Dragon Age: Origins aka Those F*ckers - Pt 2

It appears the problem I was having in creating a Character/Avatar in Dragon Age: Origins is twofold.

1. I do not associate full lips in a wide mouth, married to a broad flat tipped nose as distinctly black features.

2. I did not play around with the presets as much as I could have.

The latter is on me. The former is tired.

Dragon Age's darker characters are all high yellow leading into redbone. The preset 'black' males always have corn row. I find it very telling that preset needs that distinctive hairstyle to denote blackness. And there are still those 'slanted' eyes I find so offensive and one skin tone set is distinctly yellow.

Things are not as atrocious as I thought them to be (there is not a deliberate exclusion / a total lack of effort), but the racism is still there in the stereotyped features and in the lack of ability to be darker than a wet paperbag. It says something about 'acceptable blackness' and attractiveness/desirability standards that is extremely raw.

It prompts me to also say that redness is not blackness, although both are skin shades and undertones among People of Colour.

I'm not sure which is more enraging/painful - thinking they hadn't made a place for black avatars at all (just sunburnt white ones), or discovering they don't believe anyone would want to be walnut stained dark in a pretend fantasy world.

I find myself thanking Perfect World for at least allowing me the chance to have an avatar as dark as I wanted, and giving me the chance to also have black avatars with varied facial features. I might download it again just for the character creation. It might be healing.