California School Cancels Football Season After Video Surfaces Of Football Team Acting Out A Slave Auction
A California high school has cancelled the remainder of its football season after a video surfaced with members of its football team performing a slave auction prank.
The video shows members of the River Valley High School’s football team doing some sort of slave auction reenactment involving their black teammates.
Yuba City Unified School District officials received the video Thursday and have since kicked the members involved off the football team.
The video allegedly shows black students in the locker room standing in their underwear as other students yell out dollar amounts and point at them.
Yuba City Unified School District‘s Superintendent Doreen Osumi called the incident “unacceptable” and “deeply offensive”.
Osumi said in a statement that, “Re-enacting a slave sale as a prank tells us that we have a great deal of work to do with our students so they can distinguish between intent and impact. They may have thought this skit was funny but it is not; it is unacceptable and requires us to look honestly and deeply at issues of systemic racism.”
As a result to this video those involved were barred from competing in the remainder of the football season for violating the student-athlete code of conduct.
Osumi also stated that some of the students involved will be facing disciplinary actions.
The school district is looking into the matter and says they will start implementing education, honest, open discussions and instruction” around racism.
