MONTREAL – A back-to-school event at a Montreal university is being characterized as racist after students painted themselves in blackface.
Students at the Universite de Montreal’s business school dressed up as Jamaican sprinters, with black paint covering their skin, for a frosh-week event.
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One witness, who is of Jamaican descent, said he felt uncomfortable and was shocked to hear some students chanting, “Smoke more weed.”
McGill law student Anthony Morgan, who happened to be on the campus at the time, says the students were doing the chanting in Jamaican accents. Some also wore yellow-and-green track outlets, like the Jamaican Olympic team.
Morgan says he is considering filing a human-rights complaint.
A Universite de Montreal official says the university is looking into the incident. The business school, Hautes Etudes Commerciales, says the stunt was unacceptable but he adds there were no ill intentions.
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