Dr. Phil is no stranger to video game controversies. In the past, he has had episodes of his TV show on the topic of violence in video games. On Tuesday, January 8th, he had a TV show about racism on X-box Live. Dr. Phil was joined by Terry and Nydia, a black husband and wife who have three children. Terry said "I love playing video games as much as I like eating food. I've been a loyal customer to X-box Live and X-box 360. Now it's gotten worse with the racial slurs, the name-calling and the bullying online"

Terry went onto say: "I've had to stop my children from playing online. My 10 year old daughter, my 12 year old son, and even my 5 year old son. he asks me "Daddy, why can't I play online with you? I want to play that" and I say "no". He goes "why? Are they going to call me names?" I think that's sad for a 5 year old to know that.

According to Dr. Phil: "People have a sense of anonymity. They're what I call keyboard bullies. They don't have to face anybody. they don't have to deal with it. You see it in road rage. People are in the anonymity of their car, and they go crazy. They would never do it face to face, but on the internet they do it."

This is a rare occasion that I agree with Dr. Phil. Racism is everywhere on the net. Just log into WoW and go to the barrens or hop on Live and sooner rather than later you will hear it. Blizzard recently had to change the name of a dagger called [The Nicker] to [The Blackrock Slicer] because so many players would constantly link it in place of the racial slur it sounds like in sentences. I don't know if this issue can really be policed or taken care of. It is just going to have to be a societal change where we grow up (too bad this may never happen).

Perhaps they should just make an X-box Live service that is not anonymous. If users want a racism free environment they could just play with other people who feel the same way and are all willing to share their real life name and place of employment with the people at Microsoft. Then if they are caught being racist online and it is documented it will actually affect their real life reputation.