Colour Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education, and Pursuits of Black Youth

Review\n"In this insightful new collection of essays, James has presented a complex, and often disturbing, portrait of the educational experiences of Black students in Canada. Stereotyping, micro-aggressions, lowered expectations, and obstacles of all kinds obstruct the dreams and aspirations of too many. For those who seek to understand and intervene to make education a resource for equity and justice, this volume will be an invaluable resource." -- Pedro A. Noguera, Dean, University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education\n"These essays tell a story of over two decades of continuous Black struggles in Canada and elsewhere for justice. Told largely through encounters with formal educational institutions, Colour Matters plots the intractable nature of anti-Black racism in those institutions. James does not end there, though – he also shows how students, parents, and communities produce change and will continue to do so. These essays are an academic biography of sorts, mapping James’s own intellectual journey as researcher and advocate. This is an achievement." -- Rinaldo Walcott, Director, Women and Gender Studies Institute, and Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto\nBased on research conducted in Black communities, along with over thirty years of teaching experience, Colour Matters presents a collection of essays that engages educators, youth workers, and policymakers to think about the ways in which race shapes the education, aspirations, and achievements of Black Canadians. Informed by the current socio-political Canadian landscape, Colour Matters covers topics relating to the lives of Black youth, with particular, though not exclusive, attention to young Black men in the Greater Toronto Area.
The essays reflect the issues and concerns of the past thirty years, and question what has changed and what has remained the same. Each essay is accompanied by an insightful response from a scholar engaging with topics such as immigration, schooling, athletics, mentorship, and police surveillance. With the perspectives of scholars from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, Colour Matters provides provocative narratives of Black experiences that alert us to what more might be said, or said differently, about the social, cultural, educational, political, and occupational worlds of Black youth in Canada. This book probes the ongoing need to understand, in nuanced and complex ways, the marginalization and racialization of Black youth in a time of growing demands for a societal response to anti-Black racism.