Like any good movie, television show, or stage play, this discussion with Dr. Cheryl Thompson has everything! We talk about news and entertainment culture, a history of police action against Black bodies, the impatience of middle aged womanhood … and Idris Elba. We began our conversation about her latest book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom 1812-1897 (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2025) over at the New Books Network before coming here, where the exploration and the laughs continued.
In this conversation we reference:
Plessy v. Ferguson: The landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known “separate but equal.”
Jim Crow: We also explore the origins of the term “Jim Crow” in our New Books Network discussion.
Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty (Coach House Books, 2021) by Dr. Cheryl Thompson.
George Floyd, Rodney King, Emmett Till, and Trayvon Martin
“The mask” alludes to an 1895 poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar entitled “We Wear the Mask.”
Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives
Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2019) by Dr. Cheryl Thompson.
“Biggie,” also known as The Notorious B.I.G.
Finally, I did my post-discussion homework and searched for Black Canadian actors on the internet. There are a few, province-specific lists out there, as well as Black Actors Canada on Instagram, celebrating creatives across the entertainment industry.
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