MONTREAL – A group of about 30 HEC Montréal students who painted their faces black and paraded around the university pretending to be Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt as part of a freshman event have completed courses in racial sensitivity training.
The incident in early September was posted on YouTube, garnering nationwide attention and prompting an official apology from the business school. Some students also chanted “Smoke some weed, mon,” and at least one was seen clutching a stuffed monkey.
The university created a customized racial awareness program, designed and presented in part by Vivian Barbot, a Haitian-born former member of Parliament who is the interim president of the Bloc Québécois and a specialist in intercultural education.
The students attended three sessions totalling 10 hours. The university will require student associations and groups that organize activities to take the sessions in the future.
“Many people, and we agreed with this, said they didn’t think this was a racist act based on racism – it was based on ignorance,” said HEC secretary general Jacques Nantel. “I think (the students) realized very early that this hadn’t been the best idea in town.”
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In the first session students discussed and examined why the incident created an uproar. In the second, the students were shown what an incident like that could mean for the community at large, and especially for the group targeted. The third session focused on what racial sensitivity means in daily life, particularly for future managers working in a multicultural environment.
“We try to get them to understand a racist act is not necessarily just a product of its intention, but much more in how it is perceived by others,” Nantel said.
Anthony Morgan, the McGill law student of Jamaican descent who videotaped the group in blackface, said he never thought the students were intentionally malicious, but that didn’t mean their actions weren’t offensive and hurtful. Morgan contemplated filing a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission, but decided against it because he felt the university was taking the incident seriously.
Morgan is calling on the school to increase diversity in terms of its students, professors and administrators to address what he described as an “institutional” problem with the way students are educated and socialized at HEC. The university has said it is making changes to its student code of conduct on the topic of racism, and will by modifying its policy regarding harassment.
On top of the racial sensitivity sessions, Morgan said he would like HEC to alter its curriculum to involve more awareness of foreign cultures “so this blackface thing wouldn’t arrive in the first place because the sensitivity and understanding would already be there.” The university already offers those types of course to second- and third-year students, Nantel said, especially since 40 per cent of its students go on to work abroad.
Nantel stressed that the incident occurred with students who had only been at the school for a week. (Morgan noted, however, that it is senior students who organize frosh events.)
“We learned that behaviour that we took for granted wouldn’t occur sometimes does …” Nantel said. “I spoke with many people at many universities and one thing was clear – no one is sheltered from this type of incident.
“An action that is considered innocuous can become stupid very quickly. The group effect can multiply it. … If there was a lesson, it is that you have to be vigilant … and you have to pass the message on a regular basis.”
The university will launch an awareness campaign next semester disseminated on video screens throughout the school on the issue of respect, with a focus on racism and sexism.
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