Canadian Writer Slammed Online for “Disguising” Himself as a Black Man for New Book on Racism in America

A Canadian journalist is facing backlash for “disgusting” himself as a Black man to gather material for his new book on racism in America.

Social media users criticized Samuel Forster, a white author, after he announced his new book “Seven Shoulders” and admitted to dressing up as a Black person for it.

“Last summer, I disguised myself as a Black man and travelled throughout the United States to document how racism persists in American society,” wrote Forster. “It was “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done as a journalist.”

Some questioned if Forster used Blackface, while others criticized him for profiting from racism. Some thought the book’s overview of “the most important book on American race relations that has ever been written” was satire.

So far, Forster hasn’t commented publicly on the backlash from his book announcement yet.

A Canadian white man cosplays in blackface for a summer instead of just interviewing black people about their lived experiences. To then the write a book about your cosplay experience and claim it to be the most important book on race relations is true colonizer behavior. https://t.co/OoqPf4amvM pic.twitter.com/OqL7X9ypMy

— Elle Elle Jones (@allcurledup) May 28, 2024

You could have spoken with Black Americans…

I have serious questions as to WHY and HOW you disguised yourself as a Black American to write this book!

— TrueWordsRSpoken (@TruWordsRSpoken) May 28, 2024

U had to do blackface to understand the issues black ppl face….?

— court (@k1llacourt) May 28, 2024

You did black face because you won’t accept the word of black Americans? 😬 pic.twitter.com/QjC7CP525N

— trump4prison2024 (@24trump4prison) May 28, 2024

You're a journalist. You could have just interviewed some Black Americans.

This is wild especially considering some other white dude already did this and there's no way your book is the most important book ever written on race relations. That's a comical statement.

— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) May 28, 2024

There's no way that you believe that you could experience the full spectrum of racism without also having been condition by the systemic nature of it. It's not just that we LIVE IT, we are conditioned to live in it, with it, accept it, etc. Your conclusion has to be that simply…

— Butter Queen (@lawgurrl) May 28, 2024

If you knew any black people, they would have saved you from getting torched on the internet because they'd have told you this was a bad idea

— I Smoked BBL Drizzy (@BlackKnight10k) May 28, 2024

the fact that you felt you needed to center yourself in the Black experience by literally traveling around in blackface shows that you lack character, empathy and depth. You could have easily just… believed Black ppl about their own experiences. this is deranged. https://t.co/rGqMYTwYwq

— Holly G (@_love_holly_) May 28, 2024

A YT man decided put on Blackface for the entire summer in 2023 to see how racism affects Black people for a whole ass book instead of just talking to…BLACK people pic.twitter.com/CZYol8IDwM

— Chris Williamson (@CWilliamson44) May 28, 2024

Or, hear me out here, maybe we can read the work of Black people sharing their experiences being Black in America instead of the musings of a white journalist wearing blackface? I mean, Legacy is right there! pic.twitter.com/BeLqcjvaVT

— Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD (@arghavan_salles) May 29, 2024

Black people have *FOR GENERATIONS* documented how racism persists in America.

The idea that this somehow needs to be whitesplained via Blackface is infuriating. https://t.co/Fc3rjQEJfK

— Yvette Carnell 🇺🇸 (@BreakingBrown) May 28, 2024