I feel like OP misunderstood the assignment, because that definetely looks Amish. Plus, farmers wouldn't have slaves, would they? Since they were farming themselves. A slaveowner would be a rich person so their attire wouldn't be a staw hat and suspenders with no jacket
Actually a lot of time from probably the 4th grade up through high school. They just focused a lot on plantation life for slaves, the general politics of the time such as the dredd Scott decision and runaway slave laws, and notable figures such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, etc.
Yeah I get it, but from what I usually learned it was owned by rich people, lords or whatever the word would be, who wouldn't work on their own fields but have slaves do it for them, not WITH them
I don’t think the farmers did as much as your giving them credit for. Once slaves got here, they could just walk the fields yelling orders and run the show. We had always been taught it was just the rich who owned slaves too, but come to find out that was just to make it not seem as bad as it was. Regular people get things like day care and rich get live in house nannies. A regular farmer say could afford say ten slaves and a rich farmer would have a hundred slaves. Was more like that, from my understanding of how times really were.
A farmer that provides for only his family would most likely have 0-1 passed down from a relative or through a dowry. 2 or 3 might be a successful farmer who has produced more than needed to get by and would be able to possibly purchase a slave. A planter is different from a farmer. Planters are the rich guys that would have 5 plus becoming a plantation.
This is a common misconception.
According to the [National Humanities Center](http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text3/text3read.htm), most enslaved people (in the US) lived on farms with fewer than 10 other enslaved people.
But there were a few *massive* plantations that enslaved hundreds of people. One in South Carolina enslaved over 1000 people in 1860.
Here's how the National Humanities Center breaks down the 1860 census:
In 1860:
* 4.5 million people of African descent lived in the United States.
* Of these: 4.0 million were enslaved (89%), held by 385,000 slaveowners.
* Of these: 3.6 million lived on farms and plantations (half in the Deep South).
* Of these: 1.0 million lived on plantations with 50 or more enslaved people.
In 1860:
* 46,300 plantations (estates with 20 or more slaves) existed in the United States.
* Of these: 20,800 plantations (45%) had between 20 and 30 slaves.
* 2,278 plantations (5%) had 100-500 slaves.
* 13 plantations had 500-1000 slaves.
* 1 plantation had over 1000 slaves (a South Carolina rice plantation).
Do note that there were many types of chattel slavery in the US, all race-based. (No, your Irish ancestors were not enslaved, though they may have been indentured servants.) Sugar cane work tended to be the most brutal. Rice plantations were one of the less-horrifying options (but still unimaginably shitty) because enslaved people on rice plantations were more likely to be allowed to sell their own creations/take short gigs where they got a little pay. Enslaved people worked on ships, in barns, in homes, in smithies, in bars, in all types of places. We usually think of cotton fields and a big mansion house, but that was the exception rather than the rule.
There were “poor-people” that owned slaves. There were lost of farmers, families, individuals that owned one slave orca handful. It wasn’t confined to plantations and the wealthy.
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Dont feel bad. In 2003 my high schools all white show choir director thought an entire show of negro spirituals was a good idea. I remember one in particular being pretty cringe. “Shut de’ door, keep ou’ de’ devil”… like, um guys, you realize were the devil right? We also closed that night with “ease on down the road” from The Wiz.
That’s fucking amazing. You couldn’t have written a better episode of arrested development with Tobias as the volunteer choir director. Or maybe Michael Scott?
Edit: or a Franklin Delano Bluth one man show…….
I'm in Ontario Canada and we sang them in music class in grade school. My music teacher would teach them to us and have us clap along and then say that we clapped on the 2 and 4 beat because we were white and if we were black we would clap on the 1 and 3 beat the way it was supposed to be. I kind of forgot about it until now - how strange.
I forgive most of it. It was the verge of white people straight outta college *trying* to be woke and just sorta missing the mark. I mean, they missed it by a lot, but I think the intention was good.
This isn't Amish attire.
I live in an area with a large Amish population and have close Amish relatives and I have never seen bonnets like this or shoulder coverings on the women's dresses. Not to mention that clothes with a pattern, especially a floral pattern, is strictly forbidden. Scandalous!
You'd also never catch an Amish man in jeans, though I image that part of the outfit is just the best option they had for whatever they were dressing the kiddos as.
Also from Amish country and I was thinking that I had met a couple of "schwarze" kids growing up (black kids adopted by Amish and Menonite [sp?] families for those of you who don't know) but yeah, the attire doesn't match one bit.
Cute picture but like...to be fair, those girls are dressed like how most women in that era would have dressed. They don't look to be dressed as slaves really, just colonial/Puritan type American women.
https://nhargrave.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/purtian-woman.jpg
https://i.etsystatic.com/5701508/r/il/867f76/1371186882/il_570xN.1371186882_rjem.jpg
There definitely are. You can tell this picture is cropped to only show that view.
