Colour Matters

Author: Carl E. James

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Based 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 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.  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.

Carl E. James holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora in the Faculty of Education at York University and is the Senior Advisor on Equity and Representation at York University, as part of the Division of Equity, People and Culture. He is a Professor in the Faculty of Education, and holds cross-appointments in Graduate Programs in Sociology, Social and Political Thought, and Social Work. He is also the university’s Affirmative Action, Equity and Inclusivity Officer, and was the Director of the York Centre on Education & Community (2008-2016), which he founded. James served as director of York’s Graduate Program in Sociology from 2007-2008, and was one of six Advisors to the Ontario Minister of Education and Premier.

James is widely recognized for his research contributions in the areas of intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, class and citizenship as they shape identification/identity.