Game level: extreme

November 27, 2014 2:38 PM

How to play the game of life when you are Black. Mike Sholars, associate editor at the Huffington Post Canada, on what it takes to "win".

THE GAME OF LIFE (WHILE BLACK): HOW TO PLAY

"He's so well-spoken!" (Avoid Specific Black-Related Speech Patterns: +2 Points)
"You're the whitest Black guy I know!" (Question Your Racial Identity: -2 Points)
"Hey, that's a nice TV. Where'd you steal it from?" (Endure Casual Racism: +1 Point)
"I'm ordering KFC. I can assume you're in, right?" (When Is Racism Too Casual? -1 Point)
"It's so cool that you have a sense of humour about this!" (Make Racial Jokes At Your Own Expense: +4 Points)
"Way to play the race card." (Take Offense When Others Make Racial Jokes At Your Expense: -8 Points)
"So you're Black AND Indian? But which one are you, really?" (Simplify Racial Identity For The Sake Of Others: +10 Points)
"Oh wow. I didn't know that happened in Canada. But it was only that one time, right?" (Bring Down Mood With Firsthand Accounts Of Racism: -10 Points)

posted by Cuke (11 comments total)

Related (and previously on Mefi): John Scalzi's Straight White Male, the lowest difficulty setting there is.
posted by Cuke at 2:41 PM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Black? I just remember blue and pink pegs.
posted by dances with hamsters at 2:42 PM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Back in the '70s, Psychology Today turned this into an actual board game: Blacks & Whites.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:49 PM on November 27, 2014 [3 favorites]

From the FPP: "To put things into perspective, here's an excellent infographic breaking down the lack of diversity in the top 100 sci-fi and fantasy films ever made. There are eight protagonists of colour on that list, and six of them are Will Smith."
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:11 PM on November 27, 2014 [13 favorites]

As good a place as any to link to W. Kamau Bell's Vanity Fair article, On Being a Black Male, Six Feet Four Inches Tall, in America in 2014:

By the time I found a late-night convenience store, I had passed a few—by my eye—unsavory characters of all races. So, as I walked in the store I had to take some precautionary action. For starters, I took the hood down. I took it down even though my afro had become a flat-fro from being squashed underneath. I didn’t touch anything that I wasn’t absolutely sure I was going to buy. (Just like my mom had taught me.) I kept my hands out of my pockets with palms clearly visible so the clerk behind the counter could easily see that I wasn’t shoving things in—or maybe more importantly about to pull something out of—my pockets. And as soon as I decided on an It’s It ice-cream sandwich, I went directly to the counter and gingerly placed my selection down, again keeping my palms visible and only making the movements I needed to get the money out of my wallet.

I've never heard of not even touching things. Geez, we're playing a fucked-up game.
posted by Etrigan at 5:17 PM on November 27, 2014 [11 favorites]

From the FPP: "To put things into perspective, here's an excellent infographic breaking down the lack of diversity in the top 100 sci-fi and fantasy films ever made. There are eight protagonists of colour on that list, and six of them are Will Smith."

Anybody who wondered why it was such a big deal that boxofficemojo shut down, check the fine print of that infographic.
posted by cashman at 7:08 PM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Back in the '70s, Psychology Today turned this into an actual board game: Blacks & Whites.

Here is a larger image. Man that's wild. In the instructions/vignette, when it gets to where it says "That's why you'll find that along about the middle of the game - if Black players turn the tide against white advantages...", I thought for sure they were going to say that the game curiously turns things right back around.

The article talks about science fiction and race and representation, and in going back and watching television and films from the 70's and many times early 80's, it's so disturbing how in a notable amount of places, there were respectable black characters. And they were just there. These days there are way too many situations where that isn't the case, as the infographic notes.

Coma isn't a science-fiction film per se, but it functioned that way for me just like The Andromeda Strain. And in watching Coma, there are respectable black characters in different parts, and I watch every now and again and find myself in the weird position of wondering why things can't be like that now. Television and films should be so far past this now. But it seems like "Black players turned the tide", and so the game reset.
posted by cashman at 7:26 PM on November 27, 2014

I think the majority of the conventionally successful black men I know slow down their speech rather than raising their pitch, but I suppose the most effective tactic depends on the context. Maybe there's a middle range where you want to jump above it or stay below it and add that gravitas.
posted by michaelh at 8:24 PM on November 27, 2014

The about the author section is heartbreaking:

"Mike Sholars is a writer, editor, Twitter guy, and he's so incredibly tired right now."
posted by Erberus at 10:48 PM on November 27, 2014 [4 favorites]

For some reason I really expected this article to be about how The Game of Life was actually a racist board game.
posted by unknownmosquito at 11:53 AM on November 28, 2014

Anybody who wondered why it was such a big deal that boxofficemojo shut down, check the fine print of that infographic.

The site seems to be up...when was it down? Or is it the buyout/takeover by IMDB? I confess I don't know when that happened.
posted by Doc Ezra at 10:10 PM on November 28, 2014