I played 'Slave Tetris' so your kids don't have to

Sept. 7, 2015 10:22 AM PT

Share via
- Email
- Facebook
- X
- LinkedIn
- Threads
- Reddit
- WhatsApp

I knew something was wrong when I found myself doing doughnuts in a fully loaded slave ship off of Ivory Coast.

During the past week, an educational game aimed at elementary and middle school students titled “Playing History 2 — Slave Trade” has been the subject of online controversy over a brief segment that involved puzzle-stacking the bodies of cartoon slaves inside a ship. This earned the game the nickname “Slave Tetris.”

More to Read

Entertainment & Arts Hero Complex

Dexter Thomas

Dexter Thomas is from San Bernardino and is a PhD candidate in East Asian studies at Cornell University. He has taught media studies and Japanese and is writing a book about Japanese hip-hop. Thomas began working in new media as a student director of programming at KUCR-FM (88.3), independently producing podcasts as well as music and news programs. He has written for several outlets internationally on topics as diverse as Internet and youth culture, social justice and video games. He left The Times in 2016.