by Candria Slamin
Ken Levine wrote one of the most frustratingly centrist video game narratives known to man. Bioshock Infinite takes 11½ hours to hammer into its players that it is bad to be too much of anything. That the only way to peace is to deal out massive amounts of violence to both sides of any conflict until there is peace through silence. The game couches all of this in the character Daisy Fitzroy, a Black woman and leader of the marginalized resistance group, the Vox Populi, fighting for equality in the white supremacist paradise they are trapped in. The hidden audio tapes of her speeches call for a brewing uprising, with a toughened and seasoned voice. She tells her people they must be ready to physically fight for their freedom in this hell. But, she is presented as nothing more than a nuisance to the player character. Outright ignorable for those in power. Until she isn’t. Until the player character blinks, and the city around them is on fire. Until Daisy’s voice is blaring through every speaker available. Where she had been an understandable nuisance for the player character, she is now suddenly too much. Too violent. Too far gone and no better than the genocidal racist sitting on a throne at the top of this city. Her face is blood-smeared and she waves a gun in the face of a young white boy. And she must be put down. And no one else can do it other than the gentle, innocent white girl sidekick.
About a year after Bioshock Infinite’s critically acclaimed release, Ken Levine and Irrational Games released Burial at Sea, a DLC expansion sequel. It follows that white girl sidekick as she loses the last of the innocence she had before murdering Daisy. She is stuck under the sea in a capitalist hellhole that is careening farther into the burning brimstone. Here, amongst the sick and needy, she learns the real truth of Daisy: Daisy never wanted to threaten that child. She was told to by apathetic white people playing at God. Told that she had to lay her life down on this altar of whiteness. That this white girl had to save the world in blood, starting with Daisy’s. And Daisy, even after all the work and heartache and pain she dealt with to free herself and the other oppressed people, would never live to see the fruits of that labor. A white woman would get to be the savior. Had to be the savior. And, because this is video games in the mid 2010s, Daisy accepts this fate. Accepts this vilification, this execution, with nothing more than a sad sigh. It is her true fate, handed down to her like a bloodied rope. A Black woman ignored, vilified, killed, and then forgotten about in the world that failed her.
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It’s June 2022 and my TikTok “For You Page” is on fire. 6 people dressed in black robes decided that every uterus in the United States of America is theirs to claim and control. Now, there’s video after video of distressed Americans reaching out into the abyss of their own For You Pages, looking for some sort of comfort. We are all connected, united, in this moment of grief. Of rage. Of fear. The connection lasts about a week. Then, the shift comes, as it always does in these moments. Cis white women’s anger turns inwards, collapses under its own heavy weight. They start to point fingers. They question why no one is doing enough to stop this sudden-to-them rise in oppressive, fascist control. When Black people remind them that we’ve been at the front lines for decades, the anger turns white hot and sharp. Their questions turn into accusations. We are being too mean, too exclusionary, too much. TikTok becomes a bloody, exhausting place. Soon, the algorithm picks up on the next season of Stranger Things and the fighting is done. Violent ignorance swiftly replaced by a parasocial obsession with the newest cast member. But the exhaustion sticks in my bones.
If Daisy Fitzroy were real, I’m sure this is the same exhaustion she felt in those last few moments, saying words she never wanted to and looking her killer in the eyes. This exhaustion of having to fix the world yourself. Of knowing no one else will do it. Will thank you for it. This generational exhaustion. When Daisy looked out into her burning city that last time, she knew no one else would be there to fix what this crying white girl behind her would break. Because no one else knows how to do it but us, us Black fems. When we try to tell them how, they ignore us. When we beg them to help, as Daisy did before her doomed uprising, they ignore us. And when the consequences of fascism come for them, when they can no longer ignore the fire at their feet, they blame us for their ignorance. Beg us to be their teachers. Saviors. Mammies. And when we tell them it is too late, the smoke is already in our lungs, they make us their enemy again. Call us too much. Too pessimistic. Too lazy. Tell us we haven’t done enough to just give up here. Beat us to death while white men watch for entertainment. Then, it is forgotten. The white women are deemed geniuses for their passive survival. The city is rebuilt. The For You Page refreshes. And this exhaustion continues.
Candria Slamin (she/they) is shaking and baking from Virginia, USA. When she’s not being a poet, they’re busy being a giant nerd on the Internet. Find them on Twitter at @candyslam_.
