I want to start by saying that I get where you’re coming from and I don’t mean anything I say here in a rude way. I had similar thoughts (as a white male) during the years surrounding the Me Too movement. My friend’s now-wife was one of those annoying people online who routinely misattributed the wrongdoings of some men to ALL men and it really fucked with my self esteem.

But I do think you are, like I was, being a bit oversensitive about it. In the same way that she was extrapolating a data point incorrectly, I think you are, too. (It seems like) You are hearing the vocal minority and assuming it’s the prevailing opinion but it is not.

There is absolutely pandering happening in the film/game insustries and some of it is undoubted forced (Blizzard releasing a pansexual then a non-binary character and …in a pvp game where sexuality/gender are not relevant as a recent example) but the majority of “controversies” I’ve seen aren’t that - simply having a gay/black/female character is enough to rile up the neck beards.

It would be hypocritical of me to assume you fall into that category for the same reason I called out earlier - it’s a vocal minority. Not wanting to be associated with that side of the debate is what led me to reconsider my views.

However, I do wholly disagree with one of your points and I will clarify it’s not an opinion:

anyone who bases their opinion on the belief that white people are inherently advantaged in society is, by definition, a white supremacist.

That is not the definition at all. Using similar words, a white supremacist is someone who believes white people should have an advantage in society.

I have always hated the term “white privilege” because it implies that we are getting more. In reality, white people get the baseline and minorities get less. It should be called Minority Disadvantage because in much of the country, they receive less than the baseline.

But the concept is not a myth and it unfortunately applies to many different things…getting loans, proper medical care, government positions…even social acceptance in a mixed race environment. There is an endless amount of examples both historically and recently. This doesn’t mean that white people have it “easy” as I’m no stranger to hardships myself.

To me, it was the framing of “privilege” that affected my outlook because I was not personally zooming ahead in life. It made me bitter and jaded.

DEI and the like are not inherently bad when you consider that many people in power DO have racist/sexist bias. We have decades of data showing that white job/school candidates routinely get accepted over more-qualified candidates…and framing it as an “agenda” is a very Fox way of looking at things. Using governments as an example, the ratio of white to non-white political officials is staggering compared to the constituents they’re supposed to represent. Institutional racism is absolutely real but to be clear, it doesn’t mean that everyone is a bigot. There’s just an inherit bias that a not-insignificant amount of people carry. DEI is about shaking that bias and to help the less-intelligent people among us see that we’re all human.

So to wrap it up, we are both bystanders expected to pick a side between two small groups of vocal whiners accusing the other of being bigoted when the reality lies somewhere in the middle. I believe that there was a lack of diversity in games/films and that big steps have been made in the right direction. I also believe that some developers/producers are awkwardly inserting diversity as a means to make more money but the “woke” is a bad descriptor for the vast majority of media with non-white male characters. I believe that women and minorities suffer from our white male-centric society and that it’s important to change that without hurting the white men who aren’t actively keeping people down. BUT I don’t believe that having a female, black, gay, or whatever protagonist in a game hurts anyone at all.