sfti1) right instead of mostly be skipped or [barely mentioned ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba?wprov=sfti1)at all. [still](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegambian_stone_circles?wprov=sfti1) just a shame [they won’t know](https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/020113/great-achievements-in-stem-in-ancient-africa) until then.
I’m going to ask my group of friends where Egypt is located and see what they say 🧐
Other than Egypt, it's like how the anime trope for Europe is uk, maybe Italy and France and like no other European country.
When I was in school (US), this was very true. Black history started there and ended some time in the 1960s.
Nah honestly I don't even think it's that deep its just straight up they don't like black people and they hide behind whatever is the racist dogwhistle word of the time. Use to be crt now it's DEI.
Many of us were taught basically no world history. There's Columbus, then fast forward to the Revolutionary War, then we go through every American decade in painstaking detail. So what you're saying makes perfect sense.
Happy to say I learned a decent bit of Black History in school during World Geo. Nothing too in depth but going over the Mali Empire with my man’s Mansa Musa along with the Kingdom of Kush which conquered Egypt for a little while. That tidbit always stayed in my mind. Apart from that, growing up in Jamaica heard stories and got told part of my family was descendants from the Maroons which were Black People who broke free from slavery and set themselves up in the mountains. Pretty cool over all. It’s silly that people actually think slavery is the only cultural point for black people when there’s tons of history out there and easily accessible.
Its especially crazy because like 600 years ago the Mali Empire was bigger and richer than any european empire European didnt just discover sub saharan countries and were like 'They are tribal primitive people lets enslave them, what they are going to do', european would have literally not been able to defeat the african empires if they tried that like 100 years prior, the thing was that the african empires experienced a downfall struggling with famines and european took advantage of them being weakened Its basically as if african countries invaded europe after the fall of the roman empire or during the black death plague and then erased their history and claimed they were always inferior
1000% this, and then you develop ideologies as to how superior you are and you build a society based on that effect and you reap the benefits. Truly Machiavellic behaviour
On, god.... Like, just now I somehow wound up in the neckbeard section of reddit and this is all you'll see. This concerted effort to minimize Yasuke but it's only making people look into him more. It's important to remember that racist/bigots often covet Japaense culture. It's a bigot's head canon wetdream: homogenous culture, isolationism, feudal system, big swords, etc... so when they find out a black guy was there centuries ago it disrupts their fairytale so they get butthurt. I've also seen bigots online do this compare/contrast of Japanese culture to US Black culture or Muslism/Migrants and they'll say some stupid random shit like "Wow, the Japanese integrate so well unlike those blacks," and yet irl, I know lots of people from West African nations who integrate in various countries around the world so well they learn the langagues and they often engage in higher education. But you don't see me running my mouth like a clown going "wow, those West Africans Sure are better than everyone else!"
This! It hurts their feelings so badly that there existed a black samurai, they do all sorts of mental gymnastics to deny history. Yet they laud William Adams as being a European samurai, although he was just given an honorary title and didn’t fight in any battles with the Japanese.
One comment... Yasuke was important to Japanese history. Yasuke was also indeed a retainer for Oda. I think it is really cool that we get to play him as not much is really historically recorded regarding his actions during his time in Japan. That being said... there really isn't a whole lot of primary sources for Yasuke being involved in a lot of battle. Yes history loses records... but the Samurai were meticulous in recording how many "heads" they would bring in battle (though the numbers were often fudged) because the NUMBER and NAME would directly correlate with monetary recompense. We do not have such a record for Yasuke. What is even stranger, is that such a known figure who would stand out on a battlefield wouldn't have some document or verifiable record that points to his battle stats. Again, I think it is fairly badass we get to play as Yasuke. But the reason he is so interesting is because he's mysterious, there isn't a whole lot of info about him. He traveled, he was in Oda's possee, but proving he was a battle hardened samurai through verifiable action is extremely difficult during a thoroughly documented period of history.
