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A review by savanna36c34
The Skin We're in: A Year of Black Resistance and Power by Desmond Cole
5.0
Compelling, urgent, ambitious in scope, and brilliantly realized. Everyone who thinks we don’t have pervasive anti-blackness in Canada—or problems with racism, homophobia, ableism, and colonialism—should read this. And if, like me, you’re aware of some problems but ignorant of many others, you should read it as well.
Cole not only presents extensive evidence on all of these fronts, from municipal to federal levels, but also establishes systemic connections between such injustices from pre-Confederacy to 2017, focusing principally on 2017. Equally important, he highlights the extensive work that he, Black Lives Matter Toronto, and other activists are and have been doing in response.
Throughout, Cole’s prose is moving, and this book is a pleasure to read on the merits of the writing alone—while its conclusions are beyond relevant. It’s also available in audio form, read by the author, which I highly recommend as well.
Cole not only presents extensive evidence on all of these fronts, from municipal to federal levels, but also establishes systemic connections between such injustices from pre-Confederacy to 2017, focusing principally on 2017. Equally important, he highlights the extensive work that he, Black Lives Matter Toronto, and other activists are and have been doing in response.
Throughout, Cole’s prose is moving, and this book is a pleasure to read on the merits of the writing alone—while its conclusions are beyond relevant. It’s also available in audio form, read by the author, which I highly recommend as well.