Yesterday, Councilwoman Yvette Clarke and a host of Haitian community leaders held a press conference at City Hall denouncing the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - claiming that the game is racist and, "urges people to kill all Haitians."

Not only is that allegation stupid - it's a year-and-a-half too late.

First of all, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is not racist. The game is focused around two rival drug dealing gangs - Jamaicans and Haitians. In the game, the words, "kill the Haitians" are used - but in the context of "kill the rival gang". In the game, the words "Jamaicans" and "Haitians" mean the same thing as "Bloods" or "Crips" - it is the name used to refer to a particular gang of drug dealers. The basic theme of the game is that your character, Tommy Vercetti, is sent to Vice City by your former mob boss Sonny Forelli to take over the town - and in the game - the only way to that is to "kill the Haitians and Jamaicans" - as in kill the drug dealing gangs and take over the business for yourself.

To know hardly anything about the game and just immediately assume that it is racist is extremely irresponsible and sadly ignorant. I understand that racism exists in this country, but I have a real problem when people - especially those in positions of authority - scream racism where none exists. If everyone's goal is to eliminate racism - situations like this do the exact opposite and actually promote racism instead. An allegation of racism is a dangerous thing, something that can ruin a person or company's reputation. So when someone falsely accuses someone of racism - they are no better than those that are in fact racist - because if you are going to make such an accusation - make sure that you are accurate and that you have all your facts in place before pointing a finger at someone.

Also, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out in May of 2002, almost 18 months ago. If this game was as offensive as the Councilwoman and her fellow protesters claim - why did they not complain when the game was just released? When the game hit the market, it was accompanied by a very extensive and well publicized advertising campaign which included television and magazine ads. In fact, the game was so popular that it was the top selling game of 2002 - selling over ten million copies and was named "Game of the Year" by almost every video game trade magazine. Today, the game is still popular, but is considered "old news" by hardcore video gamers who solved it long ago - and eagerly await the release of Grand Theft Auto 5: Las Vegas.

The moral of this very sad story is that while racism and the bigots that practice it should not be a part of our society - those who falsely accuse people and companies of racist practices shouldn't either - because whether they realize it or not - they are promoting racism and making part of the mainstream just as much as the bigots they try to get rid of.