Half-Caste: Decidedly Brown in a Black or White World

by Jerome Cranston

Overview

Part social commentary and very much a memoir, Half-Caste: Decidedly Brown in a Black or White World, describes and examines the contemporary pressures that many people from multiracial and mixed ethnicities face in developing their racialized social identity so that they and others may feel comfortable with who they are and how they identify themselves in their own skin. By exploring personal and sensitive topics, such as ethnic and racialized identity formation and drawing on the racism he faced, Jerome Cranston offers insight to the struggles of coming to terms with accepting and declaring his identity as being decidedly Brown.

Throughout Half-Caste: Decidedly Brown in a Black or White World, Cranston shares the challenges and ultimate discovery of his understanding and acceptance that his being Brown is more than just a statement of an identity, it is an understanding of who he is, how he will relate to others and how he will flourish in a world that is divided along ethnic and racialized lines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780228895213
Publisher:	Tellwell Talent
Publication date:	07/31/2023
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.28(d)

About the Author

Jerome Cranston (he/him) is a critical race scholar whose life's work has focused on identifying societal inequities in order to find solutions that are more racially just for those often denied justice. Cranston holds a Ph.D. (Manitoba), M.Ed. (Lethbridge), B.Ed. & B.Sc. (Alberta), and is a much sought after presenter, consultant and educator/educational leader.

Editorial Reviews

2023-10-03
Cranston explores the Canadian color line in this debut memoir.

Having lived in Canada for more than half a century, the author, a scholar and activist, is a quintessential Canuck who hikes, camps, skis, and ice-skates, played hockey as a kid, and “even slept in a quinzhee on nights when the temperature was close to -20⁰C.” Yet, because of his racially ambiguous features and brown skin, his life has been plagued by a constant refrain, delivered by taxi drivers, cashiers and colleagues: “Where are you from?” In this memoir of “self-discovery and self-acceptance,” the author grapples with his lifelong quest to belong in a racialized society whose “polarized Black-or-White world” only serves to further marginalize a “Brown” population that defies categorization. The book’s early chapters center on how these racial dynamics and questions of identity affected Cranston’s childhood. “We’re Anglo-Indians,” his mother often emphasized, reminding him that “We aren’t even from India…We were as British as the British.” The author ultimately chooses to identify as a “half-caste,” a term chosen “as a form of linguistic reclamation” for simply being “an exception to a flawed system” designed to keep him “on the outside peering in.” The author is open about his struggles to accept that he was abused by his father (“He just hit me a few times. Three times; that’s all”) and about the ways in which his racial identity empowers his solidarity with Black and Indigenous Canadians. As vice provost at the University of Saskatchewan and author of multiple books on building equitable classrooms (written during his career as an associate professor), Cranston is an acclaimed scholar-activist. His book, underpinned by a solid theoretical understanding of inequality and systemic racism, is an accessible memoir that highlights the ways in which the subtleties of racism continue to shape modern society.

This engaging and intimate memoir does not avoid difficult conversations.

Kirkus Reviews