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Biography & Autobiography. Politics. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML:NATIONAL BESTSELLER A bracing, provocative, and perspective-shifting book from one of Canada's most celebrated and uncompromising writers, Desmond Cole. The Skin We're In will spark a national conversation, influence policy, and inspire activists. In his 2015 cover story for Toronto Life magazine, Desmond Cole exposed the racist actions of the Toronto police force, detailing the dozens of times he had been stopped and interrogated under the controversial practice of carding. The story quickly came to national prominence, shaking the country to its core and catapulting its author into the public sphere. Cole used his newfound profile to draw insistent, unyielding attention to the injustices faced by Black Canadians on a daily basis. Both Cole's activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We're In. Puncturing the bubble of Canadian smugness and naive assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year�??2017�??in the struggle against racism in this country. It was a year that saw calls for tighter borders when Black refugees braved frigid temperatures to cross into Manitoba from the States, Indigenous land and water protectors resisting the celebration of Canada's 150th birthday, police across the country rallying around an officer accused of murder, and more. The year also witnessed the profound personal and professional ramifications of Desmond Cole's unwavering determination to combat injustice. In April, Cole disrupted a Toronto police board meeting by calling for the destruction of all data collected through carding. Following the protest, Cole, a columnist with the Toronto Star, was summoned to a meeting with the paper's opinions editor and informed that his activism violated company policy. Rather than limit his efforts defending Black lives, Cole chose to sever his relationship with the publication. Then in July, at another police board meeting, Cole challenged the board to respond to accusations of a police cover-up in the brutal beating of Dafonte Miller by an off-duty police officer and his brother. When Cole refused to leave the meeting until the question was publicly addressed, he was arrested. The image of Cole walking out of the meeting, handcuffed and flanked by officers, fortified the distrust between the city's Black community and its police force. Month-by-month, Cole creates a comprehensive picture of entrenched, systemic inequality. Urgent, controversial, and unsparingly honest, The Skin We're In is destined to become a vital text for anti-racist and social justice movements in Canada, as well as a potent antidote to the all-too-present complacency of many white Cana… (more)
User reviews
I've followed Cole's journalism off and on for the past few years—he came to my attention via the Canadaland podcast, and has said and written so many insightful things since. But this book is the polished summa that pulls it all together.
It covers a year and a month in his life as an activism (Jan 2017-Jan 2018) and the breadth of significant events in Canada, and his activist responses to those events for this period, says so much about Canada's racist present.
Cole lives and works in Toronto but his own life story and activist connections give him insight into Nova Scotia as well. I really appreciate that Nova Scotia and its historic Black community is part of his story of Black life in Canada—living in a country that is in denial about its culture and structures of white supremacy. (As well, he briefly relates some significant moments from Black history in NS that illuminate the present.)
The movement that has been rekindled and broadened as a result of the killing of George Floyd is a crucial movement in Canada too—and I can't imagine a better, more compelling book to help people understand that.
He discusses our history of racism going back to the earliest French and English
Using case histories that he has witnessed or worked on, he shows how systemic racism exists in government, the justice system and especially the national and municipal police services in Canada. We often look down on Americans for their obvious racial discrimination but he offers enough evidence that shows that Canada's record on race is nothing to be particularly proud of.
Some of his solutions seem to me to be too all encompassing and he seem to make the assumption that all individuals of colour are innocent of misdemeanors. I recognize that the system is stacked against them but particularity when he writes about the immigration system, he makes blanket demands that do not seem to offer an option to turn away obvious criminals.
An uncomfortable book for a liberal who has read extensively about slavery and racism in the US and Canada and actually rode my bicycle from Mobil, Alabama to Owen Sound, Ontario Canada following one of the many routes of the Underground Railroad.