Ninth-grade students from a school in Aledo, a town west of Fort Worth, Texas, incurred a deplorable case of racism and harassment on the Internet: they created a group on the social network Snapchat that they called “The Slave Trade” and in the one they “sold” to their fellow African Americans.
In that Snapchat group, students used derogatory and racist language when referring to their African-American classmates and “auctioned” them, the newspaper reported. Fort Worth Star Telegram.
For example, according to the television station NBCDFW, participants in that Snapchat group assigned an African-American student a “price” of $ 100 and another of a dollar because they did not like his hair.
Also, according to The Washington PostIn that group, students used words like “farm” and “auction” to refer to the “sale” of their classmates, and that group on Snapchat also identified themselves with emojis of a black person, a gun and a black police officer White.
It was certainly a game, but one infamous, extremely rude and full of racism. And the mere fact that students participated in it reveals the persistence of prejudices and offensive attitudes that are unacceptable and antisocial.
“The incident has caused tremendous pain to the victims and their families and to other students of color and their families, and we are deeply saddened by it,” the Aledo School District said in a statement. After learning of the matter and conducting an investigation and communication with students and parents, the district added, “it was made clear that statements and conduct that attack students because of their race are not only prohibited but also have a profound impact on the victims.”
The students who participated in that group were disciplined, although no details were given of what measures were taken.
The television WFAA posted screenshots of that group on Snapchat that were provided to him, it is stated, by one of the students who were “sold.”
Mark Grubbs, father of three Aledo School District alumni, told NBCDFW that the incident “made him sick to his stomach” and wondered “who do they think? [los estudiantes implicados] What are they? What gives them the right to think that they can do that to someone ”. Grubbs reportedly removed his children from schools in that district when he learned of the incident.
Ella Bullock, the mother of a student from that district, told the station that she was not surprised that the incident occurred given “the community in which we live.” Grubbs criticized that, initially, in a message issued by the school authorities, the incident was described as cyberbullying. Calling it that “instead of calling it racism is what unnerves me,” Grubbs said.
There were even those who considered that it was not a game or a joke but a case of hate crime.
Therefore, it is stated that parents will seek in future meetings to push the school district to establish a plan to confront racism in their community. This is key because the academic, psychological, emotional training of adolescents is key in their future and in that of society.
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