'Slave Game' Reported At Georgia's Camp Creek Elementary School Outrages Parents

Parents of students at Camp Creek Elementary School in Lilburn, Ga., are outraged after a 3rd-grader told her mother about a "slave game" students had been instructed to play, station WSBTV reports.

"It was kind of like tag, but we were slaves and slave catchers," mother Ericka Lasley said her daughter told her, the station reports.

Another parent, Charvia Rivers, says her children reported the same thing, but Gwinnett County Schools spokesman Jorge Quintana told the station that a district investigation found that the teacher did not organize the game.

"The district determined that the activity was student-initiated and that allegations regarding the teacher’s involvement were unfounded," Quintana said in a statement to the station. Nevertheless, the district is planning to hold diversity training for teachers in light of the incident.

This "insensitive" game comes after another Georgia elementary school sparked national outrage over math word problems which used examples of slavery.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided the text of the problems:

"Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?" and "If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?"

Soon, national criticism turned to local protest as dozens of parents and community members rallied outside the elementary school chanting "fire them now" while carrying signs.

Following the protest, the district launched an investigation and found four teachers to be responsible for the problems. A spokesperson told the Associated Press that one of the teachers resigned, but would not comment on the other three.

Comments

[the midnight rider]

03:37 PM on 03/22/2012

We play jose catcher every day here in TX.

[the midnight rider]

03:26 PM on 03/22/2012

well i think that black ppl should be glad they were slaves and that there got a chance to become americians, who could still be in the mother land and been born in the bush and not in Ga. with all the freedoms you have

[Tonydeeee]

10:52 AM on 02/01/2012

Teacher, I want to be Gabriele Prosser!

[speedy evans]

08:01 PM on 01/31/2012

nexts time they want to play slave games how about nat turners revolt ..see how many white ppl like that .

[Tonydeeee]

10:51 AM on 02/01/2012

holding open rehersal and so far no White people.

[the midnight rider]

03:17 PM on 03/22/2012

i will play boy

[NYC TEXAS BANKER]

03:49 PM on 03/22/2012

nat turner was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831 that resulted in 60 white deaths and at least 100 black deaths. so i guess the the whites won.

[simsum]

01:47 PM on 01/31/2012

"I don't see why the game is categorica­lly offensive."

Perhaps because you don't know the historical context.

[Tonydeeee]

10:54 AM on 02/01/2012

How bout you play slave master and I play Nat Turner or Gabriele Prosser.

[simsum]

04:30 PM on 02/01/2012

How about you do a little calculation: There were millions of slaves oppressed by an entire country, from the federal government down to the local laws in every little hamlet. How many Nat Turners were there?

But more importantly, if your people were oppressed (say by the British), wouldn't you think it perfectly legitimate for you to rise up and fight them with whatever means necessary? Oh, actually that's what you did. And you raised up all kinds of monuments congratulating yourselves on how you fought your oppressors.

So it's okay for whites to seek freedom, but not for blacks? Is that what you are saying? If so, that makes you no different from a slave owner.

[Abdul-Halim Vazquez]

05:04 PM on 01/30/2012

This reminds me of Nikki Giovanni's Poem for Black Boys

"You should play run-away-slave
Or Mau Mau
These are more in line with your history"

I don't see why the game is categorically offensive. There could be constructive ways to do it, and some non-constructive ways to do it.

[qtpeye46]

02:31 PM on 01/30/2012

maybe the teachers didnt start it but what did they do to stop it?

[kittykatluvr21]

02:45 AM on 03/22/2012

They could do a lot more. The "kids will be kids' excuse doesn't hold up much anymore these days.

[hawaiianstile]

01:56 PM on 01/30/2012

its pretty sick that these teachers would try to plant the seeds of bigotry in the minds of the children they are intrusted to teach. i wonder what i might do when i become a parent, it seems you cant trust anybody but family and close friends with your kids anymore, the sickness of this society has reached a level where its all but impossible to hide from it.

[ggranny]

01:00 AM on 02/01/2012

I was fortunate to send my children to schools that had teachers that looked like them. The teachers had heart for their students then. I was never a supporter of busing...I wanted my kids to be able to walk to school with their neigborhood friends...and be educated by black teachers and ME! They turned out quite well!

[Vondrazy Priest]

11:57 AM on 01/30/2012

RACISM will never go away.

[simsum]

09:11 PM on 01/29/2012

And, here come the tro //s, right on cue. Good luck, guys. You have an uphill battle. It's so hard to promote ideas of racial superiority these days, isn't it? Thank goodness.

[Tonydeeee]

10:57 AM on 02/01/2012

A little insecure about your place in America, huh? You're not alone.

[gov111w]

05:21 PM on 01/29/2012

All of these things are politically incorrect and unacceptable. I find the student generated Slave game perhaps the most troubling...Were the students forced to participate or did they do so voluntarily ???

[thisstoryisnotture]

08:29 PM on 01/29/2012

The game was created by one student on her own and she played it with three other students. The students are black, not white. They weren't forced to play it. Also, this was not a "class" event. At least three other third grade classes were on the playground at the time. When three students out of 20 plus in one class play a game and the other stuents who were on the same playground not only didn't participate in it, they didn't even know it was being played. These are the undisputable facts. The most important fact that WSB didn't report is the student who told her mom that the teacher made up the game later recanted her story and told an African-American principal intern in a separate, one-on-one meeting that she made up the game. Just prior to heading out for recess, the class was being taught a lesson about Frederick Douglas and the Underground Railroad. In that lesson, the concepts of "slave catcher" was discussed.

[simsum]

09:09 PM on 01/29/2012

LOL

Please cite your sources for these "facts".

[gov111w]

09:05 AM on 01/30/2012

I afraid to say that this may case not be the exception. People are all to eager to blame and believe the worse when it come to any racial issue, this attitude will eventually cause a backlash of resentment.

[Goldzilla]

05:28 PM on 01/29/2012

Whitness=racism? That's a pretty broad brush your painting with. Allow me to do some painting myself then.
Blackness=stupidity.

[mark1966]

06:45 PM on 01/29/2012

Where in the article did it say they were white.Maybe you should re-read it before you look stupid.

[ggranny]

01:22 AM on 02/01/2012

If the teachers were black...it would not be news worthy.

[IDIOTA]

03:24 PM on 01/29/2012

Kids play games

[simsum]

05:11 PM on 01/29/2012

In this case the adults were playing games, while the kids were brave enough to speak the truth.

[IDIOTA]

09:00 PM on 01/31/2012

Children are the future and must be carefully taught in order to abandon their proclivity to truth.

[Ivoire]

08:43 AM on 01/29/2012

In France, such behaviour won't even been reported. And if it was, people would have said that it is black communtarism.

[Winter Skye]

04:52 PM on 01/28/2012

Hmmm...JORGE is being quoted? I wonder if the student starting the slave game was...HISPANIC?

[debbiev918]

12:06 AM on 01/29/2012

No, African American and the student didn't start the slave game, the teacher did. Having spoken with one of the parents of the child and having heard all of the details, there is no doubt in my mind the teacher initiated the "game".

[Ivoire]

08:39 AM on 01/29/2012

The teacher should be re-educated.

[simsum]

05:08 PM on 01/29/2012

Winter Skye is a racial tro //, don't bother trying to enlighten him/her.