Inequality-opoly : discover a structural racism and sexism board game

Inequality-opoly : play a structural racism and sexism board game? Perry Clemons (He/His) is an African-American third-grade teacher from Harlem, N.Y. He has created a board game called Inequality-opoly: The Board Game of Structural Racism and Sexism in America. Inequality-opoly is a custom property trading game that transforms recent national studies into a perspective-taking experience. In this game like, in the real world, certain players based on their perceived identity enjoy privileges while others face obstacles to building wealth. Read more info at https://twitter.com/inequalityopoly.

Diversity And Inclusion tip of the day : Photos can make for great conversation icebreakers (or Zoom icebreakers in the remote world). A board full of memories related to employees’ personal important life events can create the right spark of communication. The display of such personal mementos in the professional space can speak volumes about the different aspects of employee experiences. It helps the coworkers to see the perspective of others and embrace it, which finally leads to mutual respect and dignity at the workplace.

Interestingly, Clemons pointed out that the original version of Monopoly was an imitation of The Landlord’s Game, an educational board game created at the end of the 19th century by Lizzie Magie for the purpose of showing that monopolies lead to a harmful accumulation of wealth that comes at the expense of others. A few decades later, Charles Darrow, who is typically credited for inventing the game, teamed up with a political cartoonist to create Monopoly – a skillfully redesigned version of Magie’s game, but whose wealth-accumulation objective is essentially the opposite of what Magie was trying to achieve – and sold it to Parker Brothers. (I will pause, if only parenthetically, to point out the irony of a man achieving fame and wealth by copying a woman’s idea and taking credit for it.)

As an example, each time you pass the “Start” space, the amount of money you collect depends on your race and gender, based on U.S. wage gap data. And whenever a player lands on a “Life Event” space, they draw a card whose impact is also tied to each player’s race and gender, all of it based on statistics from the U.S. population. Life Event cards include situations such as interactions with the police, generational wealth transfer, or employment; when a card is drawn, each player consults their Identity Card to determine their specific experience.

But wealth is not equally accessible. Black households have just 15 percent of the wealth of white households, and this has not changed much over time. For Black women, the gap is also stark. For instance, single Black women household heads with a college degree have 38 percent less wealth ($5,000) than single white women without one ($8,000). Among married women who are the head of the household, Black women with a bachelor’s degree have 79 percent less wealth ($45,000) than white women with no degree ($117,200) and 83 percent less wealth than those with one ($260,000). Marital status and education do not close the gap. Find even more info on racial inequities board game.