Why checking out the Black Girl Gamers community will educate you
IndieBloom introduce to you - Black Girl Gamers, an online safe space community to empower women of colour while gaming.
Created in 2015 by Jay-Ann Lopez as a Facebook group and based in London, with over 6000 members over the world. Running IRL (in real life) events, wellness weeks, while also creating online content to support diversity and inclusion in the gaming industry.
Lacking representation
Out of an industry that generates $135 billion worldwide, reports state that 27% of the professional gaming community are women. Within that - only 1% identify as African or African American. While a 2020 UK Games Industry census states that 10% of people working in games are Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME).
Having a social group like Black Girl Gamers, allows organisational support networks that encourage and train, while also allowing them to be seen and heard. They've also partnered with massive, well-known tech companies such as Intel to champion inclusivity and coding, especially for black women.
During the middle of June 2020, Black Girl Gamers launched its first ever online gaming summit. This was a major achievement in that it consisted entirely of black female professionals in the gaming industry. Included the Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at Riot Games, Angela Roseboro, Becky Bond, the voice actress from Assassins Creed Odyssey and Ubisoft's International Product Manager, Andrien Gbingie. Definitely making big moves for the community.
Gaming for all
A March 2020 Metro article highlighting misogynoir within online gaming, supporting the need for inclusion and accepting all types of gamers. Gaming is full of worlds made in other people's imaginations and exploring the stories of those worlds is such a great stress reliever.
Wanna learn something and be educated? Then don't forget to follow and subscribe on Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, their mailing list and YouTube.