I was hanging out with a group of my friends and we were playing charades, and a few minutes of the game a thought hit me. This game is actually really problematic in a lot of ways that I’d never noticed before. 

First, it tends to lead people to caricaturing; if the word you’re trying to guess is a person of any minority, be sure that the person who is acting it out is going to throw every racial stereotype possible into their act. For a woman, they’ll be swinging their hips and batting eyelashes. To make it easier to guess, sure, but is that how we want to be defining people? 

But even in a game where you’re not guessing names of people, or players aren’t using problematic stereotypes, I think there’s a bigger problem with the whole nature of the game. It’s ableist. You’re stepping into the shoes of someone who can’t speak- someone with a communication disorder, someone who is nonverbal, someone who is Autistic. You’re trying desperately to communicate with the people around you, but it’s just a game that you can step out of. You can exasperatedly say “Guys, it was Uzbekistan- how did you not get that??” when your time runs out. The nonverbal person can’t do that. The wild acting out is almost making fun of nonverbal people who may have no other choices when trying to convey a message. 

I also wonder what the Deaf community thinks about it. It turns their lived experience into a game as well, having to take in all their communication by sight. The signals for syllables and words is almost a pale imitation of ASL, verging on appropriation. 

So that’s why I quit playing. I don’t want to turn other people’s experiences into a charade. I recognize the privileges that I have as a mostly able-bodied person and I’m not going to pretend to be Disabled for fun. I encourage all of you to think critically about the things in your life that seem normal but may actually be expressing ableism or cultural appropriation.