edited by Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson, and Syrus Marcus Ware
Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada, is a collaborative labour of love from Black communities across Canada.
One of the most radical things you can do when you have power is to relinquish and disseminate it to others who are marginalized in power. The most radical thing you can do with the ability to speak is to elevate other marginalized and invisibilized voices.
So when the University of Regina Press reached out, asking us to write about Black Lives Matter in Canada, we decided the best way to embark upon this project in alignment with the principles that continue to guide our organizing was to let Black Canada write itself.
This book is the work of visual artists and dancers and teachers and scholars and writers and mothers and fathers and people who have connections all over Canada and all over the globe. This is the work of Ravyn Ariah Wngz, Sarah Jama, El Jones, Robyn Maynard, OmiSoore H. Dryden, Gilary Massa, Silvia Argentina Arauz, Janaya Khan, QueenTite Opaleke, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Camille Turner, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Giselle Dias, Dana Inkster, Dr. Naila Keleta Mae, Randloph Riley, and Paigelina Pea Gee.
All royalties from the sale of the book go back to Black Lives Matter Canada.
Delving behind Canada’s veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond. Robyn Maynard provides readers with the first comprehensive account of nearly four hundred years of state-sanctioned surveillance, criminalization and punishment of Black lives in Canada.
While highlighting the ubiquity of Black resistance, Policing Black Lives traces the still-living legacy of slavery across multiple institutions, shedding light on the state’s role in perpetuating contemporary Black poverty and unemployment, racial profiling, law enforcement violence, incarceration, immigration detention, deportation, exploitative migrant labour practices, disproportionate child removal and low graduation rates.
Emerging from a critical race feminist framework that insists that all Black lives matter, Maynard’s intersectional approach to anti-Black racism addresses the unique and understudied impacts of state violence as it is experienced by Black women, Black people with disabilities, as well as queer, trans, and undocumented Black communities.
A call-to-action, Policing Black Lives urges readers to work toward dismantling structures of racial domination and re-imagining a more just society.
by Patrisse Cullors and asha bandele
When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele’s reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.
Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.
Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin.
Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country—and the world—that Black Lives Matter.
When They Call You a Terrorist has also been adapted for young adults.
by Leroi Newbold and illustrated by Janine Carrington
This activity book brings the #BlackLivesMatter movement and global Black liberation learning to kids! 100 pages of learning centring around 3 topics:
Self Love!
History: the Haitian Revolution, Carnival and the Bussa Rebellion, Nanny Maroon and the First Maroon War
Community Organizing: the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, AfroFurturism, Oromo Resistance, Black and Indigenous Solidarity, Healing Justice, Community Self Care, Disabilities Justice, Black LGBTQ Resistance.
Activities featured in the book include: reading comprehension, letter writing, cloze writing, science activities, word searches, crossword puzzles, mathematics word problems, recipes, colouring, and more!
You can purchase the book here.
