Escaping the Racist Escape Room Paradigm

In lieu of a kids’ Halloween party this year due to the whole plague thing we decided to invite one family at a time to try their hands at our escape room, The Great Kohinoor Diamond Heist, throughout the month of October.  In case you’re not familiar with escape rooms, you’re not really locked in a room, it’s just pretend. In order to find the hidden object or “unlock” the door you have to solve a lot of puzzles and look for hidden clues. This one is set up in our dining room. Here’s how it came about.

Imagine if it were ‘Escape From Jehovah’s’ Witness Island’ or any other religion

My son and I, both of us mixed race, did our first escape room this summer. It was called Escape From Voodoo Island and the idea, as explained in the introductory video before you enter the room, is that some evil Haitians have kidnapped an ambasaddor’s daughter and are holding her captive on “Skull Island” which is full of evil voodoo practitioners. Your job is to crack the codes in their hideout in order to rescue the daughter.  We had a blast doing it but on the way home I told my son the storyline kind of bothered me and that if I were Haitian I might have been especially troubled by it. First off, voodoo isn’t evil, it’s just a religion, and it’s only frightening to white people. Secondly, did you know the French colonized