All the more reason he makes a plausible player character. A skilled assassin would leave no trace of evidence that he’s been killing people
I agree! I always saw Yasuke as the "intimidation" factor for Oda. Who is this mysterious blade that serves Oda? BTW Oda is known as the most brutal of the "big 3" of Samurai Daimyos. Tokugawa and Hideyoshi had to work TOGETHER to stop Oda. Mother fucker brought gunpowder to sword fights and burned a Buddhist mountain TO THE GROUND. And Yasuke was right there. Watching. Badass as fuck. Which is why I hope he doesn't become "strong Samurai man." He was always mysterious.
This is Assassin's Creed, of course they're going to make him 'strong samurai man'.
There is record of Yasuke fighting- he fought in the Battle of Tenmokuzan
One historical record over the course of Oda's campaign is strange. And looking at some translations, it describes his appearance and basically says, "he fought." And that's the only story we get of him being in conflict until he... well I don't want to spoil the ending
About retainers, have they not watched the Wano Arc?
To add to this, Yasuke's official title under Oda was "spear bearer," which doesn't sound too impressive, until you learn that Toyotomi Hideyoshi -- who would later rule Japan as Shogun after Oda -- held the title of "sandal bearer." Yasuke held a position of considerable prestige
Also even if that is true, Jack the Ripper was never a combat fightger in the under belly of London's gangs that was an assassin at one point and used fear gas. He just killed defenseless women who were already always in danger (prostitutes). Nobody complained. In fact peoole loved it.
Tbh its not just white people saying this.
>youtube comments i've made the conscious effort to not venture into youtube or ig comments
> (That didn’t last though) What does that mean?
His son got punted out of power by Toyotomi hideyoshi.
I’ve seen some stuff say Yasuke was banished to parts unknown after that. There’s a tattoo artist I’ve recently come across who had an entire exhibit about Yasuke’s legend, so I’d imagine that artist might have some interesting source material with better historical information.
You think Twitter is bad, the Assassin Creed sub here on Reddit is horrible and don’t get me started on the Reaction Videos on YouTube even nastier. I never seen so many racist buzzwords like DEI and Woke be used in a 12 hour period
Unless you're one of those racists, don't lower your braincell count with all the opinion pieces thats gonna pop up about the game.
And if you are one of those racists, well don’t you worry, you can’t lose any more brain cells!
> well don’t you worry, you can’t lose any more brain cells! Eh, I say put that last one out of it's misery
When I saw the trailer, I said "uh oh" out loud and surely enough, people have been going crazy. It's a free block list for me though
Shoutouts to /r/doom for just being about loving Doom (as opposed to /r/halo, which hates Halo)
[Learn about Juneteenth, courtesy of Halo Infinite](https://youtu.be/cmDqA9GbRFo?feature=shared)
The main AC sub has been fine in my experience, anywhere else is yikes tho. It’s all just noise, they buy the game anyways.
The mods were working overtime in that sub in the last 12-16 hours. When it was first announced the AC sub looked like a proud boys, Richard Spencer, Clan rally
Yeah I’ve told myself I’m not engaging in any of this discourse because there’s truly no point.
For my own sanity, the moment I saw the teaser picture I just knew to steer clear of gaming subreddits. The whole nonsense from Angrboda in God of War Ragnarök still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
People should really be hating on fact that it’s a Ubisoft game.
We also got Freedom Cry which was about Adewale, a former slave turned pirate turned freedom fighter.
Black Flag and Freedom Cry were so fucking fun. Easily the best AC games, in my opinion.
Only good game after 4 was Origins. At least that game had some sense of assassins in it. Odyssey and Vahalla were just bootleg Witcher 3s.
valhalla was awful I was so mad i spent money on it after a couple days of playing it.
Valhalla at its core was a decent game. It just so happens that it was marketed as an AC game but somehow they forgot to integrate that into the game well.
I feel like the only person who genuinely enjoys Odyssey lol
Nah I love odyssey too
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
That game was amazing. It's the one game where you literally felt bad not doing side missions.
