Obamas to Honor Stevie
It’s no secret that President Barack Obama is a serious Stevie Wonder fan. After all, it was the multi-Grammy winner’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” that was the Democratic nominee’s theme song during the election. And Obama’s campaign frequently had Wonder’s “Higher Ground” blasting at speech stops. So now that Obama is the leader of the free world, he has the power to ensure that his musical hero gets his just desserts. And that’s just what Obama did. The White House has announced that the president and First Lady Michelle Obama will present Wonder with a prestigious Library of Congress award on Feb. 25. A concert will be broadcast the next day on PBS as part of its Performance at the White House series.

Is the Video Game Racist
The Japanese maker of the Resident Evil 5 video game says there’s no ground for complaints that its latest installment is racist. The fact that a White man strides into an African village to complete a mission of blowing away hordes of crazed, pitchfork- and machete-wielding Black zombies has nothing to with race, the company says. But those who post on a Web site called Black Looks, which comments on issues of race and gender, strongly disagree. They say that the new game, scheduled to be released in coming weeks, depicts “Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a [W]hite man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young … fearing, hating, and destroying [B]lack people.” Chris Kramer, a spokesman Capcom, said, however, “The Resident Evil series has been around since 1996. It was first set in the American Midwest, and since then, it’s gone to South America, Antarctica and Spain. For Resident Evil 5, our developers wanted to focus on pushing the current generation console’s capabilities for rendering light. They wanted to see if they could make light as fearful as shadows. They wanted the players to go from a dark environment to a bright setting, when they’re momentarily blinded. As their pupils adjust, they become vulnerable to attack. They wanted a location that would have hot, bright, flat light. And they chose Africa.” He said, too, that the original story for Resident Evil referenced a virus that was engineered somewhere in Africa. Returning to the continent brings the story full circle, he said, adding that prior versions of the game, which has sold 34 million copies worldwide, featured Americans, Asians, Spaniards and Latin Americans.