The NPR article I chose was, “Rolling the Dice on Race in Dungeons & Dragons” by Jess Kung, Gene Demby, Dalia Mortada, and Leah Donnella. Listening to the podcast was intriguing since it was based on a popular board game from the 80’s. The topic of discussion was essentially centered around how this board game perpetuated stereotypes/racial issues. So Kung and his colleagues were debating how the game reflected racial biases toward different ethnic groups that weren’t white. Furthermore, their view on it was based on the creator of it- Gary Gygax who was labeled as ” Biological determinism” which refers to the belief that human behavior is determined by one’s genetic makeup. Thus-he argued that girls don’t enjoy games as much as boys because male and female brains are unquestionably different. The team had mixed feelings toward this ideology and reflected with concern; since many of them came from diverse backgrounds. They were surprised when they discovered that D&D manuals threw around words like exotic, uncivilized, and alcoholic to describe certain cultures. So the game was centered around many issues of race and how it targets certain groups of people.

My perspective on the topic is also in the mixed category because everyone feels a different vibe when playing any type of board game. In terms of listening to the podcast the game’s historical background was based upon wars such as “World War II” and the Cold War”. Also, that was the origin of Dungeons and Dragons, and the belief system the creator made it was meant for only “boys” so there is some major gender inequality shown there. Moreover, the game is fantasy so a player would often have to make up the character such as a “half elf-half human type monster”. Again, one of the hosts of the podcast was discussing how racial identity influences the way we play and how we evaluate our state of mind to fit in with society. I also would like to make a connection to one of the Ted Talk videos assigned to us: The Cost of Code Switching by Chandra Arthur. She talked about the slang term “Oreo” which referred to a person black on the outside and white on the inside, and questioned her cultural diversity and fitting in with society’s expectations. The main takeaway is the cost of code-switching and whether it truly benefits us or damages us as a society. Instead, we become obsessed with this and not work on ourselves.