Hey, there. My name is Gregory Jean-Pierre. A young Black man of Haitian descent living in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. I'm twenty three years old and moved to Canada five years ago. These days, I attend Carleton University. It's where I met Madeline Franks, the love of my life. Life is okay these days, for the most part. I work as Assistant Manager of an upscale clothing store inside Rideau Center, this mall in downtown Ottawa. I make about twenty bucks per hour, before taxes. School sucks but I want to get my bachelor's degree in business before heading to York University for my MBA. Yep, I'm an ambitious brother. Unfortunately, my love life is...lacking.
Luckily, things changed for the better lately. I met Madeline Franks during Orientation Day at Carleton University in September 2009. The six-foot-one, chubby and big-bottomed, blonde-haired and green-eyed White woman with the funny accent definitely caught my eye. Madeline was born and raised in the town of Gosford, somewhere in the Commonwealth of Australia. This Australian beauty decided to study in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. She's a transfer student from the University of Melbourne in the Australian State of Victoria. Her parents are dead and she's filthy rich. So she decided to travel the world and study abroad. We get a lot of international students in Ottawa but most of them go to the University of Ottawa. Carleton University is considered a lousy school by Canadians because there are so many African, Asian and Hispanic immigrants on both the student body and the faculty. Canadians fear diversity in higher education though I really like it. Then again I'm an immigrant so hey, there's that.
Madeline Franks is a business management major, so we had a few classes in common. I kind of like tall, chubby White women with big butts. And Madeline seemed to be really friendly with the Black students. I approached her one time at the Student Center, and we totally clicked. Madeline is kind of weird, man. She's into taking all the African Literature classes at Carleton University. I'm Black and I don't like these classes. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm Haitian and I'm proud of my culture. However, I don't subscribe to the watered-down, purely academic and tasteless views of Black culture and Black history taught at Canadian schools. Madeline seemed to devour anything about Black history and culture. I later learned that she was one of those racial apologists. She feels really guilty about all the things White people have done to Blacks and other races in the past five hundred years. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
Now, I'm proud of myself as a Black man of Haitian descent. I've encountered racism in Ottawa. Anyone who disagrees is a liar. However, I don't go around blaming every random White person for the mistakes of guys like Hitler and Columbus. I only blame you if you do something to me personally. The way I figure it, the White person I encounter on the OC Transpo bus today wasn't alive in the time of Columbus or Magellan. They shouldn't be blamed for their race's not so glorious past. However, if he or she wants to give me a hard time just because I'm Black, then it's on. I won't tolerate it. And I will be relentless in my pursuit of justice. That's my view of racial politics.
I found myself attracted to Madeline, and I asked her out. She said yes, and we began dating. She told me many stories about her life in the Commonwealth of Australia and her friendship with Jacob, an Aboriