Images from Quebec high school homework assignment called out as racist

Published February 2, 2022 at 4:40 pm

MONTREAL — A homework assignment distributed to high school students on Montreal’s south shore is being called racist because it asks them to describe two “gangsters” who resemble racialized people.

George Stetka, the father of a Grade 7 student at Centennial Regional High School in Greenfield Park, Que., says he was shocked when his daughter came home Tuesday with the assignment.

The exercise asks students to describe two “gangsters” — a character resembling a Black woman holding a firearm and a dark-skinned man wearing a bandana and with his pants hanging low.

Education Department spokesman Bryan St-Louis said today in a statement that the images of the homework shared on social media do not allow the department to identify the publisher of the material.

He says the material is unlikely approved by the government and that the department is taking the situation seriously and would investigate.

Centennial’s school board did not immediately return a request for comment.