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193 reviews for:
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present
Robyn Maynard
4.61 AVERAGE
193 reviews for:
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present
Robyn Maynard
4.61 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
An incredibly detailed, very well researched work that covers a lot while also making great connections between the many elements of racism and colonialism in Canada.
As someone who lives in Canada, and was unaware of the depth of systemic racism, I really appreciated the eye-opening lens on immigration, child welfare, and (mis)education.
This work contains a lot of hard truths that we all, especially for those of us in the imperialist core, must absorb and allow to change us. Without knowing the hard truths, we will not be able to move past them.
As someone who lives in Canada, and was unaware of the depth of systemic racism, I really appreciated the eye-opening lens on immigration, child welfare, and (mis)education.
This work contains a lot of hard truths that we all, especially for those of us in the imperialist core, must absorb and allow to change us. Without knowing the hard truths, we will not be able to move past them.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The most beautiful and impressive use of statistics I have ever read. Even when she has to dip to the States for numbers (often, as Canada's social stats are so lacking in many areas), all points are as unarguably evidenced as they are grounded in the personal experiences of racialized Black people. Indigenous, queer, disabled, and women's experiences are highlighted wherever possible. Please allow me to pull an "every(non-BIPOC) should read this book", because it is true.
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
This was a richly detailed book. It beautifully traces the legacy of slavery and how social services, child welfare, immigration, education, and criminal justice systems continue to uphold and replicate its inequalities within our settler colonial state. The book so broadly documents the impacts of racial inequality, that sometimes the individual stories get lost in the breadth of the discussion. This is both a strength and a weakness of the book, since the breadth captures the vast scope of the problem, but also sometimes misses the depth of detailing individual narratives. Maynard demonstrates her ability to tell individual stories in the chapter Law Enforcement Violence Against Black Women which documents the stories of 6 individual women. This was my favourite part of the book. This is an excellent book for any educators of social justice, for those involved in community organizing or justice work, or for anyone who works within government organizations to help make their procedures and practices more equitable.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This book was jam-packed with information from problems with policing in general to the school to prison pipeline to the child welfare system and the racist underpinnings of anti-sex-work laws (which was particularly interesting to me). It was great to learn more about the Canadian context, which is so often overshadowed by US stats and often erroneously held up as better than the situation in the US. Although centring Black lives, the book regularly acknowledges the relationship between anti-Blackness and colonialism, with analysis of the relationship between anti-immigration and laws/ways of policing that disproportionately harm Black communities, and regular acknowledgment of the gross overpolicing and other colonial violence against First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. This is a book I could see myself referencing many times over.
A crucial read for all non-black Canadians. Attentively and expertly written, Maynard pays equal attention to both quantitative data/statistics as well as the lived experiences of black folks to document the reality of anti- black state violence in Canada. Emotionally charged and meticulously referenced, even if you are not one for non-fiction this accessible piece of work will leave you utterly gripped. Her critical race and feminist intersectional framework is especially appreciated for illuminating the multiple forms of oppression that work to mutually reinforce one another. In a society that claims to be post-racial and multicultural, this book is so important to explain exactly how racism and compounding systems of oppression touch down to shape the lives of black peoples in Canada.
challenging
medium-paced
Informative and a bold confrontation towards the invented cultural identity held by so many Canadians - specifically related to myths still perpetrated about our country being a place of equality and multiculturalism.
Canadian Black history is not just left untold in Canada - but it is actively suppressed and substituted for invented feel-good narratives (in service of absolving the state of it's role in oppressing black, and other non-white, people).
This book provides both an accessible yet also extremely academic overview of Black History in Canada (spanning from slavery to the contemporary BLM movement) that is deeply needed in order to anchor ourselves in historical reality.
I think this history and analysis is an absolutely necessary first step in both understanding and organizing against the various systems of oppression still pathologizing, incriminating, and subjugating black and indigenous people within Canada. I learned so much!!
Canadian Black history is not just left untold in Canada - but it is actively suppressed and substituted for invented feel-good narratives (in service of absolving the state of it's role in oppressing black, and other non-white, people).
This book provides both an accessible yet also extremely academic overview of Black History in Canada (spanning from slavery to the contemporary BLM movement) that is deeply needed in order to anchor ourselves in historical reality.
I think this history and analysis is an absolutely necessary first step in both understanding and organizing against the various systems of oppression still pathologizing, incriminating, and subjugating black and indigenous people within Canada. I learned so much!!
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced