In a viral video, members of a California high school football team were shown auctioning off their Black teammates in a mock slave auction that on Friday, which put an end to the school's football season. The footage, which was shared on TikTok and later deleted, showed the athletes at River Valley High School wearing little more than underwear in front of a boisterous crowd of their peers pretending to bid for them. Yuba City Unified School District Superintendent Doreen Osumi described the video as "unacceptable" and "deeply offensive" in a statement CNN obtained.
She said the students involved in the video violated the student athlete code of conduct and have been prohibited from competing the rest of the season. “As a result, we do not have the necessary number of players to safely field the varsity team and must thus forfeit the remainder of the season,” Osumi said in the statement.
RELATED STORY: White teacher held mock slave auction in fifth-grade classroom, put imaginary chains on black kids
She said the district and school administrators are working to find ways to help their students learn from this situation. “Re-enacting a slave sale as a prank tells us that we have a great deal of work to do with our students so they can distinguish between intent and impact,” Osumi wrote. “They may have thought this skit was funny, but it is not; it is unacceptable and requires us to look honestly and deeply at issues of systemic racism.”
Warning: This video contains edited footage of the mock slave auction that may be triggering for viewers.
The California Interscholastic Federation, the governing board for high school sports in the state, said in a statement NBC-affiliated KCRA obtained that the federation "supports" administrators' decision "to promptly address the misconduct of their students."
"Discrimination in any form or any acts that are disrespectful or demeaning are unacceptable and are not consistent with the principles of the CIF," the federation wrote in the statement.
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Teacher and historian Kevin Levin tweeted: "This school district needs to look closely at how the history of slavery and white supremacy is or isn't taught at the k-12 level."
The larger problem, however, is not that one group of students participated in the disgusting behavior. It’s that we live in a society so ill-prepared to address (or in some cases even recognize the existence of) racism, that children and adults alike are repeating highly offensive behavior and thinking nothing of it until the consequences start rolling in. The football team at Amador High School, another school in northern California, forfeited its football season just days before the River Valley incident because of a “highly inappropriate group chat” dubbed "Kill The Blacks," according to The Sacramento Bee.
RELATED STORY: So far, no suspension for Texas teens who held a "Slave Auction" online
Bishop James Dixon, president of the Houston NAACP, told Fox 26 that children follow the models of others who make their racists thoughts and ideas public, “and it’s become popular.” He detailed allegations that fans spewed racial slurs at a high school volleyball game in Katy, Texas, and in another Texas incident, activists called for two high school baseball coaches to be fired after repeated and unaddressed allegations of racial taunting at Bellaire High School.
"Over and over again around our nation, we're seeing young people make these kinds of statements and go public with them," Dixon said. "It suggests to us that just like a forest, the way to kill a forest is to stop planting new trees. If we have a forest of racists, we've got to stop planting new racists in the soil, and unfortunately America seems not to be able to do that."
Meanwhile, we’ve shifted from a society that largely ignores culturally relevant texts and thorough analysis of Black history to one that actively campaigns against it in schools. The same day many news outlets were reporting on the latest mock slave auction in California, Fox News was actively campaigning against President Joe Biden's call to use $468 million for wraparound services for the community school program. The program’s use of culturally relevant approaches to education is what planted the Fox News target on its back, but community schools attempt to serve a wide range of student needs.
"When we invest in Full-Service Community Schools, we invest in the success of students, the well-being of families, and the strength of entire communities," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a news release about the funding. "These grants will help community schools provide quality wraparound services to students and their families, from access to health care and nutritional assistance, to tutoring and enrichment opportunities, to mental health supports and violence prevention programs. For low-income rural and urban communities hit hard by the pandemic, Full-Service Community Schools will help us meet the holistic needs of students, drive our recovery, and pave the way to a more equitable future."
Just think of what we could accomplish if Republicans actually supported a more equitable future.
RELATED STORY: 'If you would have met her you would have loved her': This is how BYU reacts to racial slurs at game
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