The Real Monopoly: America's Racial Wealth Divide

This lesson plan is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance magazine article "Our Challenges as a People [1]"

Framework
Forty-plus years after the end of legal segregation, individual African Americans have achieved amazing successes – including Barack Obama's election as president. However, the black community as a whole remains under great stress. African Americans make less money, on average, than white counterparts in similar positions. Blacks are overrepresented in prisons and underrepresented in college.

How did this happen? As Obama pointed out in his groundbreaking 2008 speech on race, African Americans have historically been shut out of a number of paths to wealth, including membership in labor unions, access to FHA mortgages, jobs in civil service positions and education in well-equipped schools. Other communities of color have faced similar obstacles – leading to a racial wealth gap that has made white people, on average, wealthier than people of color.

In this lesson, students will get a glimpse of the long-term economic effects of race-based policies that have limited the economic opportunities of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and other communities of color.

(Note: this lesson plan requires access to multiple copies of the game "Monopoly." Rather than spending money on board games, you may want to ask fellow teachers if they have copies of the game available to lend. Another option is to go directly to the Extension Activity below, and have your students design their own game.)

Objectives

• Students will explore basic economic concepts such as real property, wealth and income by playing the game Monopoly.
• Students will engage in a "rigged" version of Monopoly – and write a reflection on the long-term effects of economic injustice.

Materials
At least one copy of the board game Monopoly
One copy of the rules of Monopoly for each student
Copies of "supplemental rules [2]" for Monopoly 

Activities
Tell your students they're about to do something fun – playing a board game.

Many of your students will already be familiar with the game Monopoly. Others may have only a passing knowledge, or may have never heard of the game. Explain to your students that this board game was created in the early 20th century as a simple simulation of the business world. Stress that, like all games, Monopoly is just a model of what happens in the real world. It may not always be true to real life.

Tell your students that they are going to learn the official rules of Monopoly – and learn about the real-world economic principles the game represents. Walk your students through the rules of the game, explaining how they relate to real-life economic concepts.

Rent is what you pay when you live on or use someone else's property. Income is a source of cash flow (like the $200 you get for passing "Go" or the money you collect in rent). Liabilities are costs you have to pay – like rent and tax. Real property consists of land and buildings on that land. Wealth is a measure of your assets minus your liabilities.

Divide your class into Monopoly "teams." There should be three teams for every Monopoly board in the classroom. Each team should select one person – ideally someone who is new to the game of Monopoly – as its "player." The rest of the team will be "advisers" to the player. (Ideally, you will have enough Monopoly sets to have only three or four students on each team.)

The three players will sit down to play a game of Monopoly, with each team's advisers looking on, to explain the rules and suggest strategies.

Allow the teams to play the game for 6-10 turns. Then ask each team to work together to write down an accounting report that includes: Estimated income (per turn), wealth (in dollar amounts) at the end of the game, and a listing of real property. Depending on your class schedule, you may need to set aside an entire class period for the Monopoly game and the accounting of assets.

Begin the next class session by reminding the students that Monopoly is just a model of the economic world. Reality is always more complex. Tell students that they are going to break into the same groups they competed in yesterday, for another game of Monopoly. This time, however, you will introduce new rules that reflect a more complex reality.