Brandon Clark is the name, and I'm a young black man living in the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba. My parents Jeffrey and Raquel Clark moved to Manitoba from the island of Jamaica in the late 1980s, and I was actually born in this beautiful land. A lot of people have been talking about race in the province of Manitoba lately, and they mostly weigh on the conflicts between Aboriginal Canadians and white people. I am not trying to take away from that, but as a brother living out here, I've experienced my share of hardship.
Want to know what I think? Everyone is racist to some extent, even though white people are by far the most vicious. When my older sister Jacqueline introduced the family to Vittorio, her Italian boyfriend whom she met while studying at McGill University in Montreal, my mother was overjoyed. Yet my mom was less than thrilled when I introduced her to the beautiful Aboriginal Canadian gal I have fallen in love with. My mother expressed disappointment in the fact that I didn't bring home a black lady. If that's not prejudice, I don't know what is.
The day I met my girlfriend Sooleawa "Sole" Okunnug, I definitely knew that she was the one for me. I was walking through the University of Winnipeg campus, desperately trying to find the campus library so I could print my Ethics assignment and leave it in the drop box of professor Melissa Morrigan, the witch who runs the criminal justice department. I don't mean to bad mouth female professors but some women relish the power they have over men in this day and age, and abuse it every chance they get.
"Excuse me please, do you know where the library is?" I asked a tall, dark-haired and bronze-skinned, kind of curvy young woman with lively brown eyes. The gal was definitely Aboriginal, and quite pretty. I looked at her sharply, wondering why in hell she was staring at me. Sorry, I was quite frustrated since I'd been wondering around campus for half an hour, and nobody I asked seemed to know where the library is. I'm guessing they just didn't want to tell me.
"Sure, I'll show you, I'm on my way there," the pretty, dark-haired lady replied, and I thanked my lucky stars and dutifully followed her. The University of Winnipeg is like a small town and it's easy to get lost out here. I've lived in Winnipeg my whole life and prior to enrolling here, I'd never even been near the campus. I grew up in the seedy North End of Winnipeg, where the whites and the Aboriginals avoid each other like the damn plague.
"Thank you, lady, I swear, you're the only person who knows anything about this place," I said, and the young woman laughed, and shook her head but said nothing. We finally reached a massive brown building, and she nodded. I stood there, suddenly realizing that we were at the heart of the campus, and the rather massive library was rather hard to miss.
