‘Policing Black Lives’ book looks at Canada’s problems with anti-black racism
Posted February 24, 2018 5:52 pm.
Last Updated October 18, 2021 12:08 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – We Canadians like to think we’re a tolerant and progressive people, especially when compared to our neighbours to the south.
However, the author of a new book argues we aren’t exactly in a position to lecture anyone when it comes to racism.
“It’s absolutely endemic, really, in Canadian society,” explains Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present.
She says racism knows no borders, and Canada has its own problems with anti-black racism.
“So, I think that, while, we’re often taught, for example, to identify things like segregation [and] segregated schooling as something that’s an American phenomenon,” she explains. “People don’t know the last segregated school in Ontario closed in 1965 and the last segregated school in Canada actually closed in 1983.”
Maynard also points out Black Canadians are incarcerated at a rate three times greater than that of the general population as well.
“So, a lot of the issues that are represented to us as an American crisis are actually fundamentally a Canadian crisis as well, and always have been.”
She will be in town next week for the Vancouver launch of Policing Black Lives. The event is set for Thursday at SFU Harbour Centre.
