The developer, Facepunch Studios, said that it was a utilitarian decision so players would have consistently identifiable features, and that within the Rust world, attributes were doled out in a random and even spread. Like, can video games be a vehicle for allyship? There's a lot to think about, especially when it comes to figuring out when it's acceptable to play a character you don't share a race with. But this is actually a question a lot of people have. In the time since you wrote this question, you say that your son found that making characters of color didn't help his cause, and that he stopped doing it. He's a good kid and really wants to be an ally. We spend a lot of time talking about race, and when I discussed digital blackface with him, he told me that he is trying to fight underrepresentation, discrimination, and racists in the games he plays. Sometimes he will choose a black or brown skin for his character.

My 11 year-old son loves playing online video games like Roblox and Minecraft where he can create his own avatar. She reached out to us because her son was trying to counter racist bullying in the games he played, and wandered into the tricky territory of appropriation:

But is there the potential to do more than that? This week on Ask Code Switch, we're answering a question from Catina in Northern Virginia. Most people who play video games just want to have fun.

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