In Love and Defense of Christianity

Thomas Pierre Calvary is the name that fate and family saw fit to give me, but T.P. is what my friends call me. I was born in the town of Boston, Massachusetts, to a Haitian father and Ethiopian-American mother. I know, it's not exactly a mix you hear about every day, that's for sure. My parents themselves, Jean-Pierre Calvary and Elisabeth Melkamu come from unique backgrounds. My grandfather on my mother's side was Lebanese, and my grandmother on my father's side was Hispanic, of Dominican ancestry. I consider myself African-American but how the world sees me depends entirely on who's looking. I stand six feet two inches tall, slim and fit, with light brown skin, curly black hair and pale green eyes. I often get asked if they're contacts and people are surprised when I tell them. Whatever. I am only me. Can't please the world.

In the winter of 2012, I had a tough time at Northeastern University in Boston. You see, I was dating this tall, beautiful Jamaican woman named Marie Hawthorne and things didn't go so well. We met in my Intro To Criminal Justice class and like me, she wanted to study law after completing her undergraduate work. It was attraction at first sight between us, and we became an item. I had yet to learn the painful lesson that just because someone looks good to you didn't mean they were good for you. Marie was bad news, ladies and gentlemen. The woman I called my chocolate angel turned out to be a sadistic, manipulative witch. She cheated on me with another guy, and he was someone I knew. An Asian guy named Lee.

I've never been the kind of man who can abide cheating, so I dumped her, and then she started this smear campaign against me. I had to get a restraining order against her to stop her from harassing me and my family. I mean, she broke into my apartment and smashed my things, and she also left threatening messages on my folks house phone. Yeah, the bitch was crazy. That's what I get for dating someone without taking time to truly know who I was dealing with. The summer of 2012, I went to visit my uncle Joseph in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I'd been to Canada before but I usually visited Toronto. Ottawa was different. I couldn't figure out why a small town with barely a million people was considered the Capital of Canada. I mean, Toronto and Montreal have more people and more of everything but then again, I'm not Canadian so I don't really understand the intricacies of Canadian politics.

I visited Carleton University, where my uncle Joseph taught business administration. I liked the look and feel of the campus. I thought that being a Canadian school it would be totally white but it wasn't. I saw a lot of students who were African, Arab, Chinese, and all that. I guess the City of Ottawa was more diverse than I thought it was. I also visited the University of Ottawa but I found the French Canadian students who made up the majority of its student body kind of condescending and stuffy. They called me an Anglophone, whatever that means. It seems Canada is having a bit of a conflict over linguistics and cultures. More and more people from sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, the Middle East and Latin America are moving to Canada and they're rapidly changing the country's demographics. Still, one of the biggest conflicts in Canadian society is between the French Canadians, centered mostly in the regions of Quebec and New Brunswick, and the rest of the country. The French-speaking minority was forever up in arms about its place in Canadian society and more than once, French Canadians tried to leave Canada to form their own country. Hmmm. If they're such troublemakers, why doesn't Canada simply let them leave?

I decided to enroll at Carleton University for a little while. Now, applying to a Canadian school as an American student was a complicated process. First, you had to register online with the Ontario Universities Application Center or O.U.A.C. Then you had to pay a fee, get your American college or university to transfer your transcript to the Canadian college or university of your choice. Wait, it only gets more complicated from there. You also needed a study permit. And those cost money. Yeah, it wasn't easy. Still, Carleton University was way cheaper than northeastern University so I thought studying there for a semester or two might be interesting. Having international experience on your resume is always a good thing. An educated Black man is still up against a lot of discrimination in North America so standing out against the competition in a good way is something you should always think about. Got to stay ahead of the game, you know? Look at guys like U.S. President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. They had to fight tooth and nail to get to these positions, and they owe their success to being exceptional in many ways. I intend to be an exceptional man and a force for good in the future. Do my community proud, you know?

In September 2012, I began my classes as a second-year Criminology student at Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Like the entire world, as school started, I watched the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center with weariness. I'm not particularly religious but I've started wearing a cross in recent months. I swear I got hateful looks from Arab and Somali males and hijab-wearing females at Carleton University because of who I am, a young Black man who is a proud Christian. I am proud to wear a crucifix, symbol of my savior Jesus Christ. I respect people's right to follow any religion they want, and they have to respect my right to be a proud Christian. Religious freedom isn't just about Muslims doing their own thing. Christians, Jews, Buddhists and others have the right to do their own thing as well. That's our way of life in the continent of North America. Americans, Canadians and Mexicans are Christians for the most part. It's our continental identity. If you don't like it, go back where you came from and don't let the door hit your angry ass on the way out.

