cgingold's blog

Dr. Cecil Brown began his lecture Games Blacks Love to Play by citing Marshall McLuhan's 1964 observation that the games people play mirror the surrounding culture. Brown uses this stance—that games teach us about the culture they come from—to explore the history of African Americans, the interplay between black and white play cultures, and the effect these diverse forms of play had on American culture at large. [Update: Check out the video of Cecil Brown's lecture!]

Brown divided American history into three stages. First, slave culture, in which outdoor physical play predominates. Under slavery, blacks rarely learned to read and write, as punishment was having your hands cut off. Black culture, thus, was primarily oral and kinetic out of necessity. Second, segregated culture, characterized by dance. Thirdly, integrated culture, which our digital culture is a part.

Brown talked about a host of fascinating play phenomena that occurred under slavery in America. Black kids usually played with the children of their master, interestingly, but were not allowed to play with white kids from elsewhere. Slave children played a game called auction, where they enacted the auction of slaves as a game, enabling them to explore the drama of a slave auction and the strange idea of their own value. White kids often weren't allowed to play, as they "weren't worth anything." Children's play culture under slavery found a specific manifestation in the topsy-turvy doll, a handmade doll made with two halves, each representing a black or white girl. By flipping the dress over the head of one, you ended up with the other.