Capcom: "We're More Careful About Racism Now"

Capcom's Melody Pfeiffer, has said that Capcom's U.S. staff is more involved with their Japanese counterparts to make sure that promotional materials for games that receive western release are more in-tune with the sensitivities of that part of the world. This is after the initial trailer for Resident Evil 5 showed nothing but a white protagonist shooting black zombies in Africa, which was interpreted as being racist in the West.

"Since the RE5 controversy, we have become much more aware of how important it is that we are part of the asset creation process early on so that we are able to have a say in the end product. We are also designing a lot of our own assets from this side of the pond so that we are able to make strategic pieces of content that make sense for our market. We are working really closely with our producers in Japan to construct these materials for the West and they are open more then ever to hearing our thoughts and ideas for assets."

This doesn't make sense for those of us living in a country that literally segregated blacks and whites in the entire southern half of the country, but the Japanese publishers that made the trailer didn't even begin to think that there would be something wrong with a trailer that shoots a white person shooting nothing but black people. Anyone with a base understanding of the cultures of both countries would have known that there was no malicious intent, but if there's anything America is good at, it's being overly sensitive.