Monopoly Game Board Now Racist

Cancel culture madness continues! The Monopoly game board is now considered racist. When will this madness stop?

The original Monopoly board game was inspired by segregated Atlantic City in the 1930s with property prices reflecting deep racial disparities between white and black residents, an author has claimed.  

Mary Pilon, who wrote her book The Monopolists about the hidden history of the beloved board game in 2015, argued that it's property values 'reflect a legacy of racism and inequality in an essay published in The Atlantic on Monday. 

Monopoly, which is produced and sold around the world by Hasbro, was derived from a real estate game that a woman named Lizzie Magie patented in the US in 1904. It quickly spread across the country, where it was adapted into several different versions.  

In her essay Pilon asserted that the most common American version of the game today was created in the 1930s by a realtor named Jesse Raiford, who modeled his board after his hometown of Atlantic City.  

'Raiford affixed prices to the properties on his board to reflect the actual real-estate hierarchy at the time,' Pilon wrote. 

'And in Atlantic City, as in so much of the rest of the United States, that hierarchy reflects a bitter legacy of racism and residential segregation.'

Author Mary Pilon argued that the original Monopoly property values 'reflect a legacy of racism and inequality' in an essay published in The Atlantic on Monday (file photo)

In her essay Pilon asserted that the most common version of the game today was created in the 1930s by a realtor named Jesse Raiford, who modeled his board after his hometown of Atlantic City (pictured in 1938)

Pilon explained how the streets on Raiford's board matched the ones he was familiar with in Atlantic City. He lived on Ventnor Avenue, his friends the Joneses and the Harveys lived on Park Place and Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Those streets - where black people were not allowed to live - made up the priciest spots on his board.

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