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A video of a few grade eight students from Pinelands High School allegedly locking up fellow black pupils in a cage and pretending to auction them to the highest bidder has caused major disapproval among South Africans.

The video of the “slave auction” has been shared widely online – although it contains images of minors so should not really be shared. It apparently shows the black kids being priced from R100,000 and sold off to become the “property” of other learners who had “bought” them.

The Western Cape Education Department said it was disturbed by the incident and had conducted interviews with the students involved, per The Citizen, with the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) adding their voice to calls for the students accused of racism to be suspended.

 

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While counselling was being offered to learners at the school, per spokesperson Bronagh Hammond, Sadtu secretary-general Mugwena Maluleke reckons more needs to be done.

“It is something that needs to be condemned. As a community, we need to stand together and build a united nation so we can prosper.

“I fully agree with parents in the community that the students be suspended. This is necessary to allow investigations to proceed,” he told broadcaster eNCA.

Maluleke said the suspension is necessary to send a “strong message to parents and the students themselves that racism cannot be tolerated or accepted in our society”.

One parent told News24 her son fought back when other students allegedly tried to “auction” him off.

“They were picking up black boys and putting them in the cage. It’s not like they went willingly,” she said.

Unfortunately, this has added to the alarming swell of racist vitriol occurring at South African schools, with this incident following on from that situation with a group of Pretoria High School for Girls students who were suspended over alleged racist text messages.

Some of the white pupils allegedly created an ethnically exclusive WhatsApp group where they allegedly shared “racial micro-aggressions” about other pupils.

“The conversations allegedly included racial commentary about the ongoing dissatisfaction among black learners regarding issues they faced at the school, alluding to these issues being insignificant,” Gauteng Department of Education spokesperson Steve Mabona said.

It is terrible to think that the Apartheid legacy has settled so stubbornly in the hearts of our children.

[source:citizen]