Jacob Robinson didn’t have a single Black teacher in elementary school in Toronto and later in Brampton, and could count the number at his high school, St. Roch Catholic Secondary School, on one hand.
But the third-year University of Waterloo student says he clearly remembers the junior high science teacher whose mistreatment of him and other Black students he now knows was racism.
She would give and check homework every day. And one day, Robinson had finished his except for one question he did not understand and approached her before class to ask about it. She didn't want to talk then and later asked him why it was not complete.