A teenager in Illinois is charged with a hate crime after posting a "Slave for Sale" ad online, offering to sell a Black student, the state attorney's office announced in a statement Wednesday.
According to WGN, the white student reportedly took a photo of another student at Naperville Central High School on November 14 and put the image on Craigslist with a caption that includes a racial slur and a for-sale sign. The post, which has since been deleted, described the student as a “Hardworkin thick n***a slave,” The Washington Post reported. DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin said the allegations are beyond disturbing and hate crimes will not be tolerated.
"Anyone, regardless of age, accused of such disgraceful actions will be charged accordingly," Berlin said in his statement. "I would like to thank the Naperville Police Department for their work on this case. I would also like to thank Assistant State’s Attorney Lee Roupas for his efforts on this case.”
According to the Chicago Tribune, the two freshmen boys, both 14, were sitting at the same table during lunch when the white student took the picture which he posted online. Harry Smith, the teen’s defense attorney, described the boys as friends, the Tribune reported.
Tamara Wallace, the Black student's mother, spoke to WGN and said the two freshmen stopped being friends in October when the white student started teasing her son, calling him dumb, making fun of his skin color and saying "shut up slave."
In another interview with The Chicago Tribune, the mother said her son didn’t even know the Craigslist ad had been posted.
“He was the butt of jokes for days,” she said, adding that other students made of him after seeing the ad, telling him, “I’ll buy you for a dollar.”
In an email to parents, Principal Bill Wiesbrook said the incident is not reflective of the school's values.
"We hold our students accountable for their behavior, which includes appropriate disciplinary consequences,” Wiesbrook said. "We will continue our efforts to educate our students to be more culturally aware and to produce good digital citizens."
Hey @paulkonrad on Fri the principal of NCHS D203 sent out an email (photo) in which he described a craigslist ad posted by a white student of a black student that included a racial slur as a “racially insensitive electronic post”. (1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/H2qNOXBzcF
— Claudia (@Claudia_Plans) November 18, 2019
Wallace said the white student received a two-day suspension from the school, but she felt that the punishment was too lenient, The ChicagoTribune reported.
In another racist incident in Naperville in October, a Black family at Buffalo Wild Wings was told to move to a different table because another customer did not want to sit next to Black people.
“The narrative surrounding Naperville recently is not reflective of who we are as a community,” Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico said in a statement on Facebook Wednesday. “I want us to be known and applauded for being the caring, inclusive, and welcoming community I see firsthand every day, not as a place where hate lives.”
