Civil Rights Group Joins NAACP in Sony PSP White Protest
The flap over Sony's PSP White European ad campaign continues. Last week GamePolitics broke the news that the NAACP had condemned the racially-charged ads.
Now GP has learned that Sojourn to the Past, a youth civil rights education project, has joined forces with the San Jose Chapter of the NAACP as well as California Assembly Speaker pro Tem Leland Yee in opposition to Sony's controversial European marketing campaign.
"Sojourn to the Past works with young people to break down stereotypes and end discrimination," said Executive Director Jeff Steinberg. "We would hope that in 2006 major international corporations would no longer use such derogatory and racially-charged images to sell their products. This latest Sony ad is yet another unfortunate modern day example of tactic that only serves to divide us."
Yee, architect of California's contested video game violence law, added, "Whether in the U.S. or abroad, using differences in skin color to articulate the fact that your video game console now comes in white can be interpreted as insensitive at best and racist at worst. Unfortunately, this is not the first such racial incident the video game industry has faced. Many games, including Postal 2 and the Grand Theft Auto series, have faced similar criticism due to their racist images and themes."
The Sojourn to the Past group offers students, educators and parents an opportunity to travel through the American South to visit sites relevant to the Civil Rights Movement.
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