Redefining merit to handle "All snakes and no ladders"

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Picture of a white man and a black woman playing snakes and ladders with different boards. The black woman has many more snakes than the white man and less ladders. In one instance for the white man, there is a snake that ends on the bottom of a ladder to represent someone doing badly but still getting a promottion – this is called ‘failing up’ eg. Donald Trump. It also shows that the white man is just ahead of the black woman in his career, but who has done the best to get to that position based on the degree of difficult of their board?