They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up (2020) by Eternity Martis

One women’s commentary on life in London, Canada, and at Western University and all the racism it includes. Being from London myself, this read hit close to home and really resonated. While I am not a black woman, the challenges, fights, and indignities the author documents facing while a resident of my city and a student at my alma mater was hard for me to swallow but I couldn’t deny that what she outlined was anything but the truth. An important read for anyone that isn’t a visible minority, or visible minority alike. If anything, what I took away from this read is that I need to be more aware of the words I use and the actions I take—even if I do not have racist intentions, or believe that my words and actions are anything but genuine in intentions, there are likely to be some entrenched micro-aggressions within them and I need to be attentive to these while understanding not only their origins but how to remove them as best I can from all I do. If I have any criticism of this work it would be that it wasn’t long enough and didn’t go into adequate depth to have more of an impact.