Parents criticize teacher for reading racial slur to kids at B.C. middle school

A West Shore, B.C., mother says she was appalled when she heard that a teacher in her daughter's school district read a racial slur in class during Black History Month.

Dominique Jacobs says she was the only Black kid in her class growing up, and that she was singled out and bullied because of it. Now she's concerned her daughter will go through the same thing.

"My fear for my daughter is racist bullying and all that trauma that comes along with that," she told CTV News on Monday.

The Sooke School District says the incident happened at Dunsmuir Middle School in Colwood, B.C., and parents have come out to both defend and criticize the teacher.

"To have a teacher, as a position of authority, standing up there making it OK for kids to say that word, guess what's going to happen on the playground?" said Jacobs.

The island mom says that comments made by community members on a local newspaper's social media channel that support the teacher have presented a sense of urgency.

"It's triggering and it's sickening. Like it made me physically sick," she said.

"People didn’t seem to understand any of the meaning of the context of that word and how it affects Black people and how it causes trauma to Black people."

'ANTI-RACISM STARTS WITH OUR KIDS'

Several parents have penned a letter to the school district urging the implementation of anti-racism education.

"With my white children, it’s important to me that they also grow up in an environment knowing that this language is inappropriate and harmful and damaging," said Whitney Ambeault.

"It is never, no matter the context, OK to use that word in a classroom or anywhere," added another parent, Heather Sinding. "Anti-racism starts with our kids."

Sooke School District board chair Ravi Parmar says he hears the concerns loud and clear and that the online comment thread was hard to read.

"As a person of colour I feel it each and every day that I live in my community that racism is alive and well," he said. "And systemic racism is alive in our schools."

He says an anti-racism specialist will work with staff at Dunsmuir Middle School while the district and the province work on improving anti-racism and Black history education.