10/9/2003: Ghettopoly

[Undertoad]

This news image turned up on the wires today, and news-googling on it suggests that we have here a rising controversy. Some people seem to have steam coming out of their ears over it.

It's "Ghettopoly", and it looks pretty hilarious. The official website says "Buying stolen properties, pimpin hoes, building crack houses and projects, paying protection fees and getting car jacked are some of the elements of the game. Not dope enough?...If you don't have the money that you own to the loan shark you might just land yourself in da Emergency Room." And the game pieces: Pimp, Hoe, 40 oz, Machine Gun, Marijuana Leaf, Basket Ball and Crack.

And as expected, some people are throwing fits -- in this news image, it's Philly black clergy. Amongst other things, they're unhappy with the intentionally-misspelled "Malcum X" and "Martin Luthor King Jr." They want Urban Outfitters to stop carrying the game.

Quite predictably, this is the most and best publicity that the game could ever hope for. How else would it have made the IotD, for example? It's not funny or striking enough on its own. But with the controversy it becomes interesting.

This controversy reminds me of the Cellar thread where Nic Name could not stand certain tasteless humor. The "Ghettopoly" maker also intends to bring out "Redneckopoly" so it's certainly not a very simple racial matter. My first take is that it's more important to have a sense of humor about one's situation than anything else and that it's important for us to do away with meaningless political correctness, and so I am on the side of "Ghettopoly" at first glance. If we laugh at our stereotypes, we are at least being open about them, which just might allow them to fall away more easily over time.