‘We have a lot of racists.’ Scrabble association moves to ban racial slurs from play
Scrabble will no longer allow racist words and slurs in tournament play, the company says.
Hasbro, the company that owns the popular board game, announced the decision Wednesday to change official rules for the game.
“Hasbro Gaming is rooted in community and bringing people together, and we are committed to providing an experience that is inclusive and enjoyable for all,” the company said in a news release. “For that reason, Hasbro is changing the official rules of its Scrabble game to make clear that slurs are not permissible in any form of the game.”
Until now, Scrabble players have been permitted to play racial slurs, including the N-word, in competitive tournaments.
Hasbro says it’s had discussions with the North American Scrabble Players Association, which agreed to remove slurs from its list of words allowed in tournament play.
However, it’s unclear whether the decision is finalized.
John Chew, the CEO of the players association, released an extensive statement about removing racist and offensive words from the group’s list, saying an advisory board will vote on the decision. The association polled members about whether slurs should be removed. Responses to the poll ranged from “white supremacist screeds” to “naive expressions of faith in the fundamental goodness of all people,” Chew said.
“We have a lot of racists, and we have a lot of bleeding-heart liberals,” Chew said. “We have people of every color on every side of the debate. Somehow, we have all managed to set that all aside when we meet over Scrabble boards. It’s what I love about the game.”
Chew says he agrees slurs should be removed and vowed to make it happen.
“As diverse and inclusive a community as we think we currently are, we exclude those who think that the N word is always meaningful,” Chew said. “We exclude Jewish people whose idea of recreation does not include having their opponent spell out anti-Semitic slurs against them. We exclude LGBTQ+ people who think that the time is past for slurs targeting them to be accepted. We exclude not only these players, but their families and friends.”
Josephine Flowers, a Black competitive Scrabble player from Arkansas, is among several players who pushed for the association to remove more than 200 offensive terms from the list, including the N-word, The New York Times reported.
“You could be sitting there for a 45-minute game just looking at that word,” Flowers told the newspaper. “And if you don’t know the person who played it, then you wonder, was it put down as a slight, or was it the first word that came to their mind?”
Hasbro first removed offensive words from the Scrabble dictionary in 1994. The Anti-Defamation League led efforts to purge the dictionary of racist words, ethnic slurs and vulgar terms for body parts, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported at the time.
However, slurs remained on a list managed by the North American Scrabble Players Association and available to members.
“I think it reflects poorly on competitive Scrabble players that they accept the use of words (that) in any other context, would be a hate crime, and that they pretend that the words have no meaning when they’re playing a game, just so that they can score a few extra points,” Chew told CBC Radio.
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