Black Leaders Outraged at Ghettopoly Game

adios · #1 10-09-2003, 03:33 PM

Black Leaders Outraged About Ghettopoly Game

Black Leaders Outraged at Board Game
Wed Oct 8, 9:02 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!

By BILL BERGSTROM, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA - Cheap Trick Avenue instead of Boardwalk? Hernando's Chop Shop instead of Reading Railroad?

Black leaders are outraged over a new board game called "Ghettopoly" that has "playas" acting like pimps and game cards reading, "You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50."

Black clergymen say the game, the brainchild of a Pennsylvania man, should be banned, and have called for a boycott of Urban Outfitters unless the company stops selling Ghettopoly in its chain of clothing stores.

Urban Outfitters has not publicly commented on the issue, and did not return a call seeking comment on Wednesday.

"If we are silent on this issue there is more of this type to come," the Rev. Robert P. Shine Sr., president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia & Vicinity, said at a sidewalk rally Wednesday in front Urban Outfitters' corporate headquarters in Philadelphia.

Shine displayed the game board, with properties including Westside Liquor, Harlem, The Bronx, and Long Beach City, and squares labeled Smitty's XXX Peep Show, Weinstein's Gold and Platinum, and Tyron's Gun Shop.

Players draw "Hustle" and "Ghetto Stash" cards with directions like, "You're a little short on loot, so you decided to stick up a bank. Collect $75," and "Steal $$$ if you pass Let$ Roll."

The creator of Ghettopoly, David Chang, did not immediately answer e-mails or phone calls seeking comment about the game.

On his Web site, Chang is unapologetic, and promises that more games — Hoodopoly, Hiphopopoly, Thugopoly and Redneckopoly — are coming soon.

"It draws on stereotypes not as a means to degrade, but as a medium to bring together in laughter," Chang maintains, adding, "If we can't laugh at ourselves ... we'll continue to live in blame and bitterness."

But the Ghettopoly board depicts figures labeled "Malcum X" and "Martin Luthor King Jr." — intentionally misspelled — noted Rev. Glenn Wilson, pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church.

"This is beyond making fun, to use the caricature of Dr. King in this regard," Wilson said. "There's no way that game could be taken in any way other than that this man had racist intent in marketing it."

The Philadelphia black clergy and Men United for a Better Philadelphia were just the latest to protest the game. In Chicago, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, called for a boycott of Urban Outfitters. In Florida, the St. Petersburg and Hillsborough County chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites) urged the company to stop carrying the game.

"I was outraged. We called Outfitters, we wrote them a letter, we held a press conference, but we've had no response," Pfleger said Wednesday

If this game is banned I wonder if the ACLU will go to bat for the inventors and makers of the game. Seems like the game is probably in bad taste but I haven't seen it so I can't really say.

angry young man · #2 10-09-2003, 04:37 PM

I read this story and looked at the game board expecting to be amused but I actually thought it crossed the line past funny into offensive. Not clever, just insulting.

brad · #3 10-09-2003, 06:30 PM

yeah, cia admits they ship in cocaine to inner cities and this is what so called 'black leaders' are upset about. ok ...

TAFKAn · #4 10-09-2003, 09:18 PM

Rush Limbaugh gets fired for bringing up the old "black quarterback" issue and what is the ESPN headline today: "First black hockey coach". Why aren't black people furious that race is an issue with this coach?

scalf · #5 10-09-2003, 09:34 PM

[img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]many blacks are angry because if more americans (who happen to be of african origin) succeed; then the call for reparations for slavery will not be as likely....

black leaders play this for all they can...

jmho..gl [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

AmericanAirlines · #6 10-09-2003, 10:04 PM

Hi Scalf,
Well... unlike the SSRI issue elsewhere I agree with you here.

Or let's consider...

White cop arrest black motorcyclist... Breton Harbor riots. Lots of news.

Black in Compton shoots one of the Williams sisters coaches... no reaction at all.

Or black shoots white teacher in Lake Worth Fla... no redneck riots?

MTV has "Sucka Free Sunday"... but suggest "Nigga Free Saturday" and *you're* a racists.

Black Caucus in congress... *that's* OK. Suggest a *white* caucus... *you're* a Nazi.

Hmm.... see a pattern?

The trend in racism today is anti-white.

Oh great, let's "africanize" America. Brilliant...

Look at any black majority county. For the most part they are all a mess. Haiti, Somalia (just about all of africa really)... And yet they want to blame whitey for everything.

Then add in crap like AGOA and Carribean Economic recovery act.. and you can't even by a pair of slacks that doesn't have something to do with africa.

I'll be the first to say, everyone, bar no one has a right to a great life. But the apparent push for africanization is just unmistakeably obvious. And I can't even figure out why. Somebody must be making a mint off of it somehow. (Well at least Levi Straus and other clothing sellers are for sure... Dominican Republic labor is reputed to be very low cost.)

Sincerely,
AA

daryn · #7 10-09-2003, 10:07 PM

reparations is easily the stupidest idea i've ever heard.

Boris · #8 10-09-2003, 10:54 PM

So I guess this means you're gonna buy the board game? David Duke is looking for a few right minded individuals like yourself. I think it's time for you to break out the linens and starch.

MMMMMM · #9 10-10-2003, 12:20 AM

I met a Vietnamese woman a few months ago at a place where people were partying. She was telling racial jokes. Black, Mexican, Jewish, Vietnamese, Chinese, you name it. She said to one partyer, "Don't mind me; I'm not racist; I hate everybody!" She was actually being pretty funny, and she did it all with a nice spirit. She even did an exaggerated eyebrow thing, and imitated an Oriental accent that made Charlie Chan sound like he was King of England.

I think she's one of few who actually get it right.

All these offended people need to learn how to laugh at themselves.

Also, if they don't want people imitating pimp rolls and pimp clothes and pimp hats and such, well hey, maybe the Black leaders should do more to tell their brothers that drugs and rap ain't where it's at, and they they should hit the goddam books instead of the crack pipe. I'd like to hear Jesse Jackson get up and make that speech.

Our society has come a long long way and EVERYONE has a chance today. Nobody is truly and irrevocably held back by race in America. The biggest thing holding anybody back today is themselves. Jesse should tell the pimps and drug pushers and crackheads to stop being scum and clean up their acts and hit the books and work hard, if he really wants to do something for blacks today. And just about every other group, racial or not, needs more of the same message, and to also be told loud and clear that if they can't take being offended they shouldn't step outside their front door.

andyfox · #10 10-10-2003, 12:35 AM

"I'd like to hear Jesse Jackson get up and make that speech."

I believe he does, all the time, calling for a resurgence in "family values" and education in the black community.

"Nobody is truly and irrevocably held back by race in America"

Of course people are held back by race. We might disagree over the extent and seriousness of it, and no doubt, as you say, we've come a long way, but to deny that racism exists is to be, well, colorblind.

I dont quite understand what's pretty funny about someone saying she hates everybody, and proving it, but I guess that's just me.