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Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming
In Intersectional Black Users in Digital Gaming, Kishonna L. Gray interrogates blackness in gaming at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability. Situating her argument within the context of the concurrent, seemingly unrelated events of Gamergate and the Black Lives Matter movement, Gray highlights the inescapable chains that bind marginalized populations to stereotypical frames and limited narratives in video games. Intersectional Tech explores the ways that the multiple identities of black gamers―some obvious within the context of games, some more easily concealed―affect their experiences of gaming.
The normalization of whiteness and masculinity in digital culture inevitably leads to isolation, exclusion, and punishment of marginalized people. Yet, Gray argues, we must also examine the individual struggles of prejudice, discrimination, and microaggressions within larger institutional practices that sustain the oppression. These “new” racisms and a complementary colorblind ideology are a kind of digital Jim Crow, a new mode of the same strategies of oppression that have targeted black communities throughout American history.
Drawing on extensive interviews that engage critically with identity development and justice issues in gaming, Gray explores the capacity for gaming culture to foster critical consciousness, aid in participatory democracy, and effect social change. Intersectional Tech is rooted in concrete situations of marginalized members within gaming culture. It reveals that despite the truths articulated by those who expose the sexism, racism, misogyny, and homophobia that are commonplace within gaming communities, hegemonic narratives continue to be privileged. This text, in contrast, centers the perspectives that are often ignored and provides a critical corrective to notions of gaming as a predominantly white and male space.
The normalization of whiteness and masculinity in digital culture inevitably leads to isolation, exclusion, and punishment of marginalized people. Yet, Gray argues, we must also examine the individual struggles of prejudice, discrimination, and microaggressions within larger institutional practices that sustain the oppression. These “new” racisms and a complementary colorblind ideology are a kind of digital Jim Crow, a new mode of the same strategies of oppression that have targeted black communities throughout American history.
Drawing on extensive interviews that engage critically with identity development and justice issues in gaming, Gray explores the capacity for gaming culture to foster critical consciousness, aid in participatory democracy, and effect social change. Intersectional Tech is rooted in concrete situations of marginalized members within gaming culture. It reveals that despite the truths articulated by those who expose the sexism, racism, misogyny, and homophobia that are commonplace within gaming communities, hegemonic narratives continue to be privileged. This text, in contrast, centers the perspectives that are often ignored and provides a critical corrective to notions of gaming as a predominantly white and male space.
222 pages, Hardcover
Published September 2, 2020
9 people are currently reading
226 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 6, 2021
I made it a goal last year to read more books about race and about gender. I did this in part to gain perspective and understanding of the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, but also to understand implications for the field in which I work, in technology and in the digital gaming domain in particular. Kishonna Gray’s book is a profoundly important work at the nexus of these domains.
Dr Gray’s book uses years’ worth of research with a number of Black gaming communities to examine the oppression and harassment they face within gaming communities, platforms and spaces, but also how they can co-opt those same spaces in ways that empower them.
The concept of intersectionality is one that can be hard to understand and easy to underestimate – especially for white, male, privileged people like myself. The book’s transcribed discussions among different groups at those intersections made the concept & implications of intersectionality vividly clear.
The book is not a quick read. It’s written using an academic style of language and construction, and the topic is complex enough that I found myself having to reread portions in order to grok them. But that may be because these topics are messy and nuanced enough that a level of complexity is *required*. And again, the transcribed conversations with the players she did her research with aid in making things far clearer.
If you work in gaming and/or tech fields, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
Dr Gray’s book uses years’ worth of research with a number of Black gaming communities to examine the oppression and harassment they face within gaming communities, platforms and spaces, but also how they can co-opt those same spaces in ways that empower them.
The concept of intersectionality is one that can be hard to understand and easy to underestimate – especially for white, male, privileged people like myself. The book’s transcribed discussions among different groups at those intersections made the concept & implications of intersectionality vividly clear.
The book is not a quick read. It’s written using an academic style of language and construction, and the topic is complex enough that I found myself having to reread portions in order to grok them. But that may be because these topics are messy and nuanced enough that a level of complexity is *required*. And again, the transcribed conversations with the players she did her research with aid in making things far clearer.
If you work in gaming and/or tech fields, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
January 21, 2021
I remain amazed at just how racist gaming environments can be. This is an important discussion of the extent and impact of racism, as well as sexism, abelism, homophobia, on Black gamers. It starts very theory-heavy, but gets more engrossing and accessible as it progresses. The insights into the communities that gamers form for support, along with the horrendously explicit racism misogyny, were particularly memorable.
November 26, 2021
Well written, critical and thorough. Appreciated the nuance Gray adds to the literature on transmedia and the intersection of race, access and gender.
March 28, 2023
Love this. Essential for gamers. Really cool methods. Relatively quick read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews