Stanford Professor Says Dungeons & Dragons Perpetuates ‘White Male Privilege’

There is virtually nothing left that isn’t racist. Now a Stanford professor has decided to claim that the role-playing game called “Dungeons and Dragons” perpetuates a white male privilege.

Missing the fact that the creator of Dungeons and Dragons often left his daughter play the game with him to test it out, Standford University Professor Antero Garcia argues in an academic journal article that the popular game perpetuates systems of privilege in both race and gender.

According to Breitbart, Garcia argues that Dungeons and Dragons encourages a distrust of the “other.” It’s a weird focus for a Stanford scholar, especially since Garcia concedes that race in Dungeons & Dragons is not much like race in the real world. In the game, the characters are divided by their species. Some characters are elves, some are dwarves, and some are halflings, according to Garcia.

The article’s abstract states:

This article takes a cultural-historical approach to analyzing how systems shape the assumptions, identities, and experiences of their users. Focusing on how the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons is built on a system of play that has grown and shifted over the course of 40 years, this study emphasizes the central role that systems play in mediating the experiences of participants. By focusing on depictions of gender, race, and power in Dungeons & Dragons—as a singular cultural practice—this study highlights how researchers must attend to cultural production both around and within systems.

But that’s not all. Garcia’s 16-page article focuses on the representation of women in the game. According to Garica’s own research, by 2014, more than half of the game’s depicted characters are female. But according to the same article, Garcia’s ultimate wish is to see Dungeons & Dragons move beyond its problematic past into a more diverse and inclusive future.

So there you have it. Even though half the characters are female, and include elves, and dwarves, and halflings and the like, Dungeons and Dragons is not inclusive enough, and therefore, perpetuates white male privileges.