An Oregon school district found out that some students were participating in the virtual “slave trade” on Friday according to KGW 8. A letter was sent to parents on Sept. 14 the district said, “We are deeply dismayed that this behavior and activity was exhibited by someone from our community. We condemn actions such as these which represent the antithesis of what we believe and where we stand as a Newberg Nation family.”
In a Snapchat group chat, students used pictures of students and racist slurs while joking about how much they think their Black classmates are worth. The chat first popped up in Michigan late last year and surfaced in Texas.
“Newberg High School became aware of a very serious and inappropriate incident on social media in which one of our students took part in a snapchat group termed “slave trade” and used photos of other Newberg High School students in the group,” the district’s statement said. Heidi Pender, the mother of a Black student at the school told KGW news, “My heart is so broken for these kids who have gotten the message that they are not even seen as human by some of their fellow students. To imagine your own child being talked about as if they were subhuman slaves to be sold by other students, it made me feel like I was going to throw up.”
Screenshots posted on Instagram by @royceduey show a discussion of students’ private lives and the prices other students would pay for them.
One of the student comments such as “All Blacks should die” and “Let’s have another Holocaust.”
At a district meeting officials thanked those who reported the chat and says an investigation remains ongoing. The school district had previously banned, including Black Lives Matter and Pride flags in August.
“As a school board, it’s our job to make decisions that are going to be there for every single kid at Newberg High School, not just the kids that are represented in just one group — it has to be all kids,” Board chair Dave Brown said at the time. However, students, parents, officials and the ACLU have criticized the controversial ban and promised to take the district to court. The district revisted the ban and took public comments at a meeting on Tuesday evening. “One father said about the Black Lives Matter flag during the meeting, “It’s certainly not a symbol of love, to those of us that have members of our family in law enforcement,” KXL reported.
