You know you've got a good woman in your life when she sticks up for you even when you tell her not to. For real. My name is Steve Salomon and I'm a big and tall young Black man of Haitian descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I'm in my final year in the business management program at Carleton University, and life just couldn't be better. It's largely due to my lady love, Yasmin Hussein. The Somali Canadian Muslim chick never ceases to amaze me. What do I mean by that? Man, I've got one hell of a story for you today.
The Capital of Canada is a mid-sized town that's grown too big for its britches if you ask me. When my family arrived in Ottawa from Cap-Haitien, Northern Haiti, a long time ago, there were very few immigrants out here. Save for the Chinese and other assorted Asians, almost everyone in town was White, with a few Blacks here and there. Fast forward almost two decades later and the City of Ottawa is teeming with Africans, Arabs, Chinese, Hindus and other ethnic groups I can only guess at. Not everyone is thrilled with Ottawa's growing diversity.
Lots of White Canadians no doubt long for the good old days when everyone in Canada was either White or Aboriginal, with the Aboriginals being trodden under foot by the ruthless policies of the Canadian government. Well, tough luck, White Canadians, the old days are over. Doubtless these politely bigoted shmucks aren't happy about the fact that we so-called visible minorities are reproducing much faster than European Canadians and we're changing Canada's demographics.
What do I mean by that? Please look at a map of this country and see for yourselves. In every major City of Canada, from Toronto to Vancouver, from Ottawa to Montreal, from Edmonton to Calgary, people of color are either the new majority or they're well on their way there. White Canadians aren't breeding anymore. I guess too much hockey and beer must be affecting White Canadian men's sperm count or something.
Small-town Canada and metropolitan Canada are becoming two separate universes, it would seem. Take my soon-to-be former supervisor Randall Wilson for example. He's a stocky, fifty-something White dude hailing from Red Deer, Alberta. Another small town in the middle of nowhere. The bozo is new to Ottawa and since he's a retired cop, the security company I work for promoted him to the rank of supervisor right after he got his Ontario security guard licence. Big mistake if you ask me but whatever.
Anyways, this goon is a racist, that much was obvious from the way he looked at me first time we met. Mr. Red Deer looked at me like he'd never seen a Black man before. I smiled politely at him while seething inside. We were NOT going to get along. Still, I made an effort to get along with Wilson since I wanted to keep my job. A while ago, I lost another security job because I got caught getting busy on someone's office desk with Yasmin, who worked as a cleaner in that building at the time. Yeah, I got a lot of red ink in my file at work because of that and didn't need any more trouble. That's why I put up with Wilson's bullshit.
The old White dude is always harsh on minorities on the security team, whether myself or this chubby Indian dude named Majumdar, or that Chinese chick, Amy Chang. I noticed these things and took note of them, but felt powerless to do anything. In Canada, one thing you've got to realize is that racism is systemic. If you stand up to your racist boss or a racist colleague at work, they're not what you have to worry about. Oh no, you'll soon find yourself taking on the entire organization. Canadians are the most polite racists in the world but they're still racists.
It doesn't help that a lot of different minorities don't stand up for themselves or criticize those who do stand up to White racism. I used to be friends with this Dominican chick named Samantha whom I met at Carleton University. This broad is originally from Brampton and for some reason came to Ottawa for school. Anyhow, I stood up to a bald-headed, heavily tattooed White guy who thought he could intimidate me and Samantha got pissed at me, calling me confrontational and quick to jump to conclusions and what not. Next thing I know this little bitch removed me from her Facebook friends list. Good. The last thing I need in my life is some brown chick who's an enabler of White racism.
Putting up with Randall Wilson's bullshit was starting to take its toll on me, man. And I thought I had no choice but to put up with it since the security company I work for doesn't take it seriously when a minority worker complains about the unruly behavior of a racist White guy. Last year, I worked at a warehouse in the Industrial Avenue area for a different security company and there was this other security guard there named Richard, and the old dude would tell racist jokes every ten seconds.
I told Richard to quit this shit many times but dude never listened. Fed up with him, I complained to the security company's branch manager. Not a smart thing to do when you happen to be a Black male employee. I don't know why I was surprised that the middle-aged White male branch manager sided with the racist old White male security guard against the whistle-blowing Black male employee. Next thing I know, I got transferred out of that site, which is a nice way of saying that the company removed me and put me elsewhere. As far as I know, Richard is still working there, telling his racist jokes to all who would listen. I hate the bastard with a fiery passion. I hope he rots in hell. Seriously.
