In Chatam County, North Carolina, a parent recently came forward to describe how her son's Black friends were sold in a "mock slave auction" by other children at school. Yes, you read that right – in 2022, a school allowed children to re-enact the white supremacy of chattel slavery. How can a student possibly feel safe to learn and grow in an educational environment where students are enthusiastically subjecting their black classmates to mock slave auctions?
Sign now to demand the Department of Justice investigate this entire school district!
According to a parent of a child who reported the incident, one student was given the title of "slavemaster" because he "knew how to handle them," and children apparently sang the n-word during the horrific ordeal. Worse yet, this child was hesitant to even tell his family about the incident because events like this are apparently so commonplace at this school that he was unsure it even mattered. But Black lives do matter – and that includes protecting Black children from traumatizing racial violence in schools, too.
While these poor children are being forced to endure a fake recreation of one of the most violent acts in American history, Republicans across the country are creating a moral panic over critical race theory in schools, causing book bans and curriculum cuts. Clearly many students in the United States are in desperate need of an honest conversation about the actual history of white supremacy and slavery in this country.
The school board has voted to approve a new action plan pertaining to racial bullying, but this alone is not enough. If the student thought this event was so casual that he didn't even bring it up to his parents, there is obviously a deep-seated culture of anti-Black racism in this school and community. We must put pressure on the Department of Justice to investigate the entire school district, and figure out how things got this bad! Sign the petition now to tell the DOJ: we will not tolerate racism in our education system!