So because something similar is happening it is racism?  I don't know that I follow the logic there.  

I agree these are sensitive issues with a lot of emotion to them, and it may refresh the tragedy for people and cause a large emotional reaction....but how does that make this racism?

As I said quite clearly in my post, a legitimate argument can be made on the issue of the violence,  but my point was in bringing race into that discussion and I don't see how you contradict me at all....unless I misread your intentions.

Nope not implying that people are racists at all, but I do think that your honest attempt to combat one type of racism promotes another type of racism.

On the issue of imagery I would ask if people being offended is all that terrible?  The very point I'm making is that there are things people view as racist within the context of their own views that are not implicitly racist and that they are in fact promoting racism in their attacks against it.  If you are against racism you should be against the denigration of any and all skin colors....not just one at a time.

The overreaction and offense to certain, but not all, imagery is a roadblock to true equality, and people getting offended and then having a good honest debate is the only way people are going to figure out as a society which is which.  And any time I see a situation where someone says, for example, it's not OK to use blacks in a situation I wonder why it's ok to use any other type of person...if we are equal then there should be no difference.

Yes there is strong emotional connections to issues, but you don't heal those issues by avoiding them and ignoring them.  Like the emotional damage of someone you love dearly dying you have to deal with it and eventually move on.  You can't break down into tears every time someone mentions them 15 years later.   Everyone is so afraid of the "racists" label that they think it's much easier to just avoid the issue and to urge others to avoid the issue, than to actually deal with it.

It's because of who is coming in to fix the problems.  It suggests that such problems are beyond the reach of the native people within.  Which isn't a problem when fictional, but when the problems are very real and ongoing...

For example.  Lets take the pay discimation problems that women face.

What if there is a game where this problem is suddenly fixed by a guy because all the women are too incompetant to stop it and change things from going on?

Or a game set during the Indian Removal act of US history... and the Indians are saved by some Asian person who came from nowhere as the Indians are helpless in stopping it.

I'm really having a hard time following your point, are you saying that the game is racist or presumptuous?

Your examples I'm even more confused by...so you're saying games can't have heroes because it might make the people they save feel inferior because their own racism/sexism tinged worldview forces them to identify the racial/sexual differences between them as important?  Sorry but I reject that outright. 

I would again point out that these people would be inherently promoting sexism and racism respectively because they are placing importance on the sex and race of the people who help them in the example. The entire point is that you have one person helping/saving other people. Whichever side/group/person brings up the racial/sexual differences and tries to place importance in those differences is the one promoting racism/sexism, period.

@ Sqrl

I agree, we shouldn't just focus on equality for one group of people at a time. Equality should be for everyone, and yes we need to get over things, and yes we need to move on from the past.

Personally, I love it when people are offended. Like you said,it makes people think. It makes them talk. That's why Archie Bunker's racism was so great in "All in the Family"-- it was used with irony, and it made people talk and think.

I don't get that same sense of irony from Resident Evil 5 yet. Maybe when I play the game all the way through I will. We'll see.

But as it stands right now, RE5's imagery makes me think of something like blackface in the early 20th century. It perpetuates derogatory ideas. And that can be dangerous.

"All in the Family" was direct with its racism. It loudly proclaimed "Racism still exists and that's not OK!"

So far Resident Evil 5 seems to only say "Racism? What Racism?" And, for me, that's why it bothers me. I guess if we lived in a world without racism, it wouldn't bother me.

Maybe just two different ways of approaching the same problem?

That's because Capcom changed the game after the first time this came up.  That was at least six months ago IIRC.

When mirroring real life current problems it is insensitive and racist for the hero to be of different origin due to the fact that it suggests some other group holds all the answers, or is the only ones who can set it straight.

The people who "bring it up" are the people who produce the content in the first place. They are the ones who made said distinctions whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Well there is an interesting question there:

What came first the chicken or the egg?

What comes first a world with no racism, or a world where nobody is actively looking for racism?

To be clear racism certainly exists, and as many have pointed out many use that fact illegitimately as a weapon against others.

Perhaps it is two different approaches, but would it make a difference to you if these zombies were an even mixture of different races versus primarily one skin color?

They are aren't they?

It makes me a little sad and a little angry that many of the posters in this thread have dismissed this idea without a second thought.