At first, I didn’t realize it was happening. I was just trying to get from one area of the Prague to another, so that I could continue investigating the bombing. I had work to do and terrorists to catch. But it kept happening. I would get on the train. Citizens would look at me side-eyed. A child couldn’t help but stare. People whispered to one another. And then we’d arrive at our station, and I would be detained. The police would ask for my papers. I would hand them over. My paperwork was in order; of course it was. I was a cybernetically-augmented super-agent with Interpol’s Task Force 29. On the Law & Order totem pole, I was far above these armed, faceless goons who inevitably, begrudgingly forced my papers back into my hands and let me continue on my way. Sometimes the encounters were polite enough. More often than not, the cops called me “Clank” or “Hanzer” or “Aug.” And it kept happening, every time. Get on train, get hassled for my documents. I started getting annoyed. I just wanted to get on with my day job – I had important things to do, didn’t they know? Do we have to do this every time?
And then it struck me: the trains are segregated. “Naturals” in the front, the Augmented relegated to the back. I had been inadvertently violating the social order. In my haste to move around, I just jumped on the train, walking onto the first door I saw. And then, when I arrived, the police saw me get out of the “Human” train, they would stop me.
“What are you doing, trying to start a riot? Naturals only, Clank”
“Stay with our own kind, Hanzer.”
“Give me your documents while I decide what to do with you.”
“If you think these fancy documents will keep me from dragging you in next time, you’re wrong. Stay in your section.”
As soon as I realized it, I turned right around, walked across the long hall of the subway station, past a fence that separated the two areas, and for the first time, realized what was happening. I boarded the Augmented train car. Instead of nervous mothers and children and quiet whispering between passengers, I was among the augmented, all of whom looked frustrated and dejected. As I left the train, I was not stopped. I could live my life without police harassment, as long as I accepted being treated as subhuman, as the Other.
This is how Deus Ex: Mankind Divided made me experience institutionalized racism.
When I realized this, Deus Ex immediately became one of the most philosophically interesting things I have consumed in 2016. The game was designed to put the choice in my hand: I could either be inconvenienced by walking all the way across the station to the Aug section, or I could be harassed with an unskippable cut scene when I arrived at my destination. But not being inconvenienced was not an option. Not for an Augmented person like me.
Deus Ex is a great, fun, and well-designed game. I devoured it. I played through it twice, and on my first try, it often kept me up playing till 5 AM. I loved it.
But this aspect about the segregated trains was what stuck with me the most. It was subtle; I didn’t even realize it was happening for a bit. And once I did, it changed how I approached the game. Sometimes I would begrudgingly accept my lot in life, and take the long hike across the platform. Sometimes I would defiantly get on the Naturals train anyways – yeah, fuck you, check my papers.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is brilliant. I say this because it makes effective use of its mediums to communicate in a way that lead me to new understandings. This is a science-fiction video game, and it uses the unique tools of each genre to deliver a powerful message.
First, it uses the age-old science fiction magic of translation. One of the things I love about sci-fi is how it can take a scenario that we are complacent about and map it to an entirely new reality. Once transposed against another setting, we can see it in a new light. We can more easily see what gender roles mean against a planet with no gender, as in Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness.” “The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman can help us understand the perspective of Vietnam veterans who return to a changed homeland. By changing the context, we can create new understandings.
Deus Ex does this by using augmentation as a metaphor for race. This manifests itself in many ways, both subtle and on-the-nose. There’s an entire level in an augmented-only ghetto run by an increasingly militarized police force. There are “Augs Lives Matter” posters on walls.[1] The trains are segregated. The police will hassle you.
Not that the metaphor is perfect. Augmentation, unlike the race you are born into, is something that a person chooses; no one was born with robot legs and a cyber-brain. And the designers often mix their metaphors, also using it as a metaphor for class, with some confusing religious dimensions thrown in, just because, why not? But regardless, the overall experience for me worked. The magic of translation had occurred. The institutionalized racism built into the game made me think about and consider the challenges of race differently. It had effectively used Science Fiction’s greatest tool and transported something fucked up about our world onto a new context and made me understand it in a wholly new way.
Which brings me to the second medium: the video game. Video games are unique because they provide the consumer with agency – they are the ones taking the actions. We empathize with the game’s characters because their actions are our actions. We get to play along, as it were. When Deus Ex’s Adam Jensen is stopped and hassled, I was stopped and hassled. When the cops were terrible racist dicks shouting epithets while approaching me with an assault rifle, I was the one angry at being called a “clank,” about being told to “stick with my kind.” This was pretty astonishing. As a heteronormative cis-white male[2], I am not used to this. It helped me experience The Other, firsthand. I got to live in and move through a world of institutionalized racism as a targeted minority.
This is what made this game a success for me: it used the unique storytelling tools of its genres to speak to me in a novel way. It used the translation of institutionalized racism in the 21st century to the plight of augmented peoples in a dystopian future. And it used the interactivity of video gaming to transfer my character’s experience in the game world to myself as a player.
As a white fellow, I don’t and will not ever claim to understand the lived experiences of people of color; especially not because I played a video game on my expensive entertainment center. But Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was a powerful piece of culture that will stick with me for a long time. I returned from my video game world more sensitive, aware, and thoughtful. For once, I got to experience racism, even robo-racism, and the experience of the Other. I didn’t like it one bit, and that was the most important thing Deus Ex taught me.
[1] This apparently caused a controversy, which I don’t really understand. If you’re going for this metaphor, go for it.
[2] I know, I know. Boo, hiss!