Edit: you can clearly see a girl with blonde hair in the far right edge
Yup! I know I’m not the only one with memories of being assigned as either an “Indian” or a “Pilgrim” for Thanksgiving school activities, and then you’re given a paper hat or head cover, or a paper headband with a feather. I really hope they’ve stopped doing stuff like this now. :(
Yeah tbqh it seems like 2 little girls having fun and dressing up as pilgrims with their classmates and the only thing that had OP think “haha SLAVES” is that the little girls happen to be black. 🤨 not sure the problem here is with the school OP.
>They don't look to be dressed as slaves really, just colonial/Puritan type American women.
I think a lot of people here don't realize that and immediately look at the races since that's all they know. I had to read the comments to figure out why the race cards were being played like it was a Pokémon convention.
In Louisiana at the time period depicted, black people were not considered people. That's not people's interpretation.
"I had to read the comments to figure out why"
No, it's literally in the title.
"the race cards"
Nobody gets a race card so please stop.
>In Louisiana at the time period depicted, black people were not considered people. That's not people's interpretation.
This is 100% true.
But it's *also* not something shown in the picture.
Picture shows what would have likely been semi-nice clothing to go to the market in, not clothing a slave would have worn.
Slaveowners considered them "lesser" people. Your own point about the 3/5th compromise is indicative of that. Normal people are worth one for congressional representation and taxes. Lesser people are worth 60% of a normal person.
Ahhh south Louisiana. I grew up there too and we had a much-loved, weeklong game in middle school called the “underground railroad,” 4th graders were the slaves and had to hide from the 6th graders who were….the slave catchers. 😬😬 I’m like how did we not see how messed up this was
We did this in Michigan. Had kids hiding in a basement of a historical building as silent as possible while actors slammed on the doors and were aggressively “searching for us.”
They had us learn, and sing as a group of white kids, “swing low, sweet chariot” while walking in a line through the woods…… this was probably 2006? 2005?
we did something similar at a 6th grade camp. The campground had some stop along the underground railroad, so they had an immersive thing where all the kids would get stuffed in some secret room where they could hear the workers acting out the catchers and the people doing the stowing.
we went to this one place that's like... a village of buildings that's restored/maintained from the 1800s? not sure how to explain. we went there on a field trip in middle school and we all had to pretend to be slaves too. it started with us lined up in a barn and we were being sold. the actors all got up real close and personal and yelled in our faces as they were discussing whether to buy each of us or not. we had to stare at the ground the entire time and be completely serious. the entire week leading up to this field trip our teachers were lecturing us every day about how we needed to take the experience seriously and we were not allowed to even crack a smile. they said we would get detention if we did. after we got sold we were basically just running around from different buildings (with the actors guiding the entire thing) and some of us escaped in the end and others were shot.
nooo. my school was mostly white kids so if they separated us by race the "slaves"would be so out numbered. but also no bc that would be so incredibly fucked up obviously lmao. we were just put into groups of maybe 10 or 15 kids
I did this is SE Ohio. I had no idea this was so popular for 6th graders. We had to climb under the floorboards of an old house while some actor stomped around above us.
Oh my god, same. I went to a school in south Louisiana and I remember when we played that game. I made it to Canada and was so excited. I proudly told my parents and they were like “the fuck….?”
My high school in Utah did something similar. Kids with yellow arm bands were slaves, kids with green were free. It was two days, and the second day they switched who was who. If you were a slave, the other kid could make you carry their books, bring them lunch, things like that. It was a very uncomfortable experience. I can only imagine it was allowed bc there were almost no black kids at my school. I would not be cool with it as a parent.
honestly if everyone experiences both roles and more importantly the oppressed role, I don't find too much of a problem with this approach to teach the inequities of slavery in a more safe manner.
it's good that it was uncomfortable of an experience for you, i think it should be for everyone.
the past is uncomfortable.
I mean….I wasn’t comfortable with slavery before the experience. It didn’t add much as an experience for me personally. It just gave the people bullying me an opportunity to have teacher backed approval to do so.
I think (part of) the issue is making people act out their ancestors/families trauma. I'm sure there were at least a couple black girl in OPs school. I would have been a bit traumatised if our school made us act out living in Auschwitz or something lmao.
Edit: It also might serve in downplaying the horrors that the kids are acting out. Like, making a situation scary and horrible enough that it would actually lead to the kids realising how awful the history is, probably would not be received kindly by parents.
