With their striking African-American images, these cards definitely don’t get lost in the shuffle. Foster and H. Russell Smith, both Detroit attorneys, came up with the idea after one of their weekly card games, when Foster said, “I’m tired of playing with jacks, queens and kings that don’t look like us.” They formed the company Blacks Factor and two years ago began manufacturing decks whose face cards reflect the various features, hairstyles and fashions of African Americans. (The jokers are masks.) Smith regrets that the cards have only one skin hue: “I would like to have displayed the vast variety,” he says, but the cost was prohibitive.
Currently, the cards are available by mail order or at shops in a handful of cities, but Smith and Foster hope to expand the market, particularly ‘in areas with sizable black populations. Annual sales are 5,000 and growing. “It’s another way of reflecting our own culture,” says Clara Villarosa, who orders 100 decks at a time for Denver’s Hue-Man Experience Bookstore. Not surprisingly, the cards are a hit; at $4.50 to $6 a pack, they’re a great, well, deal.
