Barrington Walker. Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario's Criminal Courts, 1858-1958.

James, Carl E.

Barrington Walker. Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario's Criminal Courts, 1858-1958. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. 276 pp. Six Images. $57.00 hc; $29.95 sc; $29.95 EBUB format.

In the wake of the recent shooting incidents in Toronto (about five involving Black youth in June and July, 2012), Torontonians--and Black community members in particular--were subjected to a discourse about Black youth that was last heard seven years ago (2005) during what was dubbed the "summer of the gun." That discourse

presented Black youth as thugs, foreigners, gang members and consequently, potential lawbreakers who were prone to violence; and that the "Black community" bears sole responsibility for addressing the issues. For its part, "the community"--often putting aside its diversity, complexity and instability--tends to take upon itself the ascribed responsibility for "our" problems.

For instance, in reacting to "the largest mass shootings in Toronto's history"--write The Globe and Mail reporters, Timothy Appleby and Adrian Morrow (July 19, 2012)--Toronto's mayor, Rob Ford, commented: "I'm going to hopefully meet with the Prime Minister to see if we can toughen our gun laws.... Once they're charged and they go to jail the most important thing is when they get out of jail. I don't want them living in the city. They can go anywhere else, but I don't want them in the city." Saying that he will have to find out "how our immigration laws work,' Ford went on to assert, "whatever I can do to get them out of the city, I'm going to, regardless of whether they have family or friends. I don't want these people, if they're convicted of a gun crime, to have anything to do with the City of Toronto. "And despite their assessment of the mayor's comments as "impulsive and careless ... some bordering on racism," Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Wendell Adjetey (themselves Black/African Canadians), in their guest contribution to Toronto Star (Tuesday, July 24, 2012), wrote that "community members" met with the mayor "to confer about possible solutions." The authors concluded that "while the mayor appeared attentive to the community's concerns, he did not seem to appreciate the feedback he received. Ford obviously believes we can arrest our way out of the problem ... [and] had no qualms telling those in attendance that he did not believe poverty is a major contributing factor--again despite evidence to the contrary."

The recent (2010) book, Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario's Criminal Courts, 1858-1958 by Barrington Walker, provides important insights for understanding and framing the recent incidents in Toronto and the mayor's comments with reference to the "foreignness" of Black bodies, including his expectations of the judicial system to deal with them, and the community members' mindset of taking responsibility for the issues. The fact is: contemporary issues and related discourses pertaining to Black people are rooted in the historical, social and judicial framework of "multicultural" Canada. As such, Walker's "study of blackness through the eyes--the legal artifacts--of the dominant culture" (12) is an important reference for understanding the institutional and judicial roots of anti-Black racism. In so doing, he sheds new light--showing the contradictions--on Canada's long-held claim of being a society in which "race does not matter," and the Underground Railroad is celebrated as a symbol of the "freedom" Canada afforded Africans who escaped enslavement in the United States of America. Walker cogently shows how blackness in Canada was "quite literally a product of the law" (5), and was "sometimes considered a part of Canada and at other times something foreign to it" (22). Historically, this foreignness has been particularly ascribed to those who break the law. In the case of those black people born outside of Canada, they tend to be forever immigrants; hence, once they commit a crime, efforts are made to have them deported.

Take the case of Fred Fountain, a native of Bahamas, who murdered his white wife and two children in 1919 in the town of Stamford, Ontario where they lived. According to Walker, "Fountain's status as a racial 'Other,' or, as one immigration official labeled him, a 'deportable immigrant,' reveals the complex articulations of race, sex, and nation that marked interracial unions" (165). Putting aside the issue of interracial marriage (which Walker examines extensively) and claims of Fountain's insanity, what is relevant here, are government officials' assertions and actions pertaining to this "deportable immigrant." After about five years in prison--having been tried and convicted twice for the murder--government officials moved to deport Fountain, a process which took about one year. His long stay in prison prompted the inspector of prisons and public charities for the province of Ontario to write to the Minister of Justice saying (something which could well have been written today): Your Department ... is now paying at the rate of $1.50 per day for keeping this man.... [Fountain] belongs to a class of foreigners who should never have been allowed into this country, and whether he is sane or insane, he is an undesirable acquisition to our population and his presence here for the balance of his life is not only a bill of expense against the Dominion Government, but it is demoralising, and there is no reason under the sun why this country should keep this type of foreigner and support him in the balance of his days.... [W]e should reserve our public institutions for our own citizens and not for foreign criminals (169-172).

