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Black Students Told to Act Like Slaves During Field Trip
November 9th, 2009
Parents and school officials from Rea View Elementary in suburban Charlotte, NC are outraged as black students were forced to act like slaves during a field trip to a plantation.
From UPI.com
Teachers at Rea View Elementary in Waxhaw said they are planning to write leaders at the Latta Plantation about a lesson during a Wednesday field trip that involved an African-American tour guide instructing black students to pretend to be slaves while their white classmates looked on, WSOC-TV, Charlotte, reported Friday.
Parents said the three students chosen by tour guide Ian Campbell wore bags used to gather cotton while mimicking cotton picking.
“I am very enthusiastic about getting kids to think about how people did things in 1860, 1861 — even before that period,” said Campbell, who added he has been a historian for 15 years.
“I was trying to be historically correct not politically correct,” he said.
Kojo Nantambu, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg National Asssociation for the Advancement of Colored People, criticized the lesson.
“There is a lingering pain, a lingering bitterness, a lingering insecurity and a lingering sense of inhumanity since slavery. Because that’s still there, you want to be more sensitive than politically correct or historically correct,” he said.
Did the plantation go too far in their educational efforts? What do you think?
why didn’t he choose the white kids to demonstrat ohhhhhhh!!!! just one of the good old boys wanting to bring slavery back and using a field trip as an escape goat
his kind shouldn,t be in the school system,let along a field trip.
WAS THE TEACHER FIRED?
EVERN! JOE! BRENDA! Please read people! This is how things get way out of hand and go overboard! This person was neither a teacher or an employee of the school system! He was a Black tour guide!!!!! If you read, you will also notice that the SURBURBAN SCHOOL OFFICIALS WERE OUTRAGED!!!!!!! This goes back to my first post that we definitely need to take control of our OWN communities!
Ok I understand them getting a feel for slavery but dang why only the african american students. There should have been four two white and two black.
During the time when slavery was legal black people owned White people as indentured servant in the east coast of America. Black slaveowners of white people there is information about this but it’s not politically correct because you people don’t want to hear about that . You people just want to focus on your selfs as if nothing happened to other people.
David! What in the hell are you trying to say?
Distorted psychobabble man . . .
Reg Robpsyobabble http://www.americancivilwar.com/auther/black_slaveowner.htm . You can order books and etc. So get your toffee-nosed out of the air!
It could have been handled better, as most people are saying, why not use caucasian kids, if you wanted students to know how it felt. Also David, what???? website states there were black slaveowners of other blacks not whites. I went to several other sites. The one mention above was “lost”. So i check american civil war + black slaveowners. No where did it say they owned white people.
I am tired of caucasoids teaching these lies about Black Africans being slaves. First, we were enslaved, not born into slavery! Second, Africans ruled Europe (Blackamoors) for 1400 years! How come these FACTS are not put into history books? Third, Blacks are mentally enslaved today because of a lack of knowledge of self. We believe these lying history books and this is why some Blacks are still enslaved mentally. If they only knew their TRUE history of being gods and goddesses, kings and queens, contributors and inventors, princes and princesses OF THE WORLD, we would not be in this dumbing down of our history, not white lies! Also, whites were the first slaves, enslaved by their own people!!!
Common sense would should tell an adult that you do not use students for this type of activity. Kids are tensed the most in school so why add to the fire when they get back from the school trip. The plantation went way too far and it’ not fair for any of those children. Couldn’t you have shown a film or something? Parents should be outraged and if my child was apart of this I would go slap off! You could have read them a story about slavery but not to act like slaves!
You people did own Irish people look for it, and you will find the information.
I don’t think anyone should get a feel for what slavery is or was like. No man, woman or lower being should be enslaved by anyone. Somethings don’t have to be experienced to know what it is like, (such as slavery or being tortured). My concern is what this experience could do to a child. Also, we are trying to get away from that ugly part of history and it should not be re-lived for any reason.
I don’t agree that either black nor white kids should have participated. Some things should just not be mocked. Slavery being a big no no. But if it must done…… The tour guide should hire some black actors willing to mimic the past. Don’t do that to our children, Kids are being taught enough hatred at home. There’s no need to add fuel to the fire. Glad my kids weren’t there.
K’huti and NUbya and others with similar views… I hear you, but there still isn’t enough detail to condemn or uplift this guy. So I’ll give you all something to react to with a bit more detail just to see how everyone feels about it.
I’ll tell you my age and the age of my mother for some perspective. I’m 35. My mother is 58.
My great-grandmother and some of her siblings remained in SC while others of her siblings moved up north to NJ and PA where although there is racism it isn’t the same. When my mother, aunts, uncles, and second cousins would visit SC as kids they would sometimes be taken to go and pick cotton so they could better understand how it felt to be a slave or a sharecropper. They actually got paid for whatever they brought back. Some measly some. I’ll have to ask my mother again for the cents per pound.
Some of them got the point and some didn’t. Why didn’t they all get it? With or without the re-enactment? Because they were kids. Kids who couldn’t really imagine a world as different as the one lived in by Harriet and our other ancestors. For some, working for 15 to 30 to 90 mins in the blazing HOT sun helped them understand just a little better the plight of their ancestors. For others it was just a stupid field trip.
Was it wrong of my great grand’s to do this?
Would it have been wrong (or more wrong) if it was done to them in front of their White peers?
Would it have been wrong (or more wrong) if it had gotten publicity?
I am tired of this slavery garbage. Blacks were god-like people since we were created by the Black Creator. If we are going to teach our children the truth about being enslaved, tell them how the slave maker treated our people. They hung us, burned us, raped us, and beat us until we died. Do history books teach this truth? Of course not…because they only tell how my people were slaves; not how they were treated. The (enslavers) did so much brutality and savagery to our people that they leave this truth out of THEIR books. Let’s deal with truth!
David: What do you mean when you say ‘you people.’ Are you referring to YOU people (your own people) who enslaved not only Irish people, but white people too? White people (you people) enslaved your own during the early 1700’s. Whites were also sold on slave blocks and children were put into factories to work for slave labor! Therefore, when you say ‘you people,’ make sure you say ‘white people’ because white people enslaved white people too! And whites also hung Blacks, killed Blacks, burned Blacks, and raped Blacks for 500 years! Put this TRUE history in YOUR his/story books!
THIS IS TOO MUCH!!!!!!!! WHOEVER SAID THAT THE PAIN,BITTERNESS,AND INSECURITIES ARE STILL LINGERING WAS RIGHT. THIS WAS TOTALLY NOT CAUSED FOR. THIS REALLY UPSET ME TO HEAR THIS. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE TOUR GUIDE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. I’M HAPPY THAT IT WASN’T MY CHILD THAT WAS EXPOSED TO THIS TYPE OF THING, BECAUSE THIS WOULD DEFINITELY BE HIS LAST TOUR OF ANYKIND!!!!!!!!!
Everything in existence is reasonable;
learn form yesterday and predict tomorrow.
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