Last week, we got all arts and craftsy and transferred our revisions to Dukeopoly to a new template, in preparation for our first Game Day test run today. We matched the new “sites” on the board with revised property cards as well as new “Chance” and “Community Chest” cards. All reflect how students live Duke now (as opposed to when Dukeopoly was last designed, at least 15 or more years ago). As it happens, Duke was abuzz with news of yet another offensive party, this time “Asia Prime.” So that immediately made it into the card stack, a commandement to proceed to Academic Probation without passing “Go” or collecting $200.

 

Creating a new Dukeopoly
Creating a new Dukeopoly

And that was before news of the “Pedophiles and Juveniles” party hit the Duke Chronicle (otherwise known as “Creepy Guys and Cutie Pies,” hosted by Sigma Nu) and Jezebel.

 

One of the things we discussed as we collated cards and filled in game spaces was that even an “insider’s” game like the one we are producing can be made even more “insidery,” with the different communities that often do not overlap on Campus. While Shooters is considered a “deep Duke” hangout, many students have never gone (though all have heard the tales). Some students actively go beyond the invisible boundaries that most students observe.

 

Alix, for example, has worked as an EMT and regularly  does ride-alongs in the city to keep her skills fresh. Although the national media certainly has a stereotypical Duke student in mind, in fact the student body has changed dramatically over the past two years. As Jezebel noted in its coverage of the Sigma Nu party, “Duke undergraduates were drawn to racist and sexist themed parties because the concept of breaking social rules intrigues kids who are book-smart but haven’t experienced real struggles; i.e., your stereotypical Duke student.”

 

These stereotypes are just what makes creating a Duke-Durham version of Monopoly so challenging. Durhamites certainly have preconceived notions about Blue Devils; and students, for the most part, fear Durham, refusing to go beyond the metaphorical outpost that is Shooters (even the quite tame hipster conclave of FullSteam and Motorco is too far for most undergrads). According to the latest available statistics (2008), 44 percent of the undergraduate student body is non-white (and I think that number has risen in the four years since). Many more students than in previous years are coming from outside the United States or are the first in their families to go to college. That’s certainly not the perception most people, even Durhamites, have of the campus. And many of these students have no interest in the “old-style” Duke of race and class-themed “parties” (partial list here.)

 

At the same time, Dukies write off whole swaths of Durham as dangerous or “sketchy.” By the time they are seniors, many have not been downtown, a mere five blocks away from East Campus. When I take students on a civil rights tour, we always meet in front of the Carolina Theater, once a segregated space. Many seniors need detailed directions, since they have never been further east than — you got it, Shooters.

 

Can a game help tear down some of these walls? Could play allow us to see one another more clearly — and with less objectification? The students in this class are now embarking on three research projects that will both make these walls more visible and contribute to a new Duke-Durhamopoly that, we hope, may help make passageways… stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

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