Subscribe
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE

A White professor at HBCU Howard University held a mock slave auction in class while teaching a lesson Frederick Douglass.

The Caged Bird Magazine reports that on March 9, a professor at the school known as “the Mecca” began teaching from Douglass‘ slave narrative. To drive the points home, he elected to hold an impromptu mock slave auction. He instructed one of the Black male students to stand in front of the class and asked the students to start examining his height, weight, and teeth. The student reportedly asked the teacher to stop, but he kept going.

Then he told the student to turn around so they could examine his buttocks. At that point, the mock slave student sat down and the rest of the class started to speak up. The teacher insisted that he was just as uncomfortable during the lesson, which was the point.

His words, “It’s O.K., I’m uncomfortable too; I’m white.” The students took that as him trying to make himself the victim.

“I wanted to hit him,” the student told Caged Bird. “I was being racially and sexually harassed in front of my peers and the only thing I could think to defend myself was by punching him.”

The professor ended the lesson by informing the class that the young boy would have been worth $400.

Students in the class have confirmed Caged Bird‘s reports and Howard University officials are investigating the matter.

 

Photo: Library Of Congress