‘This isn’t OK. This has been going on for years’
Parent calls for change after assignment asks students to pretend to be colonists; HCCI calls for meeting with board
After her 13-year-old daughter was asked to adopt the mindset of French colonists attempting to sway Indigenous people to let them stay, a Hamilton mother is calling for changes in how Hamilton’s Catholic board addresses acts of racism at its schools.
Denika Manswell was driving to a work meeting last Thursday when her daughter, a Grade 7 student, called to express reservations about an upcoming history assignment.
“I asked her why and she said they were asking her to be a colonizer,” Manswell said, noting it’s not typical of her daughter to have issues with school work and that she’s “very academically focused.”
The assignment asked students to pretend they were a 16th-century colonist from France.
“You have just discovered North America,” the assignment reads. “The aboriginal people that were there before you are having issues with you staying.”
Students were then asked to write a speech convincing the Aboriginal people of their plans to settle on the land. Manswell was taken aback.
“I couldn’t believe that this is an actual assignment you’re giving to middle school students — or to anyone — to write on,” she said. “I told her you’re not writing from that perspective. You can write from the perspective of the Aboriginals and how they must have felt.”
Manswell emailed the teacher and told him that the assignment was insensitive. She asked to speak with the school’s principal and superintendent.
On Monday, the school’s principal, Lucio Iassogna, called Manswell to express sympathies and ask what she’d like to be done.
A nice gesture, Manswell said, but one she felt lacked credence.
She said there’s been a pattern of racially charged incidents at the school — and a pattern of inaction.
Earlier this year, when kids were still in school, Manswell said her daughter came home in tears after a group of boys refused to stop singing a song with the
N-word around her.
“She asked them to stop and they didn’t. She went to the principal and told him what was happening,” said Manswell, who added her eldest daughter also attended the school in years past and experienced similar acts of racism.
“Obviously, I called the school asking if they were aware and what would be done.”
“This isn’t OK. This has been going on for years. What is your policy when children experience racism?” Manswell told the principal at the time. “I was basically told there is no policy in place, and I was a little outraged. There should be zerotolerance to racism.”
The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board’s equity and inclusive education policy mentions the word racism once. The words “Black” and “Indigenous” do not appear at all. There is also no policy listed concerning consequences to discriminatory behaviour.
Manswell said in the case of the boys who repeatedly sang a racial epithet in front of her daughter, the school had them apologize.
“I don’t think that’s good enough because my daughter is going to carry this,” she said. “If this happens in a workplace, people lose their jobs.”
Pat Daly, chair of the school board, said he’s unaware of the incident involving the boys, but stressed the board remains committed to disavowing discrimination in all forms.
“I absolutely agree that if staff, students, anyone, is using the N-word or (committing) any other act of racism, then absolutely there should be consequences, for sure,” he said.
As for the assignment, Daly characterized it as an isolated incident, albeit “insensitive, inappropriate,” and hopes “the parents will understand that.” He expressed regret on behalf of the board and apologized to the Indigenous community.
The Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, along with Manswell, have called for a meeting with the board to address what the group’s executive director Kojo Damptey calls a “continued pattern of systemic racism” at the board’s schools.
A date for the meeting has not yet been set.
“If this happens in a workplace, people lose their jobs.” DENIKA MANSWELL
HAMILTON MOTHER