The much-anticipated first book by journalist and activist Desmond Cole. He uses his experience of 2017 as a frame to talk about Black life and Black struggles in Canada. If you are someone who is glued to grassroots activist social media in the Canadian context, many of the incidents and struggles that Cole speaks about will be familiar. But whether you are or not, read it anyway: He puts it all together in a way that is highly compelling, that tells cohesive and engaging stories that the tumult of Twitter can never match, and that places them firmly in broader contexts. It is written with all the care and precision of well-done long-form journalism, while the narrative is driven forward by its grounding it Cole’s own experiences, his involvement in struggle, and his passion for justice and liberation. I think the best part of the book is how it moves. As I said, the anchor is the frame of the year, with each chapter organized around a month, and Cole’s own experience is the thread to which it constantly returns, but then within each chapter it weaves across different scales, issues, paces, voices, times, and sources in a way that really works. Readable, powerful, infuriating, and essential to anyone who wants to understand this country and the struggles made necessary here by white supremacy, settler colonialism, and anti-Blackness.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.