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Vernon  

Young Okanagan author's book details growing up with racism

An Okanagan bestseller

A young Okanagan man who made waves last year by becoming president of the Kelowna-Lake Country People's Party of Canada district association and then resigning over alleged racist and bigoted views within the party has written a book about his experience with "systemic racism in the 21st century."

Daniel Joseph was elected president of the local arm of Maxime Bernier's upstart right-wing in November 2018, but by March 2019 he had left the party.

Now, he has released the book Evil Aliens with Afros: My lived experience with systematic racism in the 21st century, which recently made it onto Amazon's International Bestseller List in the cultural anthropology category.

Published by Purple House Creative, the book made it to No. 17 on that list also No. 22 for books on African-American history.

Joseph attributes the success of his book to the fact that he doesn’t deny or mystify systemic racism, but defines it. That having experienced racial profiling and police brutality, he has a unique perspective on what is required to fight racists, bullies, and help build up a better society for future generations.

"From the impact of the wealth gap that exists between black and white people, to the interaction between black lives and the blue line. Reliving his experiences, including being called 'Evil Aliens with Afros' in his youth, Joseph examines the overwhelming effects of racism throughout his, and his father's generation," says Amazon's description of the book.

Regarding his experience with the PPC, Joseph described views within the party at the time as "utterly hateful."

"I hope that by publicly disavowing the party, they are able to restructure and remove people with hateful, racist, homophobic and xenophobic views."

The party executive denied those allegations.

 



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