Brooklyn Midwife Accused of ‘Colonial Violence’ Over Women’s Bunco Club

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A Brooklyn midwife looking to make new friends has been branded a “colonizer” for attempting to organize a dice game night in her neighborhood.

Online trolls have accused Ellen Christy, 30, of gentrification and appropriating black culture after the Jamaica Hospital worker posted online about her monthly “Bunco Club” dice game in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Community Facebook group.

“Hi all – seeking women living in Bedford-Stuyvesant to join a Bunco Club!” Christy, who is white, wrote in the post. “Bunco is a game of rolling dice (think Yahtzee!), no skills required.”

She included with the post a selfie with a group of other women sitting on the floor, most of whom appeared to be white.

But rather than being met with enthusiastic neighbors, Christy faced frothing wrath with a pile-on of angry responders who immediately accused her of running a “Colonizer Cee-Lo Club,” referring to a dice game associated with historically black neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy.

“Yall playing gentrified cee lo?!” one poster wrote. Another wrote, “colonizers be colonizing.”

However, Bunco draws its origins from working-class England in the 18th century, while Cee-Lo itself is even believed to have been brought to the Americas by Chinese laborers before gaining popularity and associations with inner-city black neighborhoods.

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“The dice game is literally genocide,” someone commented.

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“Posting that in this group was already an act of violence. I would have not a trace of reason to believe that a whites-only club in Bed-Stuy would be a safe and welcoming space to anyone not white,” one poster wrote.

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