The year also witnessed the profound personal and professional ramifications of Desmond Cole’s unwavering determination to combat injustice. It was a year that saw calls for tighter borders when Black refugees braved frigid temperatures to cross into Manitoba from the States, Indigenous land and water protectors resisting the celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, police across the country rallying around an officer accused of murder, and more.

Puncturing the bubble of Canadian smugness and naive assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year-2017-in the struggle against racism in this country.

Cole used his newfound profile to draw insistent, unyielding attention to the injustices faced by Black Canadians on a daily basis.īoth Cole’s activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We’re In. The story quickly came to national prominence, shaking the country to its core and catapulting its author into the public sphere. In his 2015 cover story for Toronto Life magazine, Desmond Cole exposed the racist actions of the Toronto police force, detailing the dozens of times he had been stopped and interrogated under the controversial practice of carding. The Skin We're In will spark a national conversation, influence policy, and inspire activists. A bracing, provocative, and perspective-shifting book from one of Canada's most celebrated and uncompromising writers, Desmond Cole.

The Skin We're In by Desmond Cole