A B.C. school district has apologized after an annual “slave day” fundraiser that was held at a Chilliwack middle school was brought to light this week.
Former Rosedale Middle School student Layla Mohammed first shared her recollections of the “slave day” fundraiser in a series of Instagram posts on Tuesday.
In one post, she describes an event where students were auctioned off that took place while she attended the school from 2007 to 2009. Mohammed also claims to have witnessed a teacher “put a collar and leash on some students and made them crawl around like an animal” during the event.
According to a yearbook page titled “Student Auction” that surfaced following Mohommed’s initial posts, “slave day” entailed a mock auction of Grade 8 and 9 Leadership students, during which “Rosedale students could buy slaves at the auction and use them the following school day.” The page notes that “slave day” raised $450.
It continued, “Obedient slaves carried books, wrestled, dressed in crazy costumes and committed outrageous stunts to please their masters and the crowd.”
Sarah Mckenzie, who attended the middle school at the time, said she was one of the students auctioned off during the fundraiser. “I definitely was ignorant at the time to the connotation of an event called Slave Day where we were auctioned off and I’m deeply ashamed,” she wrote in an Instagram message to V.I.A.
“I was 14 at the time and should have known better. I think it’s super inappropriate and racist, I think it’s disturbing that not one adult questioned holding an event like this.”
While Mckenzie said she “can’t attest” to the collar-and-leash incident Mohammed references, citing a foggy memory due to the fact that the event took place well over a decade ago, she maintains it’s “deeply wrong that this ever happened.”
In addition to an apology, Mckenzie said she would like to see the school follow it up with “more education on white supremacy and how we (white people) erased other peoples’ history and culture with genocide.
“We as students back then wouldn’t have been so ignorant if we were properly educated on white supremacy.”
The post was shared by Black Vancouver’s Instagram account, sparking outrage and prompting numerous comments from Instagram users who recalled similar events taking place at their schools.
This follows in the wake of other instances of racist behaviour at Chilliwack schools that have been called out in recent days, including a 2017 yearbook photo showing a student wearing blackface at G.W. Graham Secondary School.
In a statement, Chilliwack School District’s interim school superintendent Rohan Arul-pragasam said the concept of a “slave day” auction “is wrong.”
“And just as it is wrong today, it was wrong then,” the statement continued. “We take responsibility for that and I unreservedly apologize on behalf of the District for that event.”
V.I.A. has reached out to Mohammed for comment, and will update this story as more information becomes available.
