This collection of essays on racism and race issues in Canada builds upon a three-day conference held in November 2000 in Vancouver which discussed “the nature of racism, its effects, and approaches to eliminating it in the coming century” (preface). This book offers thoughts, positions, arguments and suggestions that arose from the dialogues at this multidisciplinary conference that included social scientists, academics in the field of education and community activists. Perhaps for this reason, it is a valuable book in that it reminds us that this country which prides itself on its multiculturalism is not as accepting of, or comfortable for, persons of different racial identities as some would like to believe or promote. As well, it illustrates some of the particular difficulties facing persons dealing with racism and identity issues. This book succeeds in explicitly demonstrating what seems obvious to many: Canada, like most countries, struggles with questions of justice and identity politics. Race, Racialization, and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond reinforces these realities about Canada—its social policies and its culture—through persuasive chapters, without, however, really offering any prescriptive policy plans to alleviate racially discriminatory practices or gaps in cultural sensitivity. This book does, though, meet its goal to “uncover the often unrecognized ways in which old prejudices and blatant racisms are revived and repackaged in contemporary discourse” (11).

In Goldberg's chapter entitled “Raceless State,” he reveals the interesting struggle of the modern commitment to addressing racism that is “racelessness.” By adopting a policy of colour-blindness or racelessness, he argues, the Anglo-American liberal tradition treats those who are de facto unalike as de jure alike. “In all [the] variations, racelessness was as much a refusal to address, let alone redress, deeply etched historical inequities and inequities racially fashioned as it was an expressed embrace of principles of a race-ignoring fairness and equal opportunity” (212). Racelessness aims at moving beyond racial histories without actually coming to terms with them. Therefore, the paradox of a modern liberal commitment to racelessness is that in attempting to transcend racially discriminatory practices, it actually reinforces racial divides in a number of ways.

Chapters 2 and 3, the first substantive chapters of the book, are dedicated to the evaluation of Canadian education with respect to race issues. In chapter 2, Carl James demonstrates how, consistent with the message offered in Goldberg's chapter which is found later in the book, “the interests of marginalized students are best served in a democratic education system that does not attempt to assimilate them into the mainstream but instead provides them with an education that acknowledges their differences and that affords them equitable opportunities to achieve their aspirations” (18). His message is that students do not find equality or justice in their schools which do not provide a system in which they can “affirm their identities, influence the curriculum, and obtain an education that enables them to realize their educational and occupational goals” (31).

Chapter 3 focuses on the capacity of teachers to actually address the needs of marginalized children in their schools. This study might have benefited from a wider research base; rather than abstracting from a voluntary survey of then current students of one teachers' education program, the author might have investigated more programs across Canada as well as newly graduated teachers to assess the programs for their ability to prepare new teachers to deal with the complexities of Canadian multicultural student bodies. This chapter shows that current student teachers (the academic year of 1999–2000) in a particular program felt that their education does not adequately prepare them for the realities of racial issues present in Canadian schools.

Chapter 9 examines the way people (especially children) who are multi-racial (mixed-race) cope with their racial identities and how they are treated. In this chapter, Taylor, James and Saul begin and end their discussion with reference to the 2001 Supreme Court of Canada case which ruled that the custody of a particular child of a Canadian white mother and a black father living in southern United States should reside with the father because “being raised in an Afro-American family in a part of the world where the Black population is proportionately greater than it is here, would to some extent be less difficult [for the child] than it would be in Canada” (152). This chapter demonstrates the additional challenges faced by multi-racial individuals in dealing with issues of race and identity.

This book, in its entirety, attempts to deal with all aspects of Canadian society, from education to law to labour to media and city planning. This is a considerable task and this book tackles it well. The organization of this book might have benefited if Goldberg's contribution had been situated at the beginning of the book, as it seems to set the stage from a more theoretical perspective, and if the last chapter of the book had more explicitly addressed Canadian society. Overall, this is an interesting book that is successful in highlighting current matters of concern in multicultural Canada.