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A board game that satirizes life in the ghetto has offended the
local NAACP chapter, and officials with that organization are
planning protests against stores where the game is sold.
The game, called Ghettopoly, is a spinoff of the classic Monopoly
board game, with game pieces that include pimps and pot leaves
instead of the top hat and race car. Properties for sale include
liquor stores, pawnshops and porn theaters.
Ghettopoly's creator says that the game uses stereotypes from ethnic
groups other than blacks, none of which have complained, and that
cliches about other groups outnumber stereotypes about blacks.
Carl Mack, president of the Seattle chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, disagrees.
"That game is completely, 100 percent focused on the African
American community," Mack said.
Yesterday morning, Mack approached the manager of Urban Outfitters,
a downtown Seattle store that caters to young adults, and asked that
the store remove the game from its shelves. The store has another
outlet at the Broadway Market on Capitol Hill.
He returned a few hours later to see if the store had complied and
was asked to leave by the store manager, who had called police.
All of the games were gone from the shelves near the front windows
of the store, but a clerk said the entire stock was on hold for
customers who had called in and requested the game after seeing
reports about it on television.
"If we know one of those games has been sold, that says to us
they're slapping us in the face," Mack said. "The NAACP will have no
problem fighting for the racial dignity of our people. If that means
we will have to be out here to disrupt their business, they can damn
well bet that will happen."
Messages left with Urban Outfitters corporate headquarters in
Philadelphia were not returned yesterday. Mack said he also has
received no response to his calls to the company.
David Chang, the game's creator and a Taiwanese immigrant who lives
in Pennsylvania, said he does not need a lecture on stereotyping. He
said that he has been subject to jokes about dog- eating and martial
arts, and that stereotypes should be things people can laugh at.
"If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we'll continue to live in
blame and bitterness," Chang said in a news release on the Web site
for the game, www.Ghettopoly.com.
Chang is developing a line of the Monopoly spinoffs; the next
installment, Redneckopoly, should be out in the next few months, he
said.
So far, more than 1,000 copies of Ghettopoly have been sold through
the Web site and at Urban Outfitters, Chang said. Urban Outfitters
is the only store selling the game, which retails for $30 and went
on the shelves in Seattle about a week ago.
Other ethnic groups represented in the game include Jews, the Irish,
Latinos and Asians. Instead of small, green houses, players buy
crack houses, and instead of upgrading to hotels, players upgrade to
housing projects.
The equal-opportunity approach to the use of stereotypes and cliches
does not satisfy Mack's concerns, and the group has contacted the
national NAACP office in an effort to start nationwide action
against Urban Outfitters.
Chang said he takes issue with the increasingly personal attacks he
is receiving through e-mail and reading on Internet message boards
that question his right to satirize ghetto life.
"Do you have to be a certain ethnicity to touch a certain subject?"
he asked."
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