Scholar reacts to race-based game

Dear Amy: I am a person of color. While studying for my Ph.D. in clinical psychology, I have realized that many things about my upbringing were wrong.

In elementary school, we played a game in gym. It was an obstacle course on floor scooters, and we played it in the dark. It was a huge hit, and everyone loved it. The problem is the game was called The Underground Railroad.

Everyone I mention this to says how wrong this was. It minimized what this nation has put black people through, and made it into a children’s game.

The teacher who led the game now teaches high school U.S. history. I fear that he continues to minimize the suffering of those this nation has held down. I don’t know the most effective way of dealing with this, I know it needs to be addressed. — Making Change

Dear Making Change:

When I was a kid, we played “Cowboys and Indians,” featuring some truly outlandish, ignorant (and, I assume despicable) depictions of Native Americans. Granted, this game wasn’t used as a teaching tool in the schools, but I use it as one example of how every generation in this country can look back — and cringe at the racism that has infused our culture, since way before our nation’s founding.

I’d like to turn to Maya Angelou: “I did then what I knew to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

I think it would be both helpful and useful if you wrote a letter to your alma mater, outlining your experience. You could call out this particular teacher for minimizing the experience of escaping slaves by turning it into a game, but this is obviously a bigger, systemic issue. The “casual” nature of this example does not make it any more acceptable, but perhaps this teacher has grown over time.