more fake social experience brought to you by expensive innernet thingies

If you were outraged/driven to drink even more by Second Life's virtual march on Washington, you'll be pleased to hear that your tax dollars (well, for some of you) are being spent to give rich, white college students the opportunity to experience white privilege - virtually. It's called Game2Know, and it's coming to a Southern Private University near you.

The game is intended to enable users to experience the effects of institutionalized privilege (on the one hand) and disenfranchisement (on the other) by having to adopt a persona of a different race, gender, ethnicity, ability set, etc. By loading the virtual world with real-world statistics about disparities in access to housing, education, health services and the formal and informal institutions that connect people to capital, users will experience how being a member of a particular demographic group has a direct effect on their ability or inability to accrue wealth and “succeed” by the norms of the “American Dream.” As they play the game, participants will learn how factors other than individual ability affects material success, including access to privileges that often seem invisible to those who benefit from them.

It's a good thing they're not making those poor kids actually leave their sheltered campus to experience the majority non-white city in which they live: it's dangerous!

Plus, now you can be white and have a black avatar without having to justify yourself!