My name is Manuel Vasquez Johnson. A big and tall young man of Black and Spanish descent living in the City of Detroit, Michigan. I was born in the City of Brockton, Massachusetts. On the first day of February 1987. My father James Johnson is originally from the island of Jamaica and my mother Estella Vasquez is from the Republic of Spain. Just a pair of immigrants from opposite sides of the world. They met in the City of Boston in the 1980s, got married and had little old me. They got divorced three years later, and after that I mostly grew up with my mother's family. It's only recently that I began to identify as Black and embrace my African-American heritage. My mother's Spanish family never got over her marrying a Black guy and made me feel nasty about being part Black. No more! I am who I am and I fully embrace it.
These days, I am a student at Wayne State University right here in Detroit. Why did I choose to attend a school in Detroit when I had acceptance letters from Boston University and Brandeis University? I wanted out of Boston and I also wanted to live in a predominantly African-American metropolis. If I hadn't ended up in the City of Detroit I might have chosen to attend either Morehouse College, Georgia State University or Clark Atlanta University in the City of Atlanta, Georgia. Folks, I have fallen in love with the City of Detroit. I wish President Barack Obama and the higher-ups in Washington D.C. hadn't listened to the White people and given up on this fine town. Detroit has a lot of culture, integrity and history. It's a beautiful town. It's also the place where my father lives. Let's not forget that.
My father James Johnson is a Sergeant with the Detroit Police Department. A big and tall Black man who looks just like me, only his skin is jet-Black while mine is a really light shade of brown. We have the same roughly handsome features, strong build and kinky hair. The only big difference between us is that my eyes are green. Of course, I'm younger and better-looking, as I playfully remind him. My dad remarried after my mother finally gave into pressures from her racist family and left him. These days, dad is married to this Italian lady named Nina Tartaglia. They have a daughter together, Arianna. My half-sister Arianna is a freshman at Wayne County Community College. And she doesn't care for me in the least. I think she's a bitch just like her Italian but my father says they make him happy. I guess my Pops doesn't like to date Black women. That's a shame because I really, really like Black women. My Spanish mother has no love for Black ladies and constantly reminded me that she thought they were no good. I took a Black chick named Monique to the Prom senior year and I had to hide that fact from my racist mother. My father practically wept when I told him that. My mom can be a bitch sometimes, man. For real.
I'm going out with a lovely Black woman named Lamika Harding these days. This five-foot-eleven, dark-skinned, voluptuous and big-bottomed Black woman simply took my breath away when I first saw her. She's in the MBA program at Wayne State University and clearly a few years older than me. Also, she used to be married to a White guy from Ireland named Eric O'Shea and has a son by him, Little Jimmy. Apparently, her marriage ended when she caught her Irish-American husband in bed with Todd, a Black guy who lived in their neighbourhood. Wow. I guess White guys sometimes have jungle fever not just for Black women but for Black men as well. Lamika Harding is a no-nonsense Black woman raising a mixed-race son in the City of Detroit while attending business school.
I am twenty four years old and my girlfriend Lamika Harding is twenty seven years old. This might not seem like a big deal to you but women have issues when it comes to dating younger men. I've fallen in love with Lamika and I don't see any problem with our age difference. I really get along with her son Little Jimmy. He kind of looks like me with his really light brown skin and pale gray eyes. We're both mixed. Lamika is raising her son as a Black man, though. She doesn't let him spend any time with his biological father, whom she sees as a deceiver and a corruptive force in her life. In fact, she has a restraining order against him. And she's had him jailed twice for failing to provide financial support for their son. I knew Black women had a strong dislike of undercover bisexual men but I never thought she would take it this far. I remember watching that Down Low discussion on the Oprah Winfrey Show a few years back. I guess Oprah got it wrong. It's not just bisexual Black guys who hide their sexual orientation from the ladies in their lives. Lamika Harding's ex-husband was White, and he was clearly leading a double life at the time that she caught him.
Folks, I am really fond of Lamika. Unfortunately, she's been hurt too many times and has trouble trusting men. Lamika told me that she only dated Eric O'Malley after years of disappointing relationships with Black men. She said she foolishly thought a White man would be different. And Eric O'Malley, her Prince Charming from Ireland turned out to be her biggest disappointment. I've tried my best to comfort Lamika and show her that I wanted to be there for her. It took me a year but I guess my hard work paid off. My beautiful Black lady is starting to come around. Black women are so lovely and so damn complicated sometimes. I've always found tall, dark-skinned Black women with big butts to be my personal standards of beauty. I've never been into Asian women, Latin women or White women. Yet it seems that Black women don't know they're beautiful. Give me a curvy Black chick who's really dark-skinned, has kinky hair and a big butt over a skinny blonde-haired White chick any damn day of the week.