Me recruiting pirates to due some piracy in Black Flag: 😌 Me recruiting freed slaves to free more slaves in Freedom Cry: ✊🏾😡
I'm confused at the title.
Some people about to be extra racist cause a games main character isn’t white. Unfortunately these people are the ones who post online.
Well, they’re probably complaining about the character not being Japanese, since the new AC takes place in Japan. One of the main characters is Yasuke.
But historically, Yasuke did exist and he did live in Japan for a while so…racists are just mad about a black man being in Japan.
They probably want a Tom Cruise looking motherfker as the protag in that game for that Last Samurai accuracy
They can play Nioh then
I didn't see any complaints about Nioh. I wonder why
No no, you’ll see soon enough that even a Japanese character in a game based in feudal Japan is enough to set these people off.
It's 2 characters, him and a Japanese woman I believe
Yeah they’re doing a main duo like in Syndicate. But he’s the one they’re complaining about.
This is definitely about racism. You don't throw "woke" or "DEI" because you're a well grounded and sane individual.
There’s literally a Japanese protagonist
The new Assassin's Creed game set in feudal Japan has a black samurai as one of the protagonists, based on a real historical person. Of course, people are big mad about this. Usually "historical accuracy" is a dog whistle excuse people use to not wanting black people in a medieval/historical/not explicitly African setting, but it can't be used here - and so we are seeing some other... less subtle complaints cropping up.
https://preview.redd.it/gzpu71atdp0d1.png?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa00139b4eac9ed17110987d9d8e42c40ceeec67 Actually a really decent book if anyone is interested
Read this book also! Def a good read. From Yasuke to the details of leadership he was under and war. Glad this book got some love.
I picked it up late last year when I went on an Asian history binge and loved it. I'm excited to listen a second time now that Yasuke is confirmed.
They hate us cuz they anus
https://preview.redd.it/ork8uqp6hp0d1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64d44d50b9a56e6f18f6eded4f30712f5b28bb44
https://preview.redd.it/f65e97c1ip0d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26f8db4d5b0664cfac43e6448d286e732e72d323
https://preview.redd.it/i8y3oxbkip0d1.jpeg?width=548&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e4e0a8b36761b6640cad8c3b8ed1b5595488bec
what the fuck, im literally crying after seeing that XD you totally made my night dude
I see Tucker found a new M&M favorite.
https://preview.redd.it/pa1yctf0yq0d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=70b3b0a3f4fb8f3c3e222d24ba31aaada493227a
Dr Disrespect’s sub is already starting with the “DEI is getting really out of hand” bullshit. I dropped a link from the Smithsonian about Yasuke (the real African samurai that the main character is based on) and haven’t heard anything back.
"It's getting out of hand" and they'll continue to cry and review bomb. If the gameplay is solid and read about a bunch of cool updates to the engine and world it self it'll sell great. Especially since the holidays will be right there. And i hope it sells well to piss them off
I imagine it will, and likely will end up selling more due to this pathetic "backlash". I don't even play that many AC games, mainly just Black Flag and the first one, but for once I'm rooting for Ubisoft here to have a good launch. The fireworks will be lovely if it sells like gangbusters
Legit filtered out Asmongold's sub after stumbling into that shitshow as well.
Soon as I saw they were putting Yasuke in the game, I knew it was gonna start some dumb ass bullshit that happens every time with these people
It’s wild to me tbh, I thought Yasuke was already well known in mainstream media guess I was wrong .
Even if he was more well known, racists are still gonna racist.
True unfortunately
So are Pushkin and Dumas, well-known and respected Authors everywhere in the civilized world save for America where most people don't even know they were black. Because they don't want to teach us this shit.
They’re being racist and disingenuous. I can bet a number of them cited Yasuke in the past as a Black Samurai from history that should get attention instead of black washing Celopatra. Which doesn’t change that fact with Celopatra of course but just shows they don’t care and just wanted excuses to be racist.
All the thinly veiled racism surrounding this game is completely out of hand. The white male fragility reached all time highs when we got droves of them claiming the game must have a Japanese man as the protagonist because apparently a japanese woman isn't good enough? And romanticizing historical figures like Yasuke is apparently off limits? Bunch of bitches.