Fountain was eventually "released to his own country" (172).

In Race on Trial, Walker also shows that historically, members of the Black community have often taken up the issues which they regard as a violation of members' rights and presumed innocence. This was demonstrated in the case of Harry Lee, "a mulatto" from Hamilton, Ontario, who was convicted for the murder of "a married White Jewish woman" in the early 1950s (172). Claiming that Lee was innocent of the crime, members of his Hamilton community took up the case, petitioning the Minister of Justice to provide Lee the opportunity to prove his innocence. Walker wrote that "the churches showed the strongest degree of support," much of it spearheaded by pastors who "worked tirelessly ... organizing petitions, writing letters, and ... even discussing Lee's case over the phone with an aide to the Minister of Justice" (179). In his letter to the Minister, Reverend Blair, after suggesting that Lee was not guilty of the murder, went on to say, "Our people are law abiding citizens and have no desire to pervert justice" (179). In a way, the actions and claims of the religious leaders and community members--then as today--demonstrate the compulsion they feel to contest their racialization and homogenization, thereby asserting, as Blair did to the justice minister, that "our people" are law abiding citizens.

In addition to these cases, Walker's critical and sophisticated review and analysis of Ontario's Criminal Court cases demonstrate the significant role that race played in the trial of Black defendants. Using case files (yes, Canada has had a practice of identifying people by race), he established that justice in Canada has not been colour-blind in that Blacks, like Aboriginals, did not enjoy fair and equitable treatment in the courts and other institutions. In the era (1858-1958) of Canadian nation building, the idea of Canada being a safe haven and a democratic society was contradicted by the treatment of Black people by the courts. The cases that Walker references highlight the paternalist gaze, the perceived "moral indiscretions" of Black men and women, and the alleged sexual danger of Black men--all of which contributed to the need for them to be policed, incarcerated, and deported. In the tradition of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Walker, an historian, tells of what life was like for Black men and women and the ways in which the Ontario courts dealt with them to produce, reinforce and support "a liberal racial order" (183) or racial stratification. Indeed, as Walker concludes: "Theirs was a life characterized by the contradictions of formal legal equality on the one hand and profound legally supported social inequality on the other: immigration restrictions, discrimination in the labour market, and a Canadian version of 'Jim Crowism'" (183).

Walker contends that his text is to serve--it is hoped--as a call for scholars of Black Canadian history to look to what the law can tell us about the "legal freedom and socially supported discrimination" Blacks have historically faced in Canada (185). Indeed, doing so can uncover much about the experiences of Blacks in Canada pre- and post-confederation. I would argue that with this compelling text, Walker has succeeded in his goal to "understand how race was expressed in the Canadian context and to comprehend the Black Canadian past on its own terms" (185). As is the goal of any historian, Walker encourages us, the readers, to critically connect the myriad ways that the present experiences of Blacks--especially given their disproportionate contact with the law--is undoubtedly rooted and bound in a history of Canada being an inequitable, discriminatory and difficult country in which to live.

Carl E. James

Director, York Centre for Education and Community, York University

References:

Appleby, T., and A. Morrow. 2012. Ford wants to force all convicted gun criminals out of Toronto. The Globe and Mail, July 19. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/ford-wants-to-force-all-convicted-gun-criminals- out-of-toronto/article4426741/.

Owusu-Bempah, A., and W. Adjetey. 2012. Mayor Rob Ford simplifies issue of gun violence. The Toronto Star, July 24. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/123115--mayor-rob-ford-simplifies-issue-of-gun- violence.