A Massachusetts school is in the hot seat after a group of students were accused of racially bullying a Black girl by putting her picture in a mock slave auction on social media.
Allyson Lopez tells Western Mass News that her 13-year-old daughter, a student at Southwick Regional School in Southwick, Mass., has been experiencing racist bullying for months — including but not exclusive to being called the N-word. On Feb 9., she says her daughter’s picture was taken and put in a mock slave auction on Snapchat, with a $2 and $4 bid under the category “black lives ral” with the “l” standing for “low class.” Lopez told the outlet the first person to learn of the incident was an assistant principal her daughter spoke to.
However, seemingly out of the blue, the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District released a statement Feb. 16 saying they investigated the incident and concluded their findings. The district said they decided on disciplinary measures for the students involved but could not disclose them for privacy concerns.
“I want to express that we firmly believe that racism and discrimination have no place in our school community,” said School Committee Chair Robert Stevenson in a statement.
However, Lopez said there was something fishy about the school probe. She told reporters her daughter was never interviewed during the investigation, though her experience seemed to be the center of this whole fiasco. Not to mention her daughter isn’t the only Southwick student who made complaints about racist bullying: According to CBS News, students throughout grades 7 and 12 made the district aware of the behavior earlier this month.
It seems this Snapchat slave auction was the straw that broke the camel’s back. On Tuesday, the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office announced plans to investigate the incident and possibly hand out hate crime charges.