While walking around the campus, I was approached by a short, slender young Asian woman. She introduced herself as Beatrice Yamamoto. She offered me a leaflet about a campus Judeo-Christian group, and I smiled at her and told her that I'd love to join the group. She smiled and told me that the group was full of Judeo-Christian students of all races from various denominations. I liked the sound of that. Don't get me wrong. I'm the most liberal Christian out there. In Massachusetts, I voted in favor of same-sex marriage. I believe a woman's body is her own property and the government should leave her be. I respect the rights of Jews, Muslims and Pagans to believe what they believe. However, I don't like the idea that North America's Judeo-Christian identity is being eroded daily by the onslaught of Islam. Especially since a lot of Muslims hate all other religions and are most eager to destroy us, as they've proven with the attack on American, Canadian, Australian and generally Western embassies in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere. We respect their rights in our countries, and they slaughter us without trial or mercy for perceived slights in their countries. Does that seem fair to you?

I used to firmly support U.S. President Barack Obama but his initial response after the Arab governments stood by and let radical Muslim mobs murder American Ambassadors has caused me to withdraw support from him. At Carleton University, I befriended a young Egyptian Christian woman named Madeline Hassan, and she told me that in her country, Coptic Christians are persecuted daily by the Muslim majority. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, non-Muslims are attacked daily, and these attacks have been going on for a long time. Does that seem right to you? I don't condone the murder of innocents for any reason. And killing someone just because their religion is different from yours and your religious leaders tell you that non-believers are fair game isn't right. Obama doesn't seem to care that the Arabs are slaughtering American ambassadors left and right, or that Arab Christians in the Middle East are hunted down and slaughtered by the Muslim majority. Maybe, just maybe, what those conservative pundits have been saying is true. Obama isn't a Christian. He doesn't care about American lives, or the well-being of Western societies. Maybe he secretly wants the Arabs to destroy Israel and conquer the Western world. I'm not voting for this bozo again. I don't like Romney but I don't think he's good friends with anti-Western bigots.

My new friend Beatrice Yamamoto is like me in many ways. To be honest, I was a bit surprised at how friendly she was towards me because Asians seem to typically love white people and they dislike folks of African descent. I don't think any Asian country has ever invaded an African country and no African country has ever invaded an Asian nation. I just wish they'd stop listening to the stereotypes white people are spreading about Black folks and realize that we're normal people, good and bad, just like them. As I got to know Beatrice, I realized that she wasn't like anyone I had ever met. She was born in the Japanese Home Islands to an Irish mother and Japanese father. Hmmm. Most mixed Asians I meet have non-Asian fathers and Asian mothers. So, Asian guys are starting to get white chicks now. Good for them. White guys are stealing all the Asian chicks, man. I jokingly asked Beatrice about that, and she got mad at me. She told me that I of all people should know better than to believe in stereotypes. She told me that the same way all Black males weren't thugs, all Asian women weren't submissive ninnies eager to worship white males. There are stereotypes about all races out there. She flashed me a wry grin and said some Asian guys she knew had bigger dicks than some Black guys. I smiled. Touché.

Yeah, I was fascinated by this lovely young Japanese woman. She spoke proudly of her Irish mother Maeve O'Shea, a native of Galway in Ireland who moved to Japan. I decided to get to know Miss Yamamoto a bit better. Brought up as a staunch Catholic, she had slightly different views from mine. I was brought up in the Adventist faith, and I'm more liberal than most. I support same-sex marriage, abortion rights and even legalizing marijuana. I'm against radical Islam encroaching on the rights and freedoms of men and women of various races, sexual orientations and religious living in Western societies. I think they're a threat to our values. I think the people of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia proper, the European Union, Latin America, the Caribbean, China and Japan need to stand up to them. I don't think the Egyptians, Saudis, Indonesians, Libyans, Algerians, Moroccans and Pakistanis want to coexist with those of us who practice religions like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Paganism. If we don't deal with them, they'll slaughter most of us and force the rest to convert to their religion. I'd rather die than to live on planet burka, I want to make that clear.

Beatrice Yamamoto and I are like-minded, and we both share similar views of Western society and the rest of the world. It's funny. We also had a lot more in common. I'm a Criminology student and she's studying civil engineering. We both love comic books and action movies, though. I asked her to go see the movie Resident Evil with me and she was cool with that. Afterwards, I took her to the Saint Laurent Mall where we grabbed some delicious Greek food. We had a blast. At the end of the evening, as I moved to shake her hand and wish her goodnight, Beatrice stood on her tip toes and kissed me on the cheek. Just like that. Wow. It blew me away, man. She totally stunned me. Beatrice smiled and wished me goodnight. I stood there, watching this short and sweet, absolutely lovely Japanese gal walk away. She's amazing. I definitely want to see her again. I have a good feeling about her. I'm an African-American standing up for Judeo-Christian beliefs and Western values in Canada. And I'll need all the help I can get. Wish me luck!