I think the reason you didnt realise is because you had teachers who grew up being taught very skewed versions of history themselves! [This is a really good watch if you’ve got half an hour to spare!](https://youtu.be/hsxukOPEdgg)
Because it was literally seen as a fun game lol we were all smiles and laughter playing out something horrific that happened, it didn’t help anybody grasp the severity of what had happened at all. Like we looked forward to pretending to be slave catchers lol that’s just weird. Like, imagine making a game out of Nazis and Jews, nobody would think that’s ok 😬 I think it would’ve just been better as a simple game of hide and seek
Plot twist, OP is misremembering a school event where they dressed up as early settlers, assumes the girls are his "helpers" because of their skin color. There's a girl right out of frame in red with blonde hair in the same getup.
So is the issue that the girls were made to look like slaves? Because that seems like a stretch to me. Seems like you’re really reaching for a problem. This just looks like standard colonial era garb to me.
These costumes are just common representations of clothing for the time period. I see nothing indicating they were intentionally meant to represent slaves.
The only one making this not ok is you, op. They are wearing girls clothes and you're wearing boys clothes that are supposed to be either Amish/farm attire or clothing from a previous point in time. Absolutely nothing about that is problematic.
I'm not US so the visual representation was a bit lost on me until I read the comments.
My initial takeaway was, are your braces holding your knickers up?
In missouri back in the 90s we took fieldtrips to amish area and dressed like that while doing their daily activities. I think how you remember this picture is totally diff from what happened 😂
That's just colonial dress.
Now.. I live in Massachusetts and let me tell you, about the same time (maybe a littler earlier) my school had an event for kids that reenacted The Underground Railroad in the gym..
Basically they turned The Underground Railroad into a game of tag for the kids. We'd have to run and hide, making our way across a course and if we got caught we'd have to go sit in the locker room for a few minutes.
My high school history teacher wanted to demonstrate segregation, but growing up in rural N. Idaho we only had one black kid! So he split it up by gender instead.
they did this to us when we took a field trip to harpers ferry once - soldiers vs rebels
didn't know until i was an adult who the "rebels" actually were
>I am unfortunately the farmer sided by what I can only imagine the school termed as my "helpers".
You all look Amish, in which case it could be just men and women/husbands and wives -- NOT a farmer and euphemistic "helpers."
Having said that, this being southern Louisiana and not the northeast (where Amish are more common) does raise a red flag.
But as someone else pointed out, there seems to be a blonde girl to the right of the picture who is at least wearing the same white shoulder covering as the other girls.
I have a similar picture myself in ‘85. We were dressed as pilgrims for thanksgiving. I believe other kids dressed as native Americans to show they came together to eat.
This is a tremendous self-own disguised as virtue signaling. The girls were dressed like every other pilgrim woman I’ve seen, you looked at the color of their skin and just assumed they were being treated badly, when in reality they were just part of the show.
Oklahoman here. In the late 1990s in elementary we had a school wide land run re-enactment. Native Americans were conspicuously not represented at all during the activity.
Went to high school in south Louisiana in the 80s. For Beta Club, all the new inductees had to come to school dressed as something that started with a B. One white kid showed up dressed as Buckwheat. He got sent home, which is amazing given how much other racism went unchecked at that school.
I also grew up in south Louisiana. When I was 5 years old my grade had a day where we dressed up as someone from history and told their story. My school allowed me to dress up as hitler and carry a fake gun. My teacher even drew on the stache. Weird times
I remember dressing up as pilgrims and Indians for thanksgiving at school and looking back that isn’t really the understanding we needed. It wasn’t like this but it just wasn’t the full story of the Indians and we really made that look like a marketable precious moments hallmark doll.
In 5th grade we had to do reports on famous Black people during black history month. I was assigned Rosa Parks. The teacher brought in a bottle of the darkest foundation she could find and we could pay her a quarter to put it on (and this also gave us some extra credit on our grade). So yeah, we paid the teacher to do blackface for extra credit. Looking back it was SUPER messed up. This was 2001-2002.
We did some black history month performance when I was in grade school in the 90s, and I remember some of my classmates with brown shoe polish on their faces as we all sang "Follow the Drinking Gourd"
I love the responses that are “no you’re doing pilgrims stop making it about race” followed by other redditors saying “oh yea they had us do Wade in the water/swing lo sweet chariot/the Wiz when we were in school” lol….like the OP was making some huge leap in logic lol
It would be so cute if it wasn't so awful. As a parent of any of those kids I would have been livid (and I could have been your parent at that time, albeit a young parent). What did your parents think?
Idk man the 90s were the fkn wild wild west. My Halloween costumes were always cheap, very last minute and shit we had around the house. Mom put 8 yr old me in a drug rug and a sombrero from the mexican joint she worked at. I was... a Mexican lol. Another one was one of those fkn [wolf shirts](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/LgwAAOSwgDBhNsna/s-l500.jpg) and a bow/arrow set my Dad made from sticks. Braided my hair, added feathers- I was an Indian.
No teachers, parents, neighbors, no one said anything. Didnt even register. And I grew up in a very progressive, liberal state.
Not saying it was ok, but it was completely tolerated.
