Okay so I went to play Land Rush as usual in Trail of the Twister, and I love it every time, clicking on those coloured squares gives me joy, but this time I've really taken in everything that's written in that room; Homesteaders, Dust Bowl, Trail of Tears, and I'm a bit.. horrified at the implication.
Because the theme of the musem is very clearly colonialism, and the consequences of it; it tells us of the cruelty and force used to relocate (genocide) the native Cherokees, and afterwards, the land was treated as free for all - or more specifically, whoever gets there first wins it. And the Land Rush is basically that game that colonialists played to divide the land amongst themselves, after they took it by force from people whose home that was. And when you play it, Nancy even does little comments like 'And that's how the West was won!' That feels wrong.
I wonder if I'm only noticing now how tone deaf and non-sensitive that game is to human suffering? It revolves around taking land from 'Sooners' who was, cheating and taking land from the other settlers, because apparently that was the biggest issue to the people. I wish we got something less.. rooted in colonialism.