“(One) student was the “Slavemaster” because he knew how to handle them,” students ‘sold’ Black classmates as slaves while in school, parent speaks out

Parents were in total disbelief and completely devastated about an incident that happened recently in a school when students held a ‘slavery auction’ where they were selling their Black classmates as slaves. The incident was brought to the light of the day when a mother of a Black student shared a post on social media informing other parents, the school district and the community.

According to A. Palmer, a mother of a Black student involved in the racial incident, the K-8 school where the incident took place is a multi-racial school where out of 227 students, 65% are white students, while 14% are Black students. Palmer wrote her first FB post about the incident last Friday, followed by another earlier this week to further update the community of what the school had done against those involved in the incident.

Palmer said her son was roped into a mock slave auction held by his classmates, in which Black children were “sold” by a “slavemaster.” As per Palmer’s claims on Facebook last Friday, several students were involved in the incident and her son Jeremiah, didn’t initially wanted to share this with his parents thinking that ‘this type of stuff seems to be the norm.’

In addition to her initial claims, Palmer added that she even obtained a video from the incident where students are heard harmonizing the N-word. Jeremiah told his mother that his friend “went for $350” and another student was the Slavemaster because he “knew how to handle them.”

“Thankfully Jeremiah is a strong unapologetically black young man and I’m so proud of how tactfully he has handled these repulsive situations. He is stronger than ever and we will continue to do our part to make sure every racist child and faculty member is reported for every blatant act and microagression he experiences!,” Palmer finished her FB post.

The incident took place at the J.S.W.S. in North Carolina and Palmer wrote another post Monday this week seeking responsibility from the school officials. According to that post, the students involved in the incident received 1 day suspension for the “slave auction.” As of Monday, no action was taken yet pertaining to the video.

The incident forced the school district to immediately react and they sent a letter to the parents informing them about the incident. “I want to be crystal clear: Racist, homophobic or otherwise hateful behavior or speech has no place in the CCSS,” Superintendent A. Jackson said. “We are better than this as a school system and a community.”

Since Palmer notified the school and the community about the incident, her son had been assaulted and continually harassed by the “slavemaster” who reportedly hit her son with a baseball 4 times upon his return to school. Palmer also said she was about to contact the local sheriff’s office to discuss legal options and filing lawsuit for the assault and continuous harassment.

“What needs to happen now is for the parents in this community, and all of our communities, when we see this news, we sit down and we have those hard conversations,” Gerald Givens, with Raleigh-Apex NAACP organization said, claiming that racial incident have been on the rise since students returned to in-person teaching.