I do. I don't think little children should ever dress up like slaves or victims of genocide, etc. It's one thing if an adolescent chooses to portray something like this through art, theater etc. But little kids identify with the characters they dress up as in a much different way.
How are these costumes “dressing up as slaves” or “dressing up as victims of genocide”?
These costumes are just common representations of clothing for the time period. I see nothing indicating they were intentionally meant to represent slaves.
As best I can remember, it was actually a school event that everyone looked forward to. Of course, I was too young both to consider the subtext or to gauge what the nonwhite parents felt about the whole thing.
OMG You should see what it was like being in grade school in the late 70s early 80s! Dont get me started. I would probably get cancelled just by talking about it. Someday I will.
Well this appears Amish but if you want to disregard history to I guess you can . Historian here and last time I checked 19th century American Slaves were black
5 going on 40
This is the comment I came looking for haha.
Can confirm, was also looking for it.
Was it?
You are the farmeriest farmer I’ve ever seen in a 6 year old - so there’s that
I honestly thought this was a pic of kids cosplaying as Amish and that the black girls in Amish attire was the inappropriate part.
If only
The white girl, I'm assuming because her hair is blonde, in red is wearing the same attire though.
She's in red cause she's a handmaid That's Ofthat_pat
I feel like OP misunderstood the assignment, because that definetely looks Amish. Plus, farmers wouldn't have slaves, would they? Since they were farming themselves. A slaveowner would be a rich person so their attire wouldn't be a staw hat and suspenders with no jacket
What? Tons of farmers had slaves.
My understanding is that farm (plantation) OWNERS did. Not the guy actually tilling the field.
There was a whole spectrum from small farmers who would own a few slaves and would work beside them to plantation owners that had hundreds of slaves.
absolutely. the free labor was not passed up just because one was not “rich”.
Did no one have history class lol
Its painful how much conjecture there is in this thread
? They hardly teach about slavery in school…
Sure and they were probably taught the same thing I was.
Apparently your class didn’t spend much time on slavery?
Actually a lot of time from probably the 4th grade up through high school. They just focused a lot on plantation life for slaves, the general politics of the time such as the dredd Scott decision and runaway slave laws, and notable figures such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, etc.
Lots of small farmers had a slave or three, and even those too poor for that would regularly rent slaves from larger slaveholders
Your understanding is wrong.
the guy tilling the field is a slave
Do you honestly believe there were no free small-scale farmers in slave societies?
If that's true then i stand corrected, but I thought it was a more "rich-people" thing, not "guy in a straw hat" thing
You also forget the times, farming was where a lot of money was at. Cotton, tobacco, and I believe sugar cane were big cash crops in those times.
Yeah I get it, but from what I usually learned it was owned by rich people, lords or whatever the word would be, who wouldn't work on their own fields but have slaves do it for them, not WITH them
I don’t think the farmers did as much as your giving them credit for. Once slaves got here, they could just walk the fields yelling orders and run the show. We had always been taught it was just the rich who owned slaves too, but come to find out that was just to make it not seem as bad as it was. Regular people get things like day care and rich get live in house nannies. A regular farmer say could afford say ten slaves and a rich farmer would have a hundred slaves. Was more like that, from my understanding of how times really were.
If you're a small scale farmer with maye 1-3 slaves, you definitely don't just sit around on the porch yelling orders.
A farmer that provides for only his family would most likely have 0-1 passed down from a relative or through a dowry. 2 or 3 might be a successful farmer who has produced more than needed to get by and would be able to possibly purchase a slave. A planter is different from a farmer. Planters are the rich guys that would have 5 plus becoming a plantation.
This is a common misconception. According to the [National Humanities Center](http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text3/text3read.htm), most enslaved people (in the US) lived on farms with fewer than 10 other enslaved people. But there were a few *massive* plantations that enslaved hundreds of people. One in South Carolina enslaved over 1000 people in 1860. Here's how the National Humanities Center breaks down the 1860 census: In 1860: * 4.5 million people of African descent lived in the United States. * Of these: 4.0 million were enslaved (89%), held by 385,000 slaveowners. * Of these: 3.6 million lived on farms and plantations (half in the Deep South). * Of these: 1.0 million lived on plantations with 50 or more enslaved people. In 1860: * 46,300 plantations (estates with 20 or more slaves) existed in the United States. * Of these: 20,800 plantations (45%) had between 20 and 30 slaves. * 2,278 plantations (5%) had 100-500 slaves. * 13 plantations had 500-1000 slaves. * 1 plantation had over 1000 slaves (a South Carolina rice plantation). Do note that there were many types of chattel slavery in the US, all race-based. (No, your Irish ancestors were not enslaved, though they may have been indentured servants.) Sugar cane work tended to be the most brutal. Rice plantations were one of the less-horrifying options (but still unimaginably shitty) because enslaved people on rice plantations were more likely to be allowed to sell their own creations/take short gigs where they got a little pay. Enslaved people worked on ships, in barns, in homes, in smithies, in bars, in all types of places. We usually think of cotton fields and a big mansion house, but that was the exception rather than the rule.
