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High-profile criticism of a London District Catholic school board push against assigning books that contain the N-word to avoid causing emotional harm in classrooms is being echoed by a group of two dozen students at one city high school.
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At Regina Mundi Catholic College – which is at the centre of the fallout of the criticism – a group of 25 Grade 12 English students signed a petition stating that reading Lawrence Hill’s the Book of Negroes, which contains the slur 23 times, wasn’t a harmful experience.
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“We believe that preventing teaching books by Black authors who have used the N-word is censorship,” states the petition, which has been sent to board administration and trustees. “We were not emotionally harmed, but learned about our past, and how to overcome hardships in our own lives.”
That’s essentially the argument put forth by Hill himself – the celebrated Canadian author who first made public the London Catholic board’s move to de-emphasize books that include the N-word. He became aware after being contacted by Heather Hamilton, a Regina Mundi teacher.
Hamilton has been placed on paid leave amid a school board investigation. Hill expressed outrage over the move in an interview earlier this week with The Free Press.
“I admire she feels strongly about introducing Black literature to her students and I admire that she opposes firm instructions not to teach to entire classrooms books that contain the N-word,” Hill, the author of 11 books, said.
Brody Smith, who was in Hamilton’s English class during the 2019-2020 school year, is also speaking out in defence of teaching the Book of Negroes.
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Now a software engineering student at Western University, he wrote in an email to The Free Press that Hamilton “was always compassionate and sensitive to the disposition of the class” while teaching.
“Multiple times across multiple days, before reading and analyzing portions of the book in class, she would check in and see whether any people objected to the use of the word,” Smith wrote.
“The book provides a visceral description of the reality of the slave trade” unmatched by any history class he took, he wrote.
The Catholic board’s spokesperson, Mark Adkinson, has previously said the board is “not banning or censoring books,” noting it’s taking “an informed approach that certain books containing triggering language and content should not be required or mandatory reading for assessments in our schools.”
Hamilton has declined comment.
@HeatheratLFP
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