On Martin Luther King Day, Resistance Records, a distributor of racist, anti-Semitic "White Power" music began to advertise Ethnic Cleansing, a CD-ROM based computer game whose object is to kill "sub-humans" — i.e. Blacks and Latinos — and their "masters," the Jews, who are portrayed as the personification of evil. The ads said, "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day with a virtual Race War!" Resistance Records is owned by the National Alliance, the largest and most active neo-Nazi organization in the United States

This game is just what the White teens of the world need... I LOVE IT!! -Suzan R. ("review" of Ethnic Cleansing posted on the National Alliance Web site)

Patterned after popular mainstream video games such as Quake and Doom, the game turns racially motivated violence in "entertainment." Racists and anti-Semites are clearly trying to spread their hate-filled vision to a wider, computer-savvy, younger audience through the violent body-strewn world of shoot-em-up computer games while hoping to make some money along the way.

The premise of Ethnic Cleansing is that a city — clearly New York — has been destroyed by gangs of "sub-humans" controlled by Jews who are lead by the "end boss" lurking in the subterranean "Lair of the Beast." Plans for world domination are seen in the subway, along with a map of "problem" areas in the U.S. and a sign reading "Diversity, It's Good for Jews."

The player (who can choose to dress in KKK robes or as a Skinhead) roams the streets and subways murdering "predatory sub-humans" and their Jewish "masters" thereby "saving" the white world. During the game monkey and ape sounds are heard when Blacks are killed, poncho-wearing Latinos say "I'll take a siesta now!" or "Ay carumba!" while "Oy vey!" rings out when Jewish characters are killed. The game has a high level of background detail and various National Alliance signs and posters appear throughout while racist rock blares on the soundtrack.

At the end, the player confronts the "end boss," a rocket launcher-wielding Ariel Sharon, who hurls insults such as: "Oy vey! Can you shoot no better than that?"; "We have destroyed your culture!"; and "We silenced Henry Ford." When Sharon dies, he coughs out "Filthy White dog, you have destroyed thousands of years of planning."

The National Alliance is advertising Ethnic Cleansing as the first in a series of games to be produced by Resistance Records. The next release will be Turner Diaries: The Game based on The Turner Diaries, by William Pierce, the long time leader of the National Alliance. The Turner Diaries describes a world wide race war in which white "Aryans" destroy all non-whites and Jews with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. One of the most widely read and cited books on the far-right, it has explicitly influenced, among others, The Order, the Aryan Republican Army, The New Order and Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

While the most sophisticated racist game available online, Ethnic Cleansing is not unique.

Gary (Gerhard) Lauck, of Lincoln, Nebraska, (a.k.a. the "Farmbelt Fuehrer,") has several anti-semitic "entertainment "video games on his website under the heading "Nazi Computer-Spiele" or "Nazi Computer Games.

Most of these games are much simpler than Ethnic Cleansing but they serve a similar purpose in that they allow players to interact in a racist environment in which they can indulge their fantasies.

In addition, the "comedy" section of the Web site of the racist, anti-Semitic World Church of the Creator includes racist jokes, comics and media files, as well as downloadable racist games. Among these are Aryan 3, Shoot the Blacks, NSDoom (NS is short for National Socialist), and WPDoom (WP stands for White Power).

Mainstream Games Allow Players to Assume Nazi Roles

The online multiplayer version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, currently one of the top-selling games in the United States, allows gamers to choose either Allied or Axis "sides" in this popular shooter (albeit no overtly Nazi regalia or symbols appear in the multiplayer game, but they are in abundance in the single player campaign).

Another apopular online game, Day of Defeat, is described by The New York Times as having "battlefields decorated with swastikas and Nazi posters," and "in some games, a battle is signaled with a rousing call to arms broadcast in German."

Creating a Racist Computer Game - A Relatively Simple Task

Making Ethnic Cleansing was fairly simple. Its designers were able to use a powerful, freely available open-source game program or engine that "drives" the program by providing the basic operating instructions to the computer. The designers then simply plug in their message of hate.

Open-source software is a common phenomenon in the computer world. Programmers often give permission for people to use or modify their work, usually in exchange for an acknowledgement.

The designers of Ethnic Cleansing then created a "mod" (modification) without changing the existing game programming code. The engine gave them the ability to change the characters, backgrounds and sounds of the game thereby creating new "worlds" and targets in which players can interact.

By plugging in a small set of images and sounds created in readily available graphic and sound editing programs, the mod producers at the National Alliance created an immersive environment filled with Nazi propaganda in which users could indulge their violent, racist and anti-Semitic fantasies

The game engine used by Resistance Records is the open-source, freely distributed Genesis 3D engine. They also used the Reality Factory Games Developer Kit from the same company. Neither of these programs has racist content.

© 2009 Anti-Defamation League