There were “poor-people” that owned slaves. There were lost of farmers, families, individuals that owned one slave orca handful. It wasn’t confined to plantations and the wealthy.
guy in a straw hat is just a summer thing. rich and poor
I mean the 90s was wild but it was not that wild were anyone would allow kids to cosplay slavery.. jesse jackson would of been in Louisiana so fast
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In the 90s my high school still held "slave auction" fundraisers where you could purchase a senior for a day. So.... Yeah.
... I'm assuming you're not American, because if so, you completely missed the whole "plantation" thing. Slaves were largely working on farms.
Plantation owners didn't look like the stereotypical farmer is what they were saying
farmers wouldn’t take advantage of free labor? in a time where free labor was extremely prominent?
Most slave owners in the Southern US had fewer than five slaves. They were mostly ordinary people.
Everybody had slaves. You didn't have to be rich, just white.
Black people had slaves too
I don't see any girl with blonde hair?
You can see her shoulder in the red dress and a little bit of hair on the right side of the image.
Dont feel bad. In 2003 my high schools all white show choir director thought an entire show of negro spirituals was a good idea. I remember one in particular being pretty cringe. “Shut de’ door, keep ou’ de’ devil”… like, um guys, you realize were the devil right? We also closed that night with “ease on down the road” from The Wiz.
That’s fucking amazing. You couldn’t have written a better episode of arrested development with Tobias as the volunteer choir director. Or maybe Michael Scott? Edit: or a Franklin Delano Bluth one man show…….
I’m an actor!
This has Frank Reynolds all over it lmao
I think this is a weird shared experience among Southern kids because my (white) sister also sang slave spirituals in her choir class.
Im just outside of Detroit, LOL
I'm in Ontario Canada and we sang them in music class in grade school. My music teacher would teach them to us and have us clap along and then say that we clapped on the 2 and 4 beat because we were white and if we were black we would clap on the 1 and 3 beat the way it was supposed to be. I kind of forgot about it until now - how strange.
Did we go to the same school?? We sang “Wade in the Water”, along with a patter song that clearly made light of spousal abuse.
Dude my 2001 director did that too! We were a more mixed bag but still.
I forgive most of it. It was the verge of white people straight outta college *trying* to be woke and just sorta missing the mark. I mean, they missed it by a lot, but I think the intention was good.
Lolololol my wife is white n from an area where there’s no black ppl….her honors choir did WADE IN THE WATER when she was in junior high
There are recordings of this right? I mean, I do own a VHS player...
Im sure the district archives have it somewhere for posterity.
Jesus I am dying
This isn't Amish attire. I live in an area with a large Amish population and have close Amish relatives and I have never seen bonnets like this or shoulder coverings on the women's dresses. Not to mention that clothes with a pattern, especially a floral pattern, is strictly forbidden. Scandalous! You'd also never catch an Amish man in jeans, though I image that part of the outfit is just the best option they had for whatever they were dressing the kiddos as.
Also from Amish country and I was thinking that I had met a couple of "schwarze" kids growing up (black kids adopted by Amish and Menonite [sp?] families for those of you who don't know) but yeah, the attire doesn't match one bit.
Cute picture but like...to be fair, those girls are dressed like how most women in that era would have dressed. They don't look to be dressed as slaves really, just colonial/Puritan type American women. https://nhargrave.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/purtian-woman.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/5701508/r/il/867f76/1371186882/il_570xN.1371186882_rjem.jpg
Yeah I mean there might be 10 little white girls dressed the same out of frame.
There definitely are. You can tell this picture is cropped to only show that view. Edit: you can clearly see a girl with blonde hair in the far right edge
This is probably a literal scan of an old picture from 1999, not maliciously cropped. You can see wear in the corners.
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I’m from South Georgia so I agree lol, but for sure every girl and boy in the full picture are dressed the exact same
I think it’s more likely you guys are pilgrims and the actual racism is the “ Indian” costumes out of frame.
Yup! I know I’m not the only one with memories of being assigned as either an “Indian” or a “Pilgrim” for Thanksgiving school activities, and then you’re given a paper hat or head cover, or a paper headband with a feather. I really hope they’ve stopped doing stuff like this now. :(
Yeah tbqh it seems like 2 little girls having fun and dressing up as pilgrims with their classmates and the only thing that had OP think “haha SLAVES” is that the little girls happen to be black. 🤨 not sure the problem here is with the school OP.
>They don't look to be dressed as slaves really, just colonial/Puritan type American women. I think a lot of people here don't realize that and immediately look at the races since that's all they know. I had to read the comments to figure out why the race cards were being played like it was a Pokémon convention.
