DANIEL EHRENWORTHP.S. You can reach
me at [email protected].S
ix years ago, I met the journalist
Desmond Cole for a coffee that
took a surprise turn. At the time,
I worked at Toronto Life magazine,
and I wanted him to write for us
about racial profiling and carding—
the controversial practice by police
in many cities of stopping black
men on the street, often with-
out cause, and demanding to
see ID. Then he mentioned
that he’d personally been
stopped some 50 times. I
was stunned. That, I said—
write about that!
The resulting story, “The
Skin I’m In,” described his
frustration, shame andanger at being carded, of seeing every
police officer as a potential threat,
of women crossing the street at his
approach, of always feeling judged. It
prompted a city-wide reckoning about
racist policies and coincided with the
rise of the Black Lives Matter move-
ment in North America.
Now Cole has written a book, The
Skin We’re In, that lays bare patterns
of racism across the country and espe-
cially in how Canada rebuffs black
immigrants. That’s the subject of a
chapter we excerpt in this issue ofRD
(“The Invisible Wall,” page 92). Cole
describes people who’ve risked freezing
to death while trying to cross the bor-
der and claim asylum, the deportation
of Haitians back to their earthquake-
ravaged country, and the Caribbean
nurses and domestic workers who’ve
fought for respect and for their basic
rights. He proves the lie that we’re liv-
ing in a post-racial utopia. And he’ll
leave you feeling frustrated, full of
shame and angry, too.More Than
Skin Deep
reader’s digest
4 may 2020
EDITOR’S LETTER