In an otherwise normal football season, two California high schools abruptly canceled the remainder of their games for the same reason. Players on both teams participated in troublesome acts of racism.
In October 2022, Amador High School in Sutter Creek ended its season after school officials learned that several players joined a Snapchat called “Kill the Blacks.”
In nearby Yuba City, members of the River Valley High School football team produced and filmed a modern day slave auction.
In the film, three teammates – all young Black men – were offered for sale.
“They needed another person to be in the video, and being the only Black person left in the locker room, they all turned to me,” one of the Black students said. “I made it clear I didn’t want to do it and tried to leave, but wasn’t able to.”
Clad in their underwear and with their eyes downcast, the three were paraded through the locker room and put on an auction block. At least one of the Black teens had a belt representing a noose looped around his neck.
Their white and Latinx teammates feverishly bid on them. Even through the lens of the video camera, the “mock” enslavers’ excitement and frenzy were palpable.
Many are upset with the Black youth for participating in their own degradation. I understand that. But as I outline in my recent book, “Bodies Out of Place: Theorizing Anti-blackness in U.S. Society, I also understand that "public degradation ceremonies are meant to debase and dissuade Blacks from walking in their full humanity, as full citizens.”
Less than 2% percent of the students at River Valley High – 31 out of the total 1,801 – identify as Black.
These numbers render Black students both extremely visible and invisible at the same time.
In my view, the slave auction operated as a perverse public performance used not only to reinforce the Black students’ inferior status in their own minds, but also to signal the same to those watching.
The hidden curriculum refers not only to unwritten rules, but also “unspoken expectations” that serve as “unofficial norms, behaviors and values.” These norms become institutionalized. As sociologists Glenn Bracey II and Wendy Leo Moore write, “Although the norms are white, they are rarely marked as such.”
Mock slave auctions are not rare occurrences.
In May 2022, white middle school students at Chatham School District in North Carolina held one by staging the sale of their Black classmates.
One of the parents, Ashley Palmer, posted on Facebook that her son had been “sold” by his classmates.
“His friend ‘went for 0’ and another student was the Slavemaster because he ‘knew how to handle them,’” Palmer wrote. “We even have a video of students harmonizing the N word. Since when were children so blatantly racist?”
A flyer detailing an auction of enslaved people in 1859. Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In another incident, students at Newberg High School in Oregon participated in a yearlong virtual slave auction called “Slave Trade” that was uncovered by their parents in 2021. On the chat, they targeted Black students and used homophobic and racist slurs while joking about how much they would pay for their Black classmates.
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In October 2022, Amador High School in Sutter Creek ended its season after school officials learned that several players joined a Snapchat called “Kill the Blacks.”
In nearby Yuba City, members of the River Valley High School football team produced and filmed a modern day slave auction.
In the film, three teammates – all young Black men – were offered for sale.
“They needed another person to be in the video, and being the only Black person left in the locker room, they all turned to me,” one of the Black students said. “I made it clear I didn’t want to do it and tried to leave, but wasn’t able to.”
Clad in their underwear and with their eyes downcast, the three were paraded through the locker room and put on an auction block. At least one of the Black teens had a belt representing a noose looped around his neck.
Their white and Latinx teammates feverishly bid on them. Even through the lens of the video camera, the “mock” enslavers’ excitement and frenzy were palpable.
Many are upset with the Black youth for participating in their own degradation. I understand that. But as I outline in my recent book, “Bodies Out of Place: Theorizing Anti-blackness in U.S. Society, I also understand that "public degradation ceremonies are meant to debase and dissuade Blacks from walking in their full humanity, as full citizens.”
Less than 2% percent of the students at River Valley High – 31 out of the total 1,801 – identify as Black.
These numbers render Black students both extremely visible and invisible at the same time.
In my view, the slave auction operated as a perverse public performance used not only to reinforce the Black students’ inferior status in their own minds, but also to signal the same to those watching.
What lies underneath the mockery
A Boston University teaching guide defines the “hidden curriculum” as an amorphous collection of implicit cultural messages of the dominant culture. These unwritten rules reinforce an often unspoken social order in which people of color are subordinate.The hidden curriculum refers not only to unwritten rules, but also “unspoken expectations” that serve as “unofficial norms, behaviors and values.” These norms become institutionalized. As sociologists Glenn Bracey II and Wendy Leo Moore write, “Although the norms are white, they are rarely marked as such.”
Mock slave auctions are not rare occurrences.
In May 2022, white middle school students at Chatham School District in North Carolina held one by staging the sale of their Black classmates.
One of the parents, Ashley Palmer, posted on Facebook that her son had been “sold” by his classmates.
“His friend ‘went for 0’ and another student was the Slavemaster because he ‘knew how to handle them,’” Palmer wrote. “We even have a video of students harmonizing the N word. Since when were children so blatantly racist?”
A flyer detailing an auction of enslaved people in 1859. Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In another incident, students at Newberg High School in Oregon participated in a yearlong virtual slave auction called “Slave Trade” that was uncovered by their parents in 2021. On the chat, they targeted Black students and used homophobic and racist slurs while joking about how much they would pay for their Black classmates.
The rest at:
Student 'slave auctions' illustrate the existence of a hidden culture of domination and subjugation in US schools
At a time when politicians across the country are debating how slavery in the US is taught, high school students are participating in mock slave auctions that are having severe consequences