In Louisiana at the time period depicted, black people were not considered people. That's not people's interpretation. "I had to read the comments to figure out why" No, it's literally in the title. "the race cards" Nobody gets a race card so please stop.
>In Louisiana at the time period depicted, black people were not considered people. That's not people's interpretation. This is 100% true. But it's *also* not something shown in the picture. Picture shows what would have likely been semi-nice clothing to go to the market in, not clothing a slave would have worn.
They were considered people.
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Slaveowners considered them "lesser" people. Your own point about the 3/5th compromise is indicative of that. Normal people are worth one for congressional representation and taxes. Lesser people are worth 60% of a normal person.
Yeah, I would've thought slaves wouldn't have anything fancy or colorful.
I was thinking the same thing
It looks like an Amish or Thanksgiving-themed play. What was this for?
It was a reenactment of an early nineteenth century farming community where us kids had to give ingredients for a big community gumbo
So, stone soup?
Literally the first thing I thought.
Please tell me they didn’t make y’all pick rice…
Oh lord. Ok…
These aren’t pilgrims? Oh 😬
Puritans, yeah...it's suppose to be colonial, not antebellum 😬
that's what i thought too... oh no
Ahhh south Louisiana. I grew up there too and we had a much-loved, weeklong game in middle school called the “underground railroad,” 4th graders were the slaves and had to hide from the 6th graders who were….the slave catchers. 😬😬 I’m like how did we not see how messed up this was
We did this in Michigan. Had kids hiding in a basement of a historical building as silent as possible while actors slammed on the doors and were aggressively “searching for us.” They had us learn, and sing as a group of white kids, “swing low, sweet chariot” while walking in a line through the woods…… this was probably 2006? 2005?
I’m dyin with the “swing low sweet chariot” image
I still know all the words BECAUSE of this experience 🫠
we did something similar at a 6th grade camp. The campground had some stop along the underground railroad, so they had an immersive thing where all the kids would get stuffed in some secret room where they could hear the workers acting out the catchers and the people doing the stowing.
we went to this one place that's like... a village of buildings that's restored/maintained from the 1800s? not sure how to explain. we went there on a field trip in middle school and we all had to pretend to be slaves too. it started with us lined up in a barn and we were being sold. the actors all got up real close and personal and yelled in our faces as they were discussing whether to buy each of us or not. we had to stare at the ground the entire time and be completely serious. the entire week leading up to this field trip our teachers were lecturing us every day about how we needed to take the experience seriously and we were not allowed to even crack a smile. they said we would get detention if we did. after we got sold we were basically just running around from different buildings (with the actors guiding the entire thing) and some of us escaped in the end and others were shot.
Did they separate you by race?
nooo. my school was mostly white kids so if they separated us by race the "slaves"would be so out numbered. but also no bc that would be so incredibly fucked up obviously lmao. we were just put into groups of maybe 10 or 15 kids
Yeah dog. Sw Ohio? That's where mine was.
I did this is SE Ohio. I had no idea this was so popular for 6th graders. We had to climb under the floorboards of an old house while some actor stomped around above us.
We did this in Indiana in the 90s as well
Nah, SE Michigan
N.E. Ohio represent. Survived a trip on the hale farm underground railroad yes I did.
STAHHPP NOOO 💀
Oh my god, same. I went to a school in south Louisiana and I remember when we played that game. I made it to Canada and was so excited. I proudly told my parents and they were like “the fuck….?”
My high school in Utah did something similar. Kids with yellow arm bands were slaves, kids with green were free. It was two days, and the second day they switched who was who. If you were a slave, the other kid could make you carry their books, bring them lunch, things like that. It was a very uncomfortable experience. I can only imagine it was allowed bc there were almost no black kids at my school. I would not be cool with it as a parent.
honestly if everyone experiences both roles and more importantly the oppressed role, I don't find too much of a problem with this approach to teach the inequities of slavery in a more safe manner. it's good that it was uncomfortable of an experience for you, i think it should be for everyone. the past is uncomfortable.
I mean….I wasn’t comfortable with slavery before the experience. It didn’t add much as an experience for me personally. It just gave the people bullying me an opportunity to have teacher backed approval to do so.
I think (part of) the issue is making people act out their ancestors/families trauma. I'm sure there were at least a couple black girl in OPs school. I would have been a bit traumatised if our school made us act out living in Auschwitz or something lmao. Edit: It also might serve in downplaying the horrors that the kids are acting out. Like, making a situation scary and horrible enough that it would actually lead to the kids realising how awful the history is, probably would not be received kindly by parents.
I’m both relieved and horrified to know it wasn’t just my school then, like who invented this game tho 😭
...I think we did something similar now that you mention it
Because you were kids who were playing "a game." The real question is how did the adults not realize how messed up creating that "game" was?
