WHITE PRIVILEGE: a glimpse into social privilege

white privilege Social Justice social design game board board game graphic design privilege white people social justice design

Problem: Social privilege is a prevalent topic in the United States today. Contributing factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, income status all greatly affect what inherent advantages or disadvantages we are handed. White privilege is the lasting effect to the existing racial inequalities and injustices still prevalent today. White Americans may overlook these inherent advantages; often claiming they do not "see" such privilege occur around them. The reality of this complex social issue is the disadvantages people of color face today comes from our dark past around systematic discriminatory actions including slavery, segregation, redlining, mass-incarceration, and the drug war. Non-White Americans face many situations that wouldn't even be apparent to their white counterparts. This includes structural racism by policing systems that can either lead to imprisonment or loss of their life. Black and Brown Americans also have an increased chance to attend a high-poverty school, face greater unemployment rates, and live in an underserved community.

Solution: White Privilege: A Glimpse Into Social Privilege is an interactive board game intended to educate the audience on this systematic issue of social class between White and Non-White Americans. This three player game uses a dice to guide each individual through periods of time including Childhood, Teenage Years, Early Adulthood, and Middle Aged & Senior. Players are assigned a color between red, blue, green to start with. Every player color has a different amount of spots from start to finish on their path to finish. Each time a player lands on a space with the corresponding shape they must pick up a card from that deck. If the space has a different player's color on the icon, those two players much switch their location on the board. Every card includes a scenario detailing a life event along with the fate of all three players. These scenarios also determine if the player moves forward, stays in their place, or moves backward on the board. In most cases the red players sees the highest benefit, blue player can either benefit or not, and the green player sees the least benefit. Along with regular player cards there is one Empowerment Card in each deck. This gives the green and blue player to be given an empowering scenario allowing them to attempt to catch up with the red player. When completing this game start to finish the players will hold a greater understanding on White Privilege and social economic class. By creating moments where the player must switch onto another colored navigation they develop a better recognition of how one may be given greater or less inherent advantages over others who may be of another ethnicity or race than themselves.