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    TrumpsTinyHandsBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 4:59pm

    What really would actually have been educational: pick a white student out of the classroom, have a black student act as auctioneer, examine the white students teeth and muscles, poke him a couple times, then let the black students in the class bid on him. Don’t tell the white student what happens after the auction is over. Let him sweat a little.

    THAT would have provided new perspective to the white students and the black students both.

    But, you go ahead with your grade-school-play reenactment of a slave auction. That’ll be real edgy. What do I know, anyway?

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      sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameTrumpsTinyHands
      3/17/17 5:29pm

      I just don’t buy the argument that taking part in mock slave auction is educational for anyone no matter how you set it up. I mean do you start drivers ed by taking a car out and mowing down some pedestrians?

      Why are wypipo so obsessed with reinacting terrible shit?

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      TrumpsTinyHandssTalkinggoat, first and last of his name
      3/17/17 5:36pm

      Because, there is something visceral about being in a situation where you are powerless and you might get seriously fucked up by the majority and/or authority. Where you are completely objectified and viewed as other-than-human. Not a lot of white men get a taste of that.

      That might be a good lesson. Maybe.

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    Thotline Bling: black girl supremacyBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 4:18pm

    Oh, for Pete’s sake! Really? How did this person get hired at “the Mecca”?

    “It’s O.K., I’m uncomfortable too; I’m white,” the professor reportedly told the class.

    Why does he sound like a child molester grooming his prey? Why are these white “educators” so ready to risk it all for lessons that aren’t poignant or impactful or necessary or anything besides controversial for controversy’s sake?

    What grand, overarching point was this guy trying to make? What were students supposed to walk away from this exercise with? Just dumb.

    Is the pool of academics really this damned shallow?

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      BrwnskngurlThotline Bling: black girl supremacy
      3/17/17 4:58pm

      Not to make us all throw up even more, but your comment made me think about the slave owner rape that must have been inflicted on young black male slaves, as well. Those white slave owners were some in-bred, horny, crazy as muthafuckas....I can only imagine how sickening this reality was for young black boys already living in a sick reality... Damn....I need vodka.

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      boomchampion, uppity negressBrwnskngurl
      3/17/17 10:40pm

      This is how they broke the bucks; by raping the biggest and best- and the rape was done in view of the other slaves. This dehumanised the mightiest/best males in front of his community and in front of black women. This discouraged them from attempting escape, discouraged the idealizing of mighty men as protectors, as men capable of headship.

      They don’t teach this in school.

      There is an unbroken line from the dehumanisation seen in slavery through to today, though methods have evolved.

      By way of artifice, law, and social practice white supremacy normalizes and facilitates the destruction of (black) community and the dehumanisation of black people.

      Ways this point can be easily understood: The generational wealth of whites won by way of participation in the slave trade, greatly contributes to the economic disparity between whites and American blacks of today. Also, police shootings with impunity are state sanctioned lynchings.

      Less understood as a method of devaluing familial structure and male headship are welfare laws which deny funds to households with adult males. Over time, the latter contributed to the dissolution of nuclear family in the communities that most needed this kind of state aid.

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    Charl-EBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 4:23pm

    Who on earth keeps telling people this is a good idea?

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      FreeRonCharl-E
      3/17/17 11:29pm

      (Grabs megaphone)

      WYPIPO.. they tell themselves. I don’t think a white person has ever had a bad idea.

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    MalcireBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 6:34pm

    So $400 at what time? Today? During legalized slavery?

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      crouching tigerMalcire
      3/17/17 7:49pm

      I know it’s an insignificant part of the story, but is that 2017 dollars? Because reporting in any other denomination is just confusing.

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      threskosMalcire
      3/17/17 8:47pm

      What cost $400 in 1850 would cost $11710.05 in 2016.

      Inflation Calculator

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    picassoBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 4:48pm

    Whaaaaaaat? How is that education?

    Warning to Jewish students: Ditch classes when times come to study WWII and concentration camps...

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      Cardi B's Other Shoepicasso
      3/17/17 11:45pm

      They would NEVER try it with them.

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      FaustianSlipCardi B's Other Shoe
      3/18/17 1:31am

      They have already. There have been multiple stories of teachers having their predominantly non-Jewish classes make Nazi propaganda posters and shit. Happens with surprising regularity.

      - In which a teacher in Albany has students write a persuasive essay to convince him that Jews are the source of all problems. He advises his students to cite “any personal experiences” they may have to bolster their position.

      - In which a school hosts Holocaust Day, forcing certain students to wear yellow stars and telling them they couldn’t drink from certain water fountains.

      - In which a teacher in California asks eighth graders to write a paper on whether or not the Holocaust happened. Because obviously, that’s an issue that’s up for debate.

      Those are just a few incidents I remember off the top of my head. But I usually run into a story about some idiot trying to “teach” about the Holocaust or the oppression of Jews generally once every few months or so. It’s pretty common.

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    CascadiBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 4:38pm

    It’s not like Douglass was a shit writer or something. Why not just give the students the text and some visualization exercises followed by a quiz instead of making a role-playing game of it? I get the idea of internalizing the perspective of an enslaved ancestor, but surely there’s less transgressive methods to subject the students to.

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    inhood212Breanna Edwards
    3/18/17 12:45pm

    This is perhaps the 5th time I have heard of a teacher doing something like this is class (from elementary - Yes ELEMENTARY! - to college) in recent months. How can we get a memo to these “teachers” that this sort of shit is woefully insensitive and NOT what we are sending our children to school to deal with???? Why/how is this becoming a thing?

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    GirlwithNoName64Breanna Edwards
    3/17/17 8:04pm

    Agree with all of the comments on why this is insane, but want to add one more. This is a college. A college also populated primarily by Black students. What basic ass lesson was this professor trying to teach through this “reenactment”? These students can read, and presumably have the capacity to empathize with the people subjected to this inhumane process. What additional value was he attempting to add? This fool was probably living out some sick fantasy in his fevered brain.

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    SaidTheTickTockManBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 5:41pm

    I saw this story and just sort of stared for a second, trying to think if there was a different Howard University that wasn’t an HBCU. I even googled it to be sure.

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      ns930SaidTheTickTockMan
      3/17/17 6:08pm

      I thought this too. Like, this would have been terrible anywhere, but... Howard University? Really??

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    tomBreanna Edwards
    3/17/17 4:41pm

    On the other side of the coin, this professor has now exposed a new generation of black students to the dehumanization of the black body during the slave trade. The student stated she felt violated in a racial and sexual manner, that’s how hundreds of thousands of slaves felt on the auctioning block. Isn’t there some merit in exposing black students to that experience?

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      Mental Icebergtom
      3/17/17 4:47pm

      What? You think that was necessary for black students to experience that in order to understand the dehumanization of slavery?

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      tomMental Iceberg
      3/17/17 5:22pm

      I did not say that it was necessary, but I do think that it was sufficient. I’m not one to get into matters of pedagogy, but I do think that the more personal an experience becomes, the more one takes away from it. You could read Fredrick Douglass’ Narrative, but still come away with nothing more than “Hey, that sounds pretty bad, slavery seems pretty bad.” But when you experience something first hand, you’re going to get pissed off and feel the dehumanization that occurs.

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