After one senior complained it was disrespectful and offensive, a Sacramento high school will no longer hold a fundraiser during which students volunteer to be auctioned off to their peers for a day.
For about 15 years, students at John F. Kennedy High School have hosted an annual “senior auction” in February to raise money for a dance. But this year, senior Lamari Johnson collaborated with Black Lives Matter Sacramento and petitioned to cancel the event.
“It’s not even just the fact that it’s black history month,” reads Johnson’s petition, which gathered 176 signatures online. “Auctioning off a human is all around wrong. Sacramento is one of the top city’s [sic] for human trafficking, and by doing this, you’re encouraging and supporting putting a price on a human being. WE ARE NOT PROPERTY OR OBJECTS.”
Sonia Lewis, a local Black Lives Matter organizer who used to teach at the high school, told the Sacramento Bee that she was disturbed by students’ flippant attitude toward the auction, including jokes about slavery.
“I think when you replace things with people you run the chance of having a slippery slope, of being offensive. … I don’t care what the race is, I know there are sensitivities that come into play,” she told the local newspaper.
This year’s auction was held on Feb. 9. But after Johnson’s petition, the entire Sacramento City Unified School district announced it would no longer hold such auctions, citing “today’s environment where there’s a lot of insensitivity toward groups of people.”
A counterpetition, which said the auction “is a fun way to raise money and is harmless,” got just over 100 signatures.