The 30 Most Iconic Black Characters in Video Game History

The 30 Most Iconic Black Characters in Video Game History

The first Black video game characters were more stereotypes than … well, characters. Street Fighter II’s Dee Jay was probably seen as a course correction, but he might as well have been called Jammin’ Jayson the Hip-Hop Kickboxer. In the 1987 Commodore 64 game, Street Beat, writers called Rockin Rodney’s stereo — get this — a “ghetto blaster.” The history of Black characters in video games has been undeniably murky, and even attempts at diversit…