People suffer. They suffer physically, mentally, economically, spiritually. Some people blame their suffering on others and some think they just need to try harder to relieve their suffering. It doesn’t really matter because it does not make their lives any better because of the repetitive torment they kept receiving. In the novel, “The War Between the Classes”, Miklowitz has shown the readers an example of what it would feel for the fortunate students to be powerless and the less fortunate to become powerful. When Mr. Otero introduced the game to the students, it turned their lives upside down. While the less fortunate became lucky, the fortunate ones became unlucky. The color game was made to make everybody feel empathy to towards each other by reversing their social roles. The unlucky ones began to feel the suffering that other students felt through gender bias, reversed roles, and government treatment.
Gender bias is one of the aspects that the Color Game introduces. This topic made men feel what women have experienced everyday. During the game, Otero said that “No-Teks walk behind Teks and sit behind them in class”. This showed that men received as much respect as women did in reality which was to sit behind men because the dominant being gets the best spot in class. Not only that, but men are also forced to participate in a No-Tek beauty contest where they could “get those gorgeous bods out there for the judges to see”. During this event, the No-Teks understood what it was like to be a woman because they are being forced to do something against their will.
When certain students felt the need to pick on a weak person, they do so without even thinking about the victim’s feelings. In the game, they get a taste of their own medicine when they became individuals in the lowest class. The majority of the white people are placed in the Orange category. The Oranges are said to be “often out of work, on welfare, in trouble with the law, and no matter how hard they work, if indeed they can get jobs, they can barely make ends meet. It showed that the power that they once held is taken away from them in the game. When the whites got low class positions, the opposite happened with the other students. They were placed in the Blue category. The Blue category is said to be “the highest color. Their children attend private schools and go to the best colleges. Their parents travel without worrying about cost”. This means that they have been given the power that the whites have possessed, and that it is up to them as to how they will use it because they have the respect, rights, and royalty. Just because you play a huge role, that does not mean that you could utilize it to harm someone. In this case, the bullies got a taste of their own medicine after all those times they have been causing pain over others.
The students finally understood the misery and suffering of those that lived their lives because of the game. They could hardly endure what the higher-powered people throw at them. When Amy and Juan put the rebellious posters in campus, Mr. Otero announced that the “people responsible for putting up the signs on campus are the Oranges”. This meant that Oranges were always accused for every negative aspect that occurs by the G4s even though they weren’t the ones who committed the crime because that’s how they treat them. During the test, Amy said that it was “full of impossible multiple choice and true-false, and even essay, question, it was so hard and long I didn’t finish”. The story was trying to imply that the test was rigged and that it was meant to make it much more difficult for the Oranges, but easy for the blues. When the Oranges struggle to go through their lives opposite to their real ones, it made them realize the hardship and the tolerance that the less fortunate needs to have in order to be successful.
In order for students to understand each others feelings, the entitled students need to encounter the general aspects that the less fortunate students’ experiences on a daily basis. In the end, students finally realized the discrimination that the less fortunate have to put up with such as sex prejudices, reversed roles, and negative government evaluations. People always need to think before they act because then, they know what they are getting themselves into. In the novel, men mistreat women without thinking about it, but when they played a feminine role, they understood that women are not just entities that they can control. In the Color Game, people get to experience their opposite role in society. The entitled ones get to play a low class role in an imaginary society. It is fine because this is only temporary, but there are a lot of people that experience this everyday permanently.
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