After many failed attempts, somebody has finally found something that could cause a bit of a racial stink in Scribblenauts. It turns out if you use the little known, but derogatory black male referencing phrase “sambo”, you are given a water melon.
Only it’s not that simple, or racist. The phrase actually refers to the Spanish name of a plant also known as a “fig leaved gourd”, “chiverre” or my personal favourite “shark fin melon” (which are all in the Scribblenauts dictionary). So there you have it, a silly oversight and everything is sorted. Only it isn’t, because journalism and controversy.
Kotaku (among other sites) go into great detail about how the phrase is racist, even though the Publisher, Developer and creative director (who they contacted) all repeat the fact it’s a type of melon. Even with all of this “discounting any impression that there was an (sic) racial intent” the article continues to describe, in some detail, the origins of the word. It concludes not with a statement of silly mistakes and understandable human oversights, but with;
Both “sambo” and the image of a watermelon carry the baggage of the American experience regarding racism. There is a connection between them. A long, painful and oppressive one.
I understand there will be some people who will be offended by the idea that in a game with 22,000 words, one of them, unfortunately, could be seen as racist even though it has a completely benign meaning. However, causing a big stink like this is on par with the UK papers finding there are rude words in Scrabble.
By building a controversy around this unfortunate word’s inclusion, the story will perpetuate itself disproportionately everywhere. Instead of just a funny side note, this will probably now reach the mainstream. We all know how well and accurately the video game’s are reported there, and in turn this little game that could may be marred quite unfairly.
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If I type in bitch, will my ex-wife appear in Scribblenauts? And will she finally have waxed her moustache, or replaced her glass eye?
So are the Russians also racist if they named their military martial arts system SAMBO as well? Because thats where I learnt the word, and its not like Russian soldiers only beat up blacks.