Harriet Saint-Bernard here. A young Black woman of Haitian descent living near the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario. These days, life couldn't be better. Sixteen months ago I graduated from Ottawa University with my Master's degree in Finance. And I currently work for the Target Corporation in downtown Toronto. Not bad for a tall and chubby, awkward Black chick from Northern Haiti, eh? I live in a nice apartment in the town of Brampton, within the Toronto Metropolitan Area. I make good money, and drive a nice car. A bright red convertible, believe it or not. All that's missing in this sister's life is the right Black man. And he's got to be Black for it to be alright. Sorry, people. I accept no substitutes.
At a time when so many Black men and Black women are shacking up with or outright marrying women and men of other races, I remain a firm believer in Black Love. I love my chocolate brothers and that's not going to change anytime soon. Even though the brothers can and do get on my last nerve sometime. Recently I met a very promising prospect in the person of Ryan Calhoun. A tall, good-looking young Black man from the City of Atlanta, Georgia. Ryan is six-foot-three to my five-foot-eleven, light-skinned with light gray eyes and he's built like a College Football player. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he's a newcomer to Toronto. He works for my company, and I've been tasked with bringing him up to speed on how Canadian business works. Little did I know we would end up doing so much more than that together.
I learned quite a bit about Ryan from working together. His father Timothy James Calhoun is Irish and his mother Lamika Johnson Ryan is African-American. They met in the City of Atlanta thirty years ago, fell in love and got married. Ryan is biracial and doesn't consider himself Black. He tells everyone he's mixed. I never liked mixed guys. I always found them way too cocky. As if being light-skinned with light coloured eyes made them all that. And Ryan was definitely your typical mixed guy in that respect. However, he quickly learned that in the Confederation of Canada, the rules are different. Americans think us Canadians are friendly and polite, watching hockey and drinking our Tim Horton's. As if! Life is tough up north. You've got to be tough to survive in the cutthroat, deeply racist world of a Canadian corporation. Even in a racially diverse and liberal place like the City of Toronto. The best City in Canada is progressive in many ways but some things just never change.
I watched Ryan butt heads with some of the cocky White guys at the company. They're threatened by minorities in general and are really not used to seeing a smart, successful executive who is Black and male. And that's how they saw Ryan Calhoun, as Black and male, though he considered himself mixed. Why is it that mixed people with Black mothers and White fathers tend to reject their Black side while mixed folks with Black fathers and White mothers embrace their Black side? I don't know. It's a mystery to me. Still, I hated to watch a Black man suffer unnecessarily and tried to give the cocky Ryan some advice. When you're a highly educated Black man living and working in a North American corporation, White men will see you as a threat.
I find it kind of funny and sad at the same time. They're the most insecure of men, in spite of the obscene amount of power so many of them get handed to them. Black men by sharp contrast are naturally confident and masculine regardless of their occupations. They see themselves as men first and foremost. A White guy needs his job and income to validate his masculinity. My Black men are different. They hold their heads high. They carry themselves like kings. White men can't match their natural swagger. That's why I love my Black men. A lot of Black men are into women of other races and a lot of Black women are giving up on Black men altogether but I still got my faith in my brothers.
Ryan and I became friends, of a sort. There were twelve Blacks, seventeen East Indians and sixteen Chinese employees in the Financial Management Division of the Target Corporation in downtown Toronto. The other seventy or so employees of the Division were Caucasian. Long before I joined Target, I knew the importance of networking. You can't make it out there alone. No matter who you are. I cultivated friendships with other minority businessmen and minority businesswomen around the City of Toronto. I'm a proud member of the Toronto Black Professionals Association. And a member of the National Association of Black MBAs, which I joined while I spent one semester at Northeastern University in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, prior to graduating from the University of Ottawa. Ryan thinks he's Superman or something. I'm sorry but real life doesn't work like that. Even U.S. President Obama wouldn't be where he is if it weren't for the help of a vast network of supporters. You can't shatter the glass ceiling solo.
That's what I tried to stress to Ryan. And slowly he began to get it. I'm twenty eight years old. I moved to the Province of Ontario, Canada, from my hometown of Quartier Morin in Northern Haiti when I was twenty two years old. I came to the Confederation of Canada with nothing. Just a gal with a dream. Fast forward six years and I'm a new Canadian citizen and also a rising power in the world of Canadian business. I worked tirelessly. I had to first get a work permit and a social insurance number before I could even work at a damn Tim Horton's restaurant in the City of Ottawa. I had to get a study permit before I could enrol at the University of Ottawa. They charged me international rates the first two years, before my family's sponsorship of me enabled me to become a permanent resident of the Confederation of Canada.