Meta-Tuning Justice: Game Design and Black Youth Agency (Activist Studies of Science & Technology)

Exploring how Black youth are reshaping game design to dismantle stereotypes and spark social change In the early 2000s, digital gaming rose to cultural and economic prominence.Communities of color, however, and especially Black youth, were largely excluded from gaming culture.The rare Black character in games tended to reinforce stereotypes, while racial bias was often surreptitiously embedded in game design platforms-what decolonial scholars call “whitestream” computing.Progressive game design education initiatives and new technologies have recently begun to dismantle these barriers.Yet, because biases remain, historically excluded young people still need to actively reconfigure these digital spaces to fully develop and convey their own perspectives. In Meta-Tuning Justice, digital rhetoric scholar Laquana Cooke explores how Black youth express cultural identity and challenge dominant narratives through innovative game design.Cooke introduces the Transformative Constructionist Learni