Photo via Getty Images

Students at a high school in Aledo, Texas are being disciplined after the administration discovered they held a mock slave auction on Snapchat where they “traded” Black students.

Screenshots of the Snapchat group show that these unnamed students “bid” on students of color, ranging anywhere from $1 to $100.

Y’all need to address this! This is unacceptable and has been a part of @AledoISD’s culture for too long! pic.twitter.com/KoDzwPjlb8

— Reed Justice Initiative (@BringRodneyHome) April 13, 2021

One student in particular was priced at $1 because his hair was “bad”. The screenshot also shows that the group chat’s name changed regularly. The group’s name started as “Slave Trade” then changed to “N—-r Farm”, and finally to “N—– Auction”.

Upon learning of the mock slave auction, the Daniel Ninth Grade Campus’s principal wrote a note to parents explaining the situation. Principal Carolyn Ansley called the mock slave auction “an incident of cyberbullying and harassment” which “led to conversations about how inappropriate and hurtful language can have a profound and lasting impact” on people.

Many people felt that the school principal downplayed the gravity of the mock slave auction. Not once did she mention the word racism in the letter that she sent out to parents.

Not even remotely surprised.

By the kids racist idiocy OR by the school district's inaction.

— WylieDeeds (@DeedsWylie) April 14, 2021

“Calling it cyberbullying rather than calling it racism… that is the piece that really gets under my skin,” said Mark Grubbs, father to three former Aledo ISD students, to NBC DFW. But Grubbs, along with many other Aledo parents and community members, say that the incident didn’t surprise them.

In fact, Grubbs said he had to take his children out of the Aledo ISD school system because of how much racist harassment his children were facing. “A lot of racism,” he said of his son’s experience at the school. “My son being called out of his name and what not and it got to the point he didn’t mind fighting and that didn’t sit right with me and my wife. My son was never a fighter.”

After the backlash to the initial statement, Superintendent Susan Bohn finally released a statement condemning the racism and “hatred” of the mock slave auction.

Those kids were taught this by their parents….. Just like the last generation of european americans.. & the gen before that… And before that one.. Etc etc.

— Hohen Of-Sight (@HoHenOfSight) April 14, 2021

“There is no room for racism or hatred in the Aledo ISD, period,’ Bohn wrote. “Using inappropriate, offensive and racially charged language and conduct is completely unacceptable and is prohibited by district policy.”

The problem with “policies” like these is they fail to target the issue of racism at the root. Hate speech may be “prohibited”, but if a child is displaying racist behavior for whatever reason, the bigger problem is the way that they have been educated and indoctrinated. Slave auctions have no place in 2021.

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The GOP’S voter-suppression tactics in Georgia have been gripping the nation. But now, the media is also turning its attention to other voter-suppression tactics in the rest of the country. Now, Texas Republicans are taking the heat.

According to Common Cause Texas, Texas Republicans are planning on recruiting thousands of volunteers create an “election integrity brigade”. They want the “brigade” to go into Black and brown neighborhoods in Houston and “fight voter fraud”.

A Texas GOP presentation was leaked that outlined plans to send an “army” of poll-watchers to Black and brown precincts.

Today we’re releasing an alarming video of a GOP “Election Integrity Brigade" virtual launch where they detail plans to build an army of poll watchers who will have the “courage” to go into Black and Brown neighborhoods

More: https://t.co/7RTHz9Gjhq#txlege #HB6 #SB7 pic.twitter.com/KEbiRvbNH8

— Common Cause Texas (@CCauseTexas) April 8, 2021

“I’m trying to encourage and recruit, as a precinct chair, about 30 people in my precinct who will have the confidence and courage to come down in here…,” said an unnamed GOP official, pointing to majority non-white urban areas, “…in these areas where we really need poll-workers. Because this is where the problem is occuring.”

“So me finding poll-watchers out here, it helps, but it’s a pretty safe precinct”. He said this while pointing to majority-white Houston neighborhoods.

The myth of voter fraud is frequently used to target communities of color to delegitimize their vote and silence the voice of a rising electorate that simply wants to claim their rightful place in our democracy. It has to stop

— Common Cause Texas (@CCauseTexas) April 8, 2021

The video inspired outrage among people who saw these tactics as blatant attempts to suppress the voting rights of POC.

Step 1: gerrymander the minorities into as few districts as possible; Step 2: declare those districts don't count

— Cuddlebear (@rcooverbrooklyn) April 9, 2021

“The impetus for releasing [the video] right now is there are some bills in the legislature that seek to empower poll watchers in some really scary ways,” said executive director of Common Cause Texas, Anthony Gutierrez, to NBC News. “And also at the same time, take away the power of the presiding judge at the poll site from being able to remove a disruptive poll watcher.”

We know in the past Texas has purged Thousands of Latinos for being “possibly ineligible” only to completely wrong. This is a blatant tactic to remove democrats right to vote. END STATE SPONSORED VOTER SUPPRESSION! Where are all the corporations now? Why wait until it’s too late?

— Aaron T. Burgess (@aaronburgess713) April 9, 2021

“It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and Brown neighborhoods,” said Gutierrez to The Washington Post.

“This is a role that’s supposed to do nothing but stand at a poll site and observe,” he added. Why is he suggesting someone needs to be ‘courageous’?”

This “election integrity brigade” comes on the heels of a problematic election bill the Texas Senate just passed.

Texas suppression bills say a partisan poll "watcher may not be denied free movement," watchers are entitled to record voters, and it would be a misdemeanor for poll workers to interfere. It's pretty clear…people will have free reign to harass voters.

— Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) April 13, 2021

According to NBC News, the bill “bans overnight early voting and drive-thru early voting” and also “empowers partisan poll watchers.”

“It’s part of the intimidation, the confusion, the antics that (the Republican Party) has engaged in for so many generations that culminated in President Trump asking people to overturn the election,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo to CNN.

“What they’re doing is filing bills that are essentially a poll tax that weaponize the election system against our own voters,” she continued. “And what they’re proposing is absolutely tragic and reminiscent of the worst of what we’ve seen in Texas and across the South since Reconstruction.”

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