New Game: 'Life As A Black Man'

April 17 -- The multi-colored board game comes neatly shrink-wrapped in a black cardboard box. Inside are hundreds of cards that must be sorted, two pairs of dice, and colored chess-like pieces.

But this is no "Monopoly."

The game is called "Life as a Black Man," and its title alone has raised a considerable number of eyebrows from coast to coast.

Each player is an 18-year-old black male, struggling to make it. The goal is to make it from any one of four starting points: the ghetto, the military, the entertainment industry or the halls of a black university, to end the of the game board, to a place called "freedom."

Along the way, however, are what the game's creator says are typical pitfalls for young black men — trouble with the law and money issues. Land on a racism space, and you're forced to pull a card that reads: "You're pulled over by police for driving a new car, back two spaces."

Game creator Chuck Sawyer, 33, says he's 'just being real,' using his own experience growing up in California, to educate the masses.

"It's about educating and heightening awareness," he says. "I want everyone to be aware about life as a minority."

One of the cards, he says, drives his point home. Any player who draws it, dies.

"When you pull that ghetto card and it says you get shot and killed in a drive-by shooting, I'm truly demonstrating to you that your life is over and your game is over."

Game Unpopular With Some

In only a few months, and with limited distribution, Sawyer has sold 10,000 games. But not every black family is running to the toy store to get one. Many just don't buy the humor.

Outside a store selling the game in suburban Los Angeles, one African-American man said his "life is far too serious to … roll the dice and get pushed back two spaces."

Another black woman said she couldn't understand why anyone would buy such a thing.

"I have two very good sons," she said. "I need something that's going to teach them how to be strong black males."