Parents shocked by "n-word" in homework assignment

CTV Montreal: “N-word” on homework Two women are speaking out after their daughters brought home a homework assignment with a racial slur on it.

Two women are speaking out after their children brought home school work that they say included a racial slur.

The homework assignment from Academie St-Clement in Town of Mount-Royal asked students to use the word “negre” in a grammar exercise.

While “negre” can be translated as “negro,” it can also be used in a far more pejorative way, comparable to “n---er” in English.

Nathalie, the mother of one of the 11-year-old girls, said her daughter was very upset.

“She was like ‘Mom, we’re not supposed to use that word, right?’” she said. “And I said, ‘No, we’re not supposed to, it’s a bad word.’”

Nathalie’s daughter, who asked not to be identified, said she went to her teacher, who defended the choice of words.

“I didn’t think he would react like that,” she said. “He acted like it was a normal word.”

Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations Director Fo Niemi said the assignment was made even more offensive by the nature of the other words the students were asked to use.

“The whole document refers to objects and animals and this one is right after the animals,” he said. “That’s the only word in this document that refers to people, that’s why we think there’s objectification and a very insidious form of racism at play.”

The parents said they plan to lodge an official complaint with the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Board after spring break. The school board refused CTV’s request for an interview but did issue a statement.

“Regarding the document, it was not created by the CSM but by a publishing house,” they said. “The school board will make recommendations to the publisher to remove the offensive words from the workbook. The CSMB does not endorse in any way the use of such an expression.”

Jerome Coulombe, director of publisher Editions De L’Envolee, said the assignment has been in use since the 1990s and he would have removed it had anyone complained.

“If they would have called me and told this word is in your book, I would have changed it right away,” he said. “It’s not like I said ‘I won’t change it, it’s fine.’ I’m not even close to saying that, so I do think it’s overblown…. They’re going to hurt us a lot and this really is a mistake that happened 20-something years ago and at the time, things were different.”

Coulombe said the document and the offending word are being pulled immediately.