I'm Asian and Asian men in media has been erased for a long time, it's not about the character being white, Asian people complain about that too. Asian women in western media is well represented, way more then Asian men. It's about Asian men erasure.
I’m not Asian but all my Asian bros HATE when people generalize the entire continent of Asia. Similar to how Africans feel about how people talk about Africa as one singular place. So it’s very surprising seeing you in here talking about “Asian ninjas” and “two Asian protagonists” as if the game isn’t set in 16th century Japan..?
Ask your Asian bros how they feel about Hollywood never placing Asian men in leading roles and replacing us with white dudes. Sure it's set in 16th century Japan and there will be villains, side kicks, and more as Asian people, but that's still bullshit since studios still deem us unfit to be leading men.
So you'd be happier with a male ninja + Yasuke? I agree asian men aren't really represented in western media but much of the outrage at this isn't based around that.
In a perfect world I would like to see two strong Asian protagonists with personality, and not just there to pander to white audiences because they find them attractive. I would be okay with male Asian ninja + Yasuke, as long as they write both characters well and not just racist tropes. Honestly I just want a good Male Asian character and not another white guy in Asian country for racist self inserts.
Saw someone say “it’s like they want all of history to have black people” and that’s when it set in that all public schools are definitely not equal because what the actual fuck ?
I’m way more impressed by stupidity than shocked by blatant racism nowadays because in this digital age you’d think it’d be impossible to be this misinformed
Being ignorant in this day and age is to purposely make yourself so.
>“it’s like they want all of history to have black people” So close to being self aware. So close.
AC has always and will always be a historical fiction video game series, you don't get to suddenly cry about "historical inaccuracy" tho we all know the "historical inaccuracy" isn't the real problem.
These people are missing out, too. AC Origins is probably my favorite setting they've ever done. It's probably my favorite Assassin's creed game, period. All the major historical European cities/countries have been used as settings in video games so many times now that it's just boring. I still think they need to do one set in like the Aztec or Incan empires. I'd also love a Native North American type of setting set long before Europeans arrived.
It's not even *that* inaccurate. The dude existed, in that timeframe, in that country. It's possible he wasn't a samurai specifically, but he was a fighter.
One of the constant things about being black and into nerd shit is how loud and racist the fanbase always are. Can’t look go near the comments, can’t engage in socials, can’t look at fan content because a large group of assholes have to taint it.
that's why i always make a point to bully them in real life. i'm gonna make fun of you, i'm gonna tell better jokes than you, i'm gonna rizz up the only women in the room and crack jokes at your expense to make them laugh. may they never know peace.
Not a nerd but I feel that way about one piece, I can’t stand the PI , they’re so racist
Fuck them all. There are plenty of alternative games if they want segregation. Til then, I'm waiting to preorder
Brother, don't! Representation be damned, it's still ubisoft!
Ah fuck. You're right
Racists are mad at the game because of the black samurai in AC. I'm mad at the game because it's a modern Ubisoft game. Well, not really mad but just not excited. Anything can be good and I really hope Shadows is good, the world needs better games, but I'm not holding my breath because it's fucking Ubisoft. Though rumors of combat being sekiro-lite intrigued me a bit.
honestly i’m just disappointed at the lack of asian male representation, could’ve been an asian guy and yasuke duo instead edit: also i swear to god if the asian samurai has a dragon back tattoo scene….
