Students should have been shielded from racist graffiti: band council member
More should have been done to shield young Indigenous and African Nova Scotian students from seeing racist graffiti that was scrawled on one of their school buses and a sign nearby, a Mi’kmaq band council member said Thursday.
Darlene Prosper said kids arriving at the East Antigonish Education Centre on Tuesday were faced with a hate-filled piece of graffiti targeting Indigenous people that was spray painted across a bus. They also saw a message against black people on a sign near the school in Monastery, N.S.
Prosper said the Strait Regional School Board should have notified the Paqtnkek First Nation about the messages so something could have been done to inform parents or develop a plan to deal with the situation.
“What was the most frustrating was the fact that this graffiti was sprayed on the walls and the bus and the sign the evening before and it was maddening to find out that the kids had to drive into it and see it,” she said.