Rinaldo Walcott Books

What does it mean to defund the police--and what would it take to truly do so? That a man can lose his life for passing a fake $20 bill, when we know that our economies are flush with fake money, says something damning about the ways in which we've organized society. At the nexus of the current discourse on policing and violence is the unavoidable fact that criminal codes value property more than human life, and thus substantive change isn't possible until we rethink the very idea of private property itself.

Rinaldo Walcott posits that Black people globally live in the time of emancipation and that emancipation is definitely not freedom, showing that wherever Black people have been emancipated from slavery and colonization, a potential freedom became thwarted.

Rinaldo Walcott's groundbreaking study of black culture in Canada, Black Like Who?, caused such an uproar upon its publication in 1997 that Insomniac Press has decided to publish a second revised edition of this perennial best-seller. With its incisive readings of hip-hop, film, literature, social unrest, sports, music and the electronic media, Walcott's book not only assesses the role of black Canadians in defining Canada, it also argues strenuously against any notion of an essentialist Canadian blackness. As erudite on the issue of American super-critic Henry Louis Gates' blindness to black Canadian realities as he is on the rap of the Dream Warriors and Maestro Fresh Wes, Walcott's essays are thought-provoking and always controversial in the best sense of the word. They have added and continue to add immeasurably to public debate.

Exploring the intersection of multiculturalism, diaspora, and queer identity, this collection of essays delves into Black expression and the complexities of identity politics. It challenges readers to reconsider foundational assumptions about living in a multicultural society and how these concepts interact with Black and queer identities. By posing new questions rather than providing definitive answers, the essays invite a deeper understanding of the political implications surrounding these intertwined identities.