Decoder Ring: The Forgotten Video Game About Slavery

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1992, a Minnesota-based software company known for its educational hit The Oregon Trail released another simulation-style game to school districts across the country. Freedom! took kids on a journey along the Underground Railroad, becoming the first American software program to use slavery as its subject matter. Less than four months later, it was pulled from the market. In this episode, we revisit this well-intentioned, but flawed foray into historical trauma that serves as a reminder that teaching Black history in America has always been fraught. This episode was written by Willa Paskin. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. This episode was also produced by Benjamin Frisch, and edited by Erica Morrison. Derek John is executive producer. Joel Meyer is senior editor-producer and Merritt Jacob is senior technical director. We’re grateful to Julian Lucas for his expertise, reporting, and generosity, without which this episode would not have been possible. His New Yorker article, “Can Slavery Reenactments Set Us Free?,” revisits the Freedom! story as part of an exploration of the live Underground Railroad re-enactments that Kamau Kambui pioneered. Thank you to Jesse Fuchs for suggesting this topic. Thanks also to Coventry Cowens, Brigitte Fielder, Bob Whitaker, Alan Whisman, Wayne Studer, Alicia Montgomery, Rebecca Onion, Luke Winkie, and Kamau Kambui’s children: Yamro Kambui Fields, Halim Fields, Mawusi Kambui Pierre, Nanyamka Salley, and Kamau Sababu Kambui Jr. If you haven’t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends. If you’re a fan of the show, please sign up for Slate Plus. Members get to listen to Decoder Ring without any ads and have total access to Slate’s website. Your support is also crucial to our work. Go to Slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do people love the Vauxal Corsa as much as we do?
0:03.0	Yes, of Coursa.
0:05.0	Don't just take our word for it.
0:07.0	Here's what Julie had to say in her FIFO review.
0:09.0	I love the style and colour too.
0:11.0	Very pleased and telling everybody about it.
0:14.0	Join Julie and discover why the Vauxal Corsa is the UK's best-selling small card today.
0:19.0	Visit your local Vauxhall retailer to book your test drive or search Courser now the UK's best-selling small card today. Visit your local Vauxhall retailer to book your
0:21.9	test drive or search Courser now. For bestselling claim verification, visit voxel.co.uk.
0:29.9	Just a heads up before we begin. This episode contains some adult language.
0:41.0	When some adult language. When Julian Lucas, now a staff writer at The New Yorker, was just a kid, he became fascinated
0:46.7	by video games.
0:48.3	I had plenty of late-night sleepovers playing Super Smash Bros. Melee.
0:52.9	It was the late 90s, early 2000s, and he played all different kinds of games,
0:57.7	fighting games and computer games, educational games, racing games, and first-person shooter games.
1:03.6	But there was one kind he liked most of all.
1:06.2	Models of the world, whether it was space exploration or conquering the Roman Empire or building an ancient
1:14.8	Chinese city, something that felt like I had an entire world contained on my computer that I could
1:21.9	improvise on and modify and control. That's what really appealed to me.
1:32.9	But when Julian got the college, he started thinking more critically about this medium he loved. At a certain point, I realized that so many of these games touched on histories that should
1:39.9	have included slavery and just completely omitted it.
1:45.7	The most egregious is probably a game.
	...

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