The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole

Hardcover, read January 2021

This book is a tour de force, a month-by-month look at contemporary, historical, and systemic anti-Black racism in Canada. I learned so much in reading this, about massive untaught swaths of Canada’s anti-Black history, as well as details and nuance of high-profile cases of anti-Black racism in the past decade.

Cole’s voice is sharp, clear, and angry, and I was angry too. My white privilege means that I can get angry when anti-Black racism makes headlines, then go back to a passive simmer when the headlines change. This book lays out the people, obstacles, events, and developments that led to the headlines, and the work that communities have to keep doing long after the headlines change. I knew, in some abstract way, what is at stake when we talk about systemic racism, but I either refused to listen or never heard how deep, wealthy, and powerful that system really is. I think I could not fathom how people could carry out such evil. I still can’t.

I recommend this book for every Canadian. We have a terrible habit of thinking we are better than our neighbours to the south, but our oppression seems to mostly just be sneakier. Maybe we don’t see it because we will not look for it, so convinced are we that it isn’t there. But look. Learn. Start here.