[Drolefille]

I had never heard of 'planking' before today, but it is pretty obvious to me that lying down in dangerous places is a dangerous thing to do.

Obvious point aside, despite the name, and it's not clear from wiki which names are more common where for sure, yet it seems that 'planking' is popular in Australia and NZ, but the 'lying down game' is more common in England (and that name is so very British of them.) My guess is that despite the name being the same, there's not really any connection between the planking 'game' and the use of the term in regards to the slave trade. Particularly since Australia and NZ are unlikely to make the connection. Were the game more similar to the slave trade practice - such as squeezing large numbers of people onto the floor of a small room - I'd see a connection. Although I can see how people would draw the similarities, and might be concerned about the use of the practice, I don't see an actual link.

And @AOIIAngel - In my experience, England acknowledges its role in the slave trade,sometimes better than the US does, but they also abolished slavery in England in 1772, and banned the trade in 1807 throughout the Empire and abolished slavery in the empire in 1833. From 1808 on, they seized slave ships and freed slaves, signed anti-slave treaties with African rulers and overthrew those who would not abolish slavery. (Not that this was all awesomesauce, colonialism isn't all of a sudden amazing just because they abolish slavery or anything.) So there's a sense that Britain 'got it right' much faster than the Americans and didn't require a civil war to do it.

Or at least that's the impression I've gotten.