• FumpyAer [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    I don’t think racism has a statute of limitations, but I do think that a decade of positive activism can make up for previous reactionary writings.

    I have read the above linked Sterling Destructoid article, which is a reactionary response to legitimate concerns about racist themes in an early RE5 trailer. I also read JSS’s 2009 article about RE5 in which they claim that RE5 is actually anti-racist and the people calling it racist are the real racist. This article is clearly racist, reactionary content complete with an R slur in the first sentence. I have not found an apology for this.

    However, their video right after the 2020 George Floyd protests began–in my opinion–shows they have grown a lot since their review of Resident Evil 5 in 2009. The most relevant section begins at 8:25 of this YouTube video. In the video, they acknowledge systemic racism, racist police brutality, and the inadequacy of most corporations’ somber jpeg responses to the police murder + mass peaceful protests without specific, actionable policy promises. They also touch on intersectionalism and relate it back to class struggle and provide links to support anti-racist orgs.

    While I would prefer a clear, specific apology, I think they are firmly now a force for anti-racism when they speak on the matter, but they seem to avoid the topic to let others who are more informed speak on it.

    Meanwhile, they are consistently anti-terf, anti-transphobia, anti-homophobia, anti-capitalist, pro-worker, pro-union, and call out injustice wherever they see it, in addition to amplifying and sometimes publishing whistleblowers’ claims.

    I will be the first to call them out if they say or write something racist, but I’ve been watching their channel since 2015 and I’ve never seen them do so since that point.

    Edit: I wrote the above before I was able to read about Justin and JSS’s pay dispute and dueling abuse/exploitation accounts. Links in comment above.