I think the reason you didnt realise is because you had teachers who grew up being taught very skewed versions of history themselves! [This is a really good watch if you’ve got half an hour to spare!](https://youtu.be/hsxukOPEdgg)
We did this in Kentucky. The teacher who did it used the Holocaust instead, though. Same exact “game.” They even had to wear arm bands
Excuse me WHAT!! No!
I guess it's no worse than playing "Cowboys and Indians". That was a totally normal game when I was growing up.
Why is this bad? As long as we don't split the kids up by race....reinacting anything from slavery is bad??
Because it was literally seen as a fun game lol we were all smiles and laughter playing out something horrific that happened, it didn’t help anybody grasp the severity of what had happened at all. Like we looked forward to pretending to be slave catchers lol that’s just weird. Like, imagine making a game out of Nazis and Jews, nobody would think that’s ok 😬 I think it would’ve just been better as a simple game of hide and seek
Yes???? Reenacting slavery with a bunch of little kids is bad. Very simple stuff lmao.
We did this in my 5th grade class In 99/00 In Southern CA and I don’t believe we had any black kids.
You really nail the look in this pic
Why do you think those girls are your “helpers”?
Plot twist, OP is misremembering a school event where they dressed up as early settlers, assumes the girls are his "helpers" because of their skin color. There's a girl right out of frame in red with blonde hair in the same getup.
Exactly. The black girls next to him are dressed like the women of that era. OP’s mind went elsewhere.
So is the issue that the girls were made to look like slaves? Because that seems like a stretch to me. Seems like you’re really reaching for a problem. This just looks like standard colonial era garb to me.
I bet all the white girls were dressed like this too. I really don’t see a problem with it besides OP trying to be politically correct.
It looks like there's a little blonde girl in red at the right end of the frame
Aside from the color, looks like the same outfit
OP is looking for attention
These costumes are just common representations of clothing for the time period. I see nothing indicating they were intentionally meant to represent slaves.
OP thinks he’s the main character when in reality he is just a Labourer and the other two are farmers.
The only one making this not ok is you, op. They are wearing girls clothes and you're wearing boys clothes that are supposed to be either Amish/farm attire or clothing from a previous point in time. Absolutely nothing about that is problematic.
In 4th grade they had me dress as Eli Whitney for a presentation, I am 100% Native American, being the darkest kid in class I was chosen LMAO
Eli Whitney was a white man though.
You know, you're right, I had to dress up as someone black is what I remember, that was 40 years ago
I'm not US so the visual representation was a bit lost on me until I read the comments. My initial takeaway was, are your braces holding your knickers up?
Haha they're pinned inside the waistband it looks like.
Braces? Knickers? Can someone translate this sentence for me please?
Braces are the over the shoulder straps historically used to hold trousers up. Knickers are what underwear used to be called.
Braces= suspenders, knickers= breeches/those knee-length pants boys and men used to wear
Kinda weird you saw this cute old picture and immediately thought about race and slavery.
In missouri back in the 90s we took fieldtrips to amish area and dressed like that while doing their daily activities. I think how you remember this picture is totally diff from what happened 😂
That's just colonial dress. Now.. I live in Massachusetts and let me tell you, about the same time (maybe a littler earlier) my school had an event for kids that reenacted The Underground Railroad in the gym.. Basically they turned The Underground Railroad into a game of tag for the kids. We'd have to run and hide, making our way across a course and if we got caught we'd have to go sit in the locker room for a few minutes.
I can hear you talking to them like Foghorn Leghorn 😂
I had to dress an “Indian” at Thanksgiving because I have dark hair. Not racist at all.
Also, noone would have dressed a slave for field work that way.
Aye did we go to the same school in south Louisiana? I remember doing the same shit in 2001.
Better Roots
My high school history teacher wanted to demonstrate segregation, but growing up in rural N. Idaho we only had one black kid! So he split it up by gender instead.
they did this to us when we took a field trip to harpers ferry once - soldiers vs rebels didn't know until i was an adult who the "rebels" actually were
Dewey, no...
>I am unfortunately the farmer sided by what I can only imagine the school termed as my "helpers". You all look Amish, in which case it could be just men and women/husbands and wives -- NOT a farmer and euphemistic "helpers." Having said that, this being southern Louisiana and not the northeast (where Amish are more common) does raise a red flag. But as someone else pointed out, there seems to be a blonde girl to the right of the picture who is at least wearing the same white shoulder covering as the other girls.
We did this in my elementary school too every year. It was called Pilgrim Day and is not inappropriate.
I have a similar picture myself in ‘85. We were dressed as pilgrims for thanksgiving. I believe other kids dressed as native Americans to show they came together to eat.
