Border Patrol has slightly more sophisticated graphics and a related plotline. The game is set along what is presumably the Rio Grande on the border between Mexico and Texas. A sign, filled with bullet holes, is stuck in the sand. It says, “Welcome to the United States.” In the American flag depicted below those words, the 50 stars have been replaced by a large Star of David, thereby awkwardly combining anti-Semitic and anti-Mexican sentiments. A nearby handwritten sign points the way to the “Welfare Office.”

The player points a rifle sight at any of three types of caricature cartoon targets as they run across the desert: an armed “Mexican Nationalist,” a “Drug Smuggler,” or a “Breeder”—a pregnant woman dragging two young children behind her. When a player hits a target, it spurts blood for a second, and then disappears from the scene. With each killing, the player gets a higher “wetback” score.

There are hundreds of similar games: Virtual Drive By 2 (“Feel what it’s like in the ghetto.”), Watch Out Behind You, Hunter (“Shoot the fags before they rape you.”), NES KKK (“The original Mario Brothers with a good ol’ Ku Klux Klan twist.”), Amor Caliente (an animated low-budget porn film).

1. •You should expect your children to run across these games, either by themselves or with the help of their friends. As with all generations of children, there’s a particular thrill in doing something that you know your parents don’t want you to do. (We’ll see how one group is exploiting that feeling in a few pages.)
   

2. •Don’t assume that playing these games occasionally reflects your child’s true beliefs. More likely, he’s exploring what it might feel like to be someone who has different values from his own and different perceptions of the world. It’s like using a major league baseball video game to see what it’s like to be a manager, or a flight simulator to try out being a pilot.
   

3. •Talk to your child about the values being promoted by the game. Listen more than you lecture. Explain why you disagree with the assumptions built into the game and the actions taken by the characters. Encourage your child to think about why someone might find these games funny or rewarding.
   

4. •Link the games to real-world problems. Illegal drugs and drug culture, for example, are routine themes of homemade games, and even some commercially produced games. If you find your child playing Drug Pusher on-line, use that as an opportunity to talk about the larger issue.
   

We Want YOU: Recruitment Games

The National Socialist Movement (NSM), an American neo-Nazi organization, offers links to free downloads of several games, including Concentration Camp Rat Hunt, in which the player shoots Jewish “rats” inside the Auschwitz death camp. The NSM website promotes these games specifically to children:

1. Yes, these free computer games will drive teachers and parents crazy, because they are politically incorrect, and even downright NS [neo-Nazi]. So much the better! Some people just don't know how to have a good time. But YOU do! So do your friends.
   

2. These free computer games are real collector [sic] items. Lets face it, the retail stores do not carry these computer games. And you won't see them advertised on TV or in your local papers.
   

3. The NSM in joint cooperation with the NSDAP/AO [Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei/Auslands-Organisation, the National Socialist German Workers Party/Foreign Organization] are launching a mass literature distribution of flyers announcing these video games.
   

4. All Pro-White groups and activists are urged to assist in this project and get the word out to the Public. Any NSM or NSDAP/AO activists willing to pass out these leaflets in large amounts are urged to contact us asap. Hail Victory!
   

We printed some of the marketing material for Ethnic Cleansing at the beginning of this chapter. The game is produced and sold by Resistance Records, which is a division of the National Alliance, another neo-Nazi and white-supremacist group in the United States. The premise for Ethnic Cleansing is outlined at the beginning of the game:

1. The Race War has begun. Your skin is your uniform in this battle for the survival of your kind. The White Race depends on you to secure its existence. Your peoples [sic] enemies surround you in a sea of decay and filth that they have brought to your once clean and White nation.
   

2. Not one of their numbers shall be spared....
   

Unlike other games of this ilk, which can be downloaded for free, this one is sold for a token amount of money. While the money received by the National Alliance is relatively small, much greater value comes from being able to build a list of contact information from children and adults who purchase this material. Indeed, recruitment is a key goal behind this type of game development.