Toronto police are investigating after racist hate mail was delivered to the Ontario office of the Canadian Federation of Students just a week after the group launched a task force to study racism on college and university campuses.
The group received an envelope at its Toronto office last week containing two newspaper clippings: A recent editorial cartoon from the New York Times that caused an uproar because it appeared to portray U.S. President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee; and a picture of federation representative Hildah Otieno, who is from Kenya.
Both clippings had racially charged phrases such as “refugee dog” and “KKK” scrawled over them.
“It was very jarring,” Otieno said.
She and her colleagues discussed the incident for several days before deciding to go public. The mail was handed over to Toronto police, who are investigating.
On Tuesday, the racism task force made a stop at Queen’s University in Kingston, where Otieno spoke about the hate mail.
The federation’s Task Force on Campus Racism is holding hearings through April and will then prepare a report to be released this fall.
