SumBlog 8

In class on Monday we played Sociopoly. This game helped show how serious and difficult it may be to be poor or even a minority. Each group started out with a different initial amount of money and were paid a different salary each time they passed go. That reflected how other minorities may make less money than Caucasians. It also showed that certain jobs pay less and maybe not even enough to get by. There were a couple of other teams who owned some properties before the game even started. Owning properties before the start of the game was a huge advantage because those individuals were able to collect rent/money within the first round of the game. There were five teams who played this game. There were two teams who had a good amount of money, two other teams who had some money and the last team had very little money. The team that had the least amount of money got eliminated from the game within the very first roll because they landed on some property that the richest team had and wasn’t able to afford the rent. This was very hard to see because it made me realize how difficult it may be to get anywhere with very little money. As the game went on the other four teams continued to play however, the other two teams who had less money didn’t buy hardly any properties. They simply did whatever they could to get around the board multiple times to collect their salary and avoid paying the richest teams. The top two teams continued to buy properties and collect rent from any team who landed on their spaces. This also showed me that the rich continue to get richer. I say that because the richest team bought most of the properties and houses/hotels. In buying the houses/hotels more money would be due if a team landed on that square and the richest team would continue to make more money. It was frustrating to see how the richest team continued to buy all the property and build houses/hotels on them until no other teams could afford to pay them. When the teams with the lower amount of money chose not to buy properties the bank would auction the properties off starting at $10. If no one bid on the property it was always the richest team who would buy the property for $10 and add more houses/hotels. It started to make me realize that the rich team was very greedy. Who would have guessed that playing a modified version of Monopoly would make me realize how difficult it may be to get by every day on the very little those individuals may have. It is one thing to read about the minority and lower socioeconomic status individuals in a book but it made it more clear when actually playing the game and putting it into perspective. Playing this game was very heartbreaking and made me even more thankful for everything I own.