Robyn Maynard is a keynote speaker at the Racialized Workers Conference, The Realities of Racialization Seeking Solidarity, happening March 1-3 2019 at the Chelsea Hotel, Toronto. Maynard’s remarks will include what racialization is, its history and current manifestations and key issues confronting racialized people and communities.

Robyn Maynard is a Toronto-based writer and the author of Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present (Fernwood 2017). The book is a CBC national bestseller, currently in its third printing, and has been widely acclaimed since its release, designated as one of the “best 100 books of 2017” by the Hill Times, shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award, the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and the winner of the 2017 Annual Errol Morris Book Prize.

Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present received a starred review in Publishers Weekly as well as glowing coverage in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Now Toronto, Maclean’s, and the Ottawa Citizen.

In the words of the Winnipeg Free Press: ““Every Canadian — black, white, Indigenous or otherwise — could benefit from reading Maynard’s frank and thorough assessment of racism in Canada.”

Maynard has published writing in the Washington Post, World Policy Journal, the Toronto Star, the Montreal Gazette TOPIA, Canadian Women’s Studies journal, as well as an essay for Maisonneuve Magazine which won the acclaim of “most-read essay of 2017.”

Her writing on race, gender, and discrimination is taught widely in universities across Canada and the United States. Her expertise is regularly sought in local, national and international media outlets and she has spoken before Parliamentary subcommittees, the Human Rights Committee of the Senate, and the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent.

Maynard has a long history of involvement in community activism and advocacy. She been a part of grassroots movements against racial profiling, police violence, detention and deportation for over a decade and has an extensive work history in harm reduction-based service provision serving sex workers, drug users, incarcerated women and marginalized youth in Montreal. She is currently working toward the completion of a new book manuscript.

Download the conference poster poster_l.pdf