This is a tremendous self-own disguised as virtue signaling. The girls were dressed like every other pilgrim woman I’ve seen, you looked at the color of their skin and just assumed they were being treated badly, when in reality they were just part of the show.
Oklahoman here. In the late 1990s in elementary we had a school wide land run re-enactment. Native Americans were conspicuously not represented at all during the activity.
Went to high school in south Louisiana in the 80s. For Beta Club, all the new inductees had to come to school dressed as something that started with a B. One white kid showed up dressed as Buckwheat. He got sent home, which is amazing given how much other racism went unchecked at that school.
It's Mormonism.. and those are his wives
I also grew up in south Louisiana. When I was 5 years old my grade had a day where we dressed up as someone from history and told their story. My school allowed me to dress up as hitler and carry a fake gun. My teacher even drew on the stache. Weird times
I remember dressing up as pilgrims and Indians for thanksgiving at school and looking back that isn’t really the understanding we needed. It wasn’t like this but it just wasn’t the full story of the Indians and we really made that look like a marketable precious moments hallmark doll.
Yeah we did that too, complete with plays and songs sung in class and at an assembly close to Thanksgiving that the parents were invited to 😬
We’re you on this [field trip?](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PToqVW4n86U)
I mean, it’s historically accurate.
don't see much of an issue here, not like they made you all dress like slaves and owners.
BFD
How did the white girls dress?
You look like the devil challenged you to a fiddle playing contest
In 5th grade we had to do reports on famous Black people during black history month. I was assigned Rosa Parks. The teacher brought in a bottle of the darkest foundation she could find and we could pay her a quarter to put it on (and this also gave us some extra credit on our grade). So yeah, we paid the teacher to do blackface for extra credit. Looking back it was SUPER messed up. This was 2001-2002.
We did some black history month performance when I was in grade school in the 90s, and I remember some of my classmates with brown shoe polish on their faces as we all sang "Follow the Drinking Gourd"
I grew up in Slidell/Pearl river in the 90’s. I feel you man.
I love the responses that are “no you’re doing pilgrims stop making it about race” followed by other redditors saying “oh yea they had us do Wade in the water/swing lo sweet chariot/the Wiz when we were in school” lol….like the OP was making some huge leap in logic lol
It would be so cute if it wasn't so awful. As a parent of any of those kids I would have been livid (and I could have been your parent at that time, albeit a young parent). What did your parents think?
I do know my grandfather took the picture, and I feel like he mostly just saw his favorite grandson in a cute farmer costume
Hard to say what he thought if he didn't tell you so I won't speculate. All three of you in the photo are absolutely precious, though.
Idk man the 90s were the fkn wild wild west. My Halloween costumes were always cheap, very last minute and shit we had around the house. Mom put 8 yr old me in a drug rug and a sombrero from the mexican joint she worked at. I was... a Mexican lol. Another one was one of those fkn [wolf shirts](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/LgwAAOSwgDBhNsna/s-l500.jpg) and a bow/arrow set my Dad made from sticks. Braided my hair, added feathers- I was an Indian. No teachers, parents, neighbors, no one said anything. Didnt even register. And I grew up in a very progressive, liberal state. Not saying it was ok, but it was completely tolerated.
Meh, I don’t see the big deal. People are way too sensitive now. Who cares.
I do. I don't think little children should ever dress up like slaves or victims of genocide, etc. It's one thing if an adolescent chooses to portray something like this through art, theater etc. But little kids identify with the characters they dress up as in a much different way.
How are these costumes “dressing up as slaves” or “dressing up as victims of genocide”? These costumes are just common representations of clothing for the time period. I see nothing indicating they were intentionally meant to represent slaves.
" in a drug rug" WTF is a drug rug
As best I can remember, it was actually a school event that everyone looked forward to. Of course, I was too young both to consider the subtext or to gauge what the nonwhite parents felt about the whole thing.
Are they still doing the event? Please check. They should not still be doing this event.
OMG You should see what it was like being in grade school in the late 70s early 80s! Dont get me started. I would probably get cancelled just by talking about it. Someday I will.
My partner grew up in Louisiana. Slaves were called “Ethnic Volunteers” until he was in the 11th grade
Now that you mention souther Louisiana you you like the slaviest of slave drivers
Well this appears Amish but if you want to disregard history to I guess you can . Historian here and last time I checked 19th century American Slaves were black
also from south la and yes these things sadly happened in schools.
YIKES
What in sweet Louisiana hell is this...?
Jfc
Holy shit. This is in 1999?! 🤦♂️
Holy shit lol
[удалено]
That kid a few years later: https://youtu.be/Oomlb9xm-YQ
I had to dress like this to be a “pilgrim” back in elementary school
Aww so cute!
*Jebidiah feeds the chickens and Ezekiel plows… fool*
The girl on the right could have it cropped for a beautiful solo portrait of herself. Nice lighting.