re: NY Teacher Fired After Having White Students Sell Black Students In Slave Auction

I don’t understand how this is racist.

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Well this seemed like a rational idea

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There is nothing inherently wrong with the roleplaying exercise.

I get that someone would have gotten their panties in a wad, regardless of the roles, but I could structure it as a role reversal type exercise and had the black students as slaveowners and the white students as slaves for the auction portion.

But - it is all in context. The black slaveowners are briefed appropriately, about the dynamic of the particular auction, their family's financial stake, the history of that character and slavery. If born into slaveholding and selling slaves of the same approximate age, might have known them their entire lives. Otherwise, what concerns might they have in purchasing slaves who apparently required much whipping or might have been abused or are being sold because they are unproductive, uncontrollable, defective or of low value - let them know the high stakes and costs of the institution from the owner side.

Likewise, giving the white students briefings whether they're being separated from family, whether or not they were born in the U.S. or imported, their feelings about the current master, trepidation about who might purchase them and the conditions they might face. Let them embrace and face the consequences of being a chattel slave in the Antebellum South.


This way, it can open up the lines of communication, embrace history in order to actually understand it better. Rather than make it some #Woke political statement as appears might be the case here.

(And Fifth grade is way too young - I would say 8th grade or perhaps even HS would be a better place for something as nuanced as I'm proposing here - this looks like pure propaganda/student abuse here.)

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I'm pretty sure you could explain how slavery worked without a visual demonstration

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Texts books have pictures. They could have watched a documenary. But nooooo. Let’s just go full fricking retard.