I got off the number eighteen bus, and walked to the brownstone building at the edge of the park in Vanier, Ontario. I'm dressed to the nines in a bright red tank top, short Black skirt and thigh-high Black leather boots. At five-foot-nine with light brown skin, curly Black hair and pale green eyes, curves where it counts and a nice round bottom, I look pretty damn good. We're in April and it's still mad cold outside but that's okay. Got to look good for my man, you know? In case you're wondering who this is, my name is Lynnette Jeanne Crowley, and I'm a young woman of Haitian and Irish-Canadian descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Today, I'm surprising the hell out of my guy, Stephen Eugene.
I met Stephen while working on a paper inside the Carleton University library in the winter of 2012. He was working on a paper for his Criminology class and asked me to help him with in-text citations. We talked for a bit and eventually exchanged numbers, and afterwards we became friends. At the time, he was going out with a Somali chick named Farah Muhammad and I was dating this White dude named Stanley O'Neill. Stephen and I kept in touch, and I must admit I found myself attracted to this tall, dark and handsome stud but I had another man in my life and I'm not a ho so, there. When my relationship with Stanley ended, Stephen was there for me. Now that I think about it, Stanley and I simply weren't meant to be. I like my men just like I like my coffee, hot, strong and Black. That's what I'm into and I'm sticking to it, thank you very much.
A person's origins and upbringing have a lot to do with how they see the world. Take me for example. My mother, Janice Etienne-Crowley, left the island of Haiti for the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1987. A year later, at the University of Halifax she met my father, Liam Crowley, and they fell in love, got hitched and had little old me. They split three years later, and I honestly don't know what it's like to have a father because my dad is a total stranger to me. I've seen him about five or ten times in my entire life. He didn't care to be there for me and honestly, my mother didn't want him around either. She referred to him as a coward due to his refusal to stand up to his racist family on her behalf.