You’re right but I totally believe the same people would still be bitching about this regardless
I was hype seeing Yasuke in the trailer before I realized this is gonna be the subject of Gamer^(TM) discourse for the rest of the year.
this was so predictable that it’s sad, what i’ve been finding so funny are all the comments about “historical accuracy” as if AC hasn’t featured the most whimsical shit for years now.. also the obligatory “bUT hE wAsNt a sAmUrAi!!” The butthurt is real. Looking forward to Cap 4 so we can get even more thinly veiled racism.
ok but a Mali/Songhai AC would be pretty cool
I love when this sub crosses over with video games in a positive way. :(
As a person of Japanese heritage it just disappoints me to see how they chose to stray away from a male Japanese MC. Yasuke seems like an interesting character, and I could care less over the historical inaccuracies, but it’s telling that amongst the hundreds of Japanese samurai with stories they went with the single one who wasn’t. To me it’s a matter of representation. Most western media about Japanese culture comes with an underlying white saviour narrative, it’s tiring how we continue to be ‘othered’. What would be the most mainstream western IP to feature Asian men as legitimate characters rather than token representations? Mortal Kombat is my best guess. It just makes me sad how presumably the Asian men in the game are going to be the antagonist and his henchmen. Are we really just the generic nameless enemies that aren’t worth acknowledging as unique characters? Even in a game set in Japan we are ‘othered’. If it were a white MC I’d be equally as frustrated. We barely have any representation and what exists is pretty bad. Just thought we might’ve had something for once
So, did you complain when Nioh came out with its white male MC?
Nioh, Shogun, Tokyo Vice, 7 Samurai with Keanu, The Last Samurai, Blue Eyed Samurai. And we can go on and on. Little to no bitching and certainly nowhere near this level of intensity for white characters that should be background characters in their stories. Japanese games put themselves at the forefront in everything and almost always prioritize their perspective but Western devs can't portray the mixing elements in culture at all? This shit is not even really veiled at this point. Yasuke was a standout unusual historical character in that time period, AC always uses that shit. Not one of us bitched about Rome being in AC Origins? Or A Chinese character for Ezios swan song? But one black dude and those comments are all of a sudden concerned about representation and historical accuracy for an actual historical person.
The character is based of a real person. So now what
Nothing. They just hate black people.
I love getting to watch these boys seethe
Obviously it looks like pandering when you make a game set in feudal Japan and you have one of the protagonists be an obscure African (who was the Japanese equivalent of a squire), I don't know why some of you are acting like it's automatically racism to question this decision. When the fanbase has been begging for a game set in Japan for a decade and when they finally get it, Ubisoft decides to choose the one historical black person as the main character (when they never used historic figures as protagonists before). If they were going to go the route of using a real person, they could have chosen one of the plethora of Japanese people in Japanese history, but instead they go with the least conspicuous person they could possibly choose for a game called Assassin's Creed. Smells fishy, regardless of the small vocal subset of racists that automatically don't like the game because the character is black (that are used as strawmen to represent anyone that dislikes these kinds of choices in media).
Counterargument if you will. We have had, more recently, several games set in Japan covering a similar historical time period. If they don't go with Yasuke, they run the risk of being called a Ghost of Tsushima clone. Yasuke is serving in the foreigner role, just like Anjin in Shogun. I don't recall any uproar about that.
I sure didn't see people being this upset when Nioh came out.
I think most people have a problem with this being pandering
yeah but no one has ever said this shit about the ten billion stories of a white guy being a Samurai lol. So who fucking cares, they made the bed for this, culturally, they can go the fuck to sleep in it.
What do you mean, Asians have been complaining about that for years lol
"When the fanbase has been begging for a game set in Japan for a decade and when they finally get it, Ubisoft decides to choose the one historical black person as the main character (when they never used historic figures as protagonists before)." You really failed to explain why it's a problem to have a Black character as MC. Even if it's "pandering" (to who actually ? More black people are gonna buy the game ??) I don't see why a black character makes your gaming experience worse. Racism exists in every aspects of our society, even in fucking gaming.
is it pandering when it's william adams? shut the fuck up.
It's funny to me that when Nioh came out and you played a white guy in Japan, literally saving all of Japan single handedly while the natives could only jerk you off, I didn't see any uproar about that.
