by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Check out this racist-ass web game on Yahoo! called Missionaries and Cannibals. Here are the instructions:
Move all the missionaires and cannibals to the opposite shore.
Watch out, when there are more cannibals than missionaires on one side, the cannibals will eat the missionaries!
Thanks to Steven for the tip!
I was just coming here to tell you about this game! So glad you posted it.
Did you get a load of the description of the game in the sidebar?
“The kind missionaries can’t be left alone with too many evil cannibals, but they all have to cross a river in a small boat. Can you help them?”
Evil cannibals and kind missionaries? WTF!?
Wow. I wish the people behind things like this would think first. How do they think people will react to such blatantly racist imagery?
“when there are more cannibals than missionaires on one side, the cannibals will eat the missionaries!”
I fail to see how that’s a problem. ; )
Oh my dear god.
This reminds me of the paper placemats at a diner near my parents’, which were geared towards children with little crayon-solved games. One of them was a very similar challenge (except with Native Americans — “Indians” and Settlers, and without the terrible graphic depiction you probably get with this Yahoo game).
However, those placemats were printed and copyrighted in THE 70S.
Evil cannibals and kind missionaries? WTF!?
Would it be better if they were kind, caring, cannibals who were eating a multi-ethnic group of missionaries?
no brian. it would be better if it was “indigenous people being forced to defend themselves from self righteous missionaries who feel it their divine duty to impose their beliefs on anyone with a culture they do not understand, and consider ’savage’.”
yes. that would be better.
Is this a parody?
Well, if it isn’t, as a game programmer, I have to make one 
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind so much of they got the portrayal right: cannibalism has only ever been speculated. There is only one documented group in human ancestry that practiced cannibalism on a regular basis: the French. All other groups may have practiced it in battle or dire emergency, but it has never been more than speculated that any brown people would eat a missionary.
… However, I must find and play this game regardless of is ahistorical, inherently racist, and denigrating portrayal. >_<
I remember being asked a brainteaser question like this as a kid, except it had animals. Something like wolves and sheep.
Nope this is blatently racist.
cannibalism has only ever been speculated. There is only one documented group in human ancestry that practiced cannibalism on a regular basis: the French.
That explains a lot about French cooking.
Perhaps it depends on what you mean by cannibalism and documented. Or ‘group’ for that matter.
Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jima were documented (and tried and convicted) eating shot down American pilots in 1945. An extreme situation, granted, and I don’t recall if the unlucky Americans were eaten as a grisly ritual or for protein. Either is likely at that stage of the war.
The Karankawa were documented by Spanish records as cannibals – but I’m aware that there is some doubt as to if this was a dietary practice as then alleged or a ritual thing … or if it happened at all. Documentation is going to be sketchy when one side is literate and another relies on oral tradition.
anywhere we can voice complaints?
I had to check out this game after I read about it on http://www.globalgrind.com and after being disgusted by what I saw I decided to research it a little. There are different versions of the game on the net with the same concept of moving missionaries away from the cannibals. Another version featured on a website called Learn 4 Good had ‘cannibals’ that looked like little brown aliens with ‘missionaries’ holding bibles. The game is supposed t be a puzzle game and has been created with sheep and wolves, which I believe Yahoo should change their version to if they insist on keeping the game up. They could at least try to be a little more creative and a lot less racist in the future.
Oh come on, don’t be so sensitive. This is a fine and fitting tribute to my South Pacific ancestors, who ate several missionaries and probably would have eaten more if they hadn’t been decimated by diseases brought by those god-fearing pioneers. Why do you think we call our homeland the “Cook Islands”?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of New Demographic, a diversity education firm. Her perspectives on race and diversity have been featured on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, USA Today, and The New York Times.
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