Public input wanted after teacher reportedly utters N-word in class

An emergency town hall meeting is giving people the opportunity to weigh in on how the community should respond to an incident which saw a Windsor teacher reportedly use a racist slur twice in front of students.

“There's a lot of anti-Black racism practised in all of the schools that is not dealt with in a way that leaves our children harmed in some ways,” said Leslie McCurdy, chair of the Black Council of Windsor-Essex.

Earlier this month, students spoke out after they said a teacher at Kennedy Collegiate said the N-word in class.

The teacher is said to have been expressing disapproval over the word's use in a song being played in the classroom by students.

According to students, the teacher used the word again during a separate meeting about the original incident.

“In terms of equitable treatment, the teacher should've been suspended for a day just like a student would have been suspended for a day,” said McCurdy.

The incident prompted the council to call an “emergency town hall” Saturday afternoon over Zoom where the public was invited to suggest next steps for how “people in power” and the general community should respond to the incident and seek accountability.

But, according to the council, the call-to action goes far beyond the incident at Kennedy Collegiate.

“It's a very complicated issue, the N-word, its historic use and the duality of the use that exists within the Black community and the fact that we in the Black community request that it not be used by anyone else in any way,” added McCurdy.

The Black Council is calling for the teacher to make a public apology and briefly step away from teaching to reflect on the impact of uttering the racial slur.

“Yes, Black people use the word sometimes, but we have received the same kind of cultural conditioning as everyone else,” said McCurdy.

“For any person who is non-melanated to say that word in any capacity is wrong.”