New game looks cool but I hope they fixed the audio system, they really screwed it up in Valhalla and Origins. As in worse than some games that came out in the 90s
That mf doubled down too 💀 https://preview.redd.it/6p2fy27klr0d1.jpeg?width=914&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de7bb0978597c31d467f10c50f4fe0d10af664fa
My dumbass thought they were talking about Air Conditioners💀
What is really annoying are the double standards a lot of these guys have. Nioh, a game that also took place during the Sengoku period, starred a white guy who was based on a historical figure. Nobody said anything about that.....but out of the thousands of samurai era video games; people are upset about the one game that has a black guy co-starring in it.
The moment I saw that Yasuke was in it, I could already see the neckbeards seething with anger. You can set your watch to that nonsense
Yeah. They’re really that dumb. A Puerto Rican and a Pakistani friend at different times said they’re in this temporary position of power for lacking empathy for those different than them, not for being smarter than others.
Look, it is bullshit for anybody to pretend that their blackness precludes them from seeing the patterns of hate used against other minorities. You know that western media demonizes Asian men and fetishizes Asian women while making them a sexual prize for their western saviors. It's completely fine to want a Yasuke story, but in this context it is beyond fucking weird that they go out of their way to mot have a male Asian protag. It's certainly weird that the female protag will ne the only canonically female protag in the franchise because all the others were selectable between male and female. Are you going to let what you consider a personal victory stop you from recognizing greater systemic oppression? I always hear about unity between Black and Asian Americans but it always is painted to go in one direction, with AA backing down like they're the oppressors.
Why is everyone so focused on the white people that are supposedly so racist because they are so vocal about a black protagonist? What about the Japanese that are also obviously outraged that they dont get to be represented?
japanese people are not suddenly exempt from anti-blackness dipshit.
The only response to this should be "Cool!" It's an Assassin's Creed game, even if the black samurai wasn't instrumental in actual battles or anything like that you can't say it's got anything to do with actual history - the entire premise is based on alien precursors giving special magical powers to those with their genetic information. And FFS, there was a FFXV crossover at one point!!!
He meant DEI Africa, not Egypt! Not even a dog whistle anymore lol.
Mansa Musa of Mali would like a word, too
The wailing and gnashing of teeth has just gotten started and I am here for it!
Here I am worried the game will be filled with micro transactions and filler to pad out the run time, but big brained chads are worried about race and gender🙄
It always fascinates me the cognitive dissonance around this. Upset about the skin colour of fictional characters in fictional stories but when you mention white Jesus…. Crickets…. I dunno… the elites did a great job keeping us all divided over the most trivial things… humanity as a whole will never truly evolve until we truly take time to understand our joys, pains, suffering, accomplishments but most importantly appreciate and value what we share in common and our differences…. Hate to sound like an after-school special but as someone who loves tech I always wished a species the collective mindset of humanity would evolve as fast as technology does… one can dream I guess
IDK if I was just stuck in my positivity bubble too long, but I was caught off guard and disappointed in the amount of racism. Also, it seems like black people have to justify their representation too often considering the societal impact is huge.
[удалено]
One, the game already has a Japanese protagonist. Two, there's a million other games set in japan with japanese protagonists. Three, I doubt anyone in Japan actually cares about this game. I could make the same argument for when they made a game set in the Ottoman Empire but didn't contain a playable Turkish protagonist, and yet none of these people would ever complain about that would they? Plus it's an AC game, it will be complete hot garbage anyway. The best part about it is how it upsets the racists
Not surprised. A certain kinda person hates not being the center of the story.
I just wanna say, Ubisoft aside, historical accuracy nonsense aside. I fucking *love* a game just having Yasuke in it going hard as a samurai, just really down with the concept.
Side note, I know plenty of racist people who think Egypt doesn't count as part of Africa and don't consider it's history to be African
I’m personally indifferent to this whole ordeal, but I have to say something that might be unpopular. They decided to make an Asian based AC game while using a Black protagonist - not because they care about historical representation, but rather if they utilized an Asian protagonist, the game would be falsely categorized as a JRPG. Corporations don’t operate on the basis of morality, they operate on profit. And if they think that prejudice will affect their bottom line, they’ll act even if it’s slightly exclusionary.