“…Lawton says his students are attracted to Magic for different reasons, but it’s the art that keeps them coming back. “On the cover of all the welcome decks was all white people,” Lawton said. “And then a few years later, they updated it with much more diversity. Even something like that, students were much more intrigued, you know, [they] found it much more compelling.”
I know the feeling. Kaya, Orzhov Usurper is a Magic: The Gathering card I have never owned yet it is one of my favorite cards. Not because of what the card can do—I prefer big-ass creatures more common in green mana decks—but because of who is on the card.
Introduced in 2016, Kaya is Magic’s first Black female Planeswalker. And though she is by no means Magic’s first Black female character, she is definitely the first one I had ever seen in my years of on again, off again playing, and as such she became special to me. I coveted her cards (though I have still never had the luck of opening one) and I gorged myself on her stories.
Stories, as much as art, are important to Lawton’s students. In addition to Magic and board games, Lawton keeps a few books of Dungeons and Dragons around for students to peruse.
“I’ll never forget this Black girl that came in, a freshman, and she walked in and just kinda sized up all the games and asked, ‘Y’all play D&D here?’”
Lawton, excited by the prospect of initiating a new student to the D&D mysteries, gave her the books and let her go off and do her own thing.
“She brought in her friends and they all started making characters. They made characters for months….”
https://kotaku.com/black-is-magic-how-magic-the-gathering-is-transformin-1846669868
iLLUMiNA MAGAZiNE 