(Washington Examiner) - Scrabble banned 236 words deemed to be racial and ethnic slurs from its official word list in the wake of increased racial sensitivity after George Floyd's death on May 25 in police custody.
The North American Scrabble Players Association received more than 1,000 responses in a survey put out that asked the Scrabble community what players think about removing the N-word and other slurs from the word list.
NASPA CEO John Chew said Wednesday that he received a variety of responses that allowed him to learn a lot about the kind of people involved in the game's community.
"We have a lot of racists, and we have a lot of bleeding-heart liberals," he said in a statement. "We have people of every color on every side of the debate."
Chew added that he loved that Scrabble attracted racists because it "says so much about the power" of the game and the community that they can put aside their beliefs when they play the game.
NASPA's word list is used in competitive tournaments, which is separate from the Merriam-Webster Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, according to NPR.
Hasbro, which owns the U.S. and Canadian trademark for Scrabble, has worked to eliminate offensive words from the dictionary with every new printing of it.
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