Wanting to bust a cap in Urban Outfitters’ azz
OK, you want to be mad at someone? How about David T Chang and Urban Outfitters. He created a “game” called Ghettopoly. It’s being sold at the Urban Outfitters chain stores. I don’t honestly think I’ve ever bought anything there, but I certainly won’t in the future.
I don’t even want to potentially bump this motherfucker’s pagerank by linking to him, but… you have to see this, before someone burns his site down: http://www.ghettopoly.com/. It’s hosted by Yahoo!, so I’m off to write a complaint e-mail.
Here’s some of what MSNBC passes off as ‘coverage’ on it: ‘Ghettopoly’ game called ‘racist’ (why is racist quoted? Single quoted at that? WTF?!?)
It’s one thing to joke about our differences, encourage discussion, and have fun with friends. It’s another to mass market stereotypes, especially trivializing serious issues and painting with such a wide, offensive, brush. And yes this goes for Hollywood, too! Insensitivity is one thing, but this is truly tasteless and offensive. Is gangsta rap? Yeah, some of it is too, and some of that needs to be kicked to the curb, as well. But let’s start with this first. I can appreciate offensive humor, in a big way, but this isn’t really humorous–it’s simply exploitative. Once you get all the “jokes”, this game wouldn’t be funny, or fun. And it offers no commentary on the ghetto, no insight to make it humorous, only presents the ghetto and stereotypes of the ghetto as something to point and laugh at, not find a commonality with the subject that is the basis for true humor. It is the kind of “funny” 7 year olds laugh at when the bully breaks someone’s toy out of hate, not the kind when a comedian exposes and show the humor in stereotypes (think Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, or George Carlin.)
And now that I’ve visited the urban outfitter’s site, I see how this could happen. What a load of trash–beer-branded t-shirts, “jesus is my homeboy” logo’d stuff, and camo pants. I suggest they change their name to ‘Suburban Loutfitters’; apparently their target demographic is farm-dwelling militia members. I clicked around a lot, and was surprised to eventually find a nonwhite model. One. But then again, I don’t blame minority models for refusing to wear any of that shit 
Sorry, but you are completely on the wrong track here. This is complete and utter nonsense that is brewing up over this game. I have visited the creator of the game’s website and I happened to notice while I was there some other games that he said were “coming soon.” Under that list there was a game titled “redneckopoly,” and just what is the stereotypical image of a “redneck?” Well, almost always the first image that pops into one’s head is of a poor white family and just what might I ask is the image of a “Ghetto?” Simple, it is the other side of the coin. Usually the first image that you associate it with is poor black families. Well, how might I ask is that different? There certainly doesn’t seem to be much difference, but I am almost positive there would be no problems over this game if “Redneckopoly” was the first one released in the Urban Outfitters stores. Can you honestly say protests would have came about from that game? Even if it was just as hard hitting, with things like eating roadkill, living in trailer parks, marrying cousins, etc… There is nothing wrong about this game except the age limit posted on the creator’s webpage as it is definitely a mature game since he incorporated a lot of violent themes and drugs into it. I think the game looks stupid myself and would never purchase it, but to go this overboard over an incident like this is just plain irrational.
ok… im a year late at seeing this but i just wanted to give a short comment. The previous statement said (paraphrasing), ‘isn’t ok to have ghettopoly if there is also a ‘redneckopoly’? This statement reflects a common point of ignorance in racial discourse for the following reason: there are positive depictions of whites all over the media whereas this is not the same case for blacks. therefore, a game reinforcing negative stereotypes of blacks– even if it is only a subculture of blacks– is going to be far more harmful than the reinforcement of negative stereotypes against whites. Many stupid ass suburban white brats think that those ghetto stereotypes are true of all blacks. We need to be more responsible in our depiction of historically oppressed groups because their images are so few in the mainstream media. Second point: when is it ever ok to trivalize and exploit the plight of the underclasses? poverty, drug addiction, and hunger are not funny issues…. anyone that thinks those things are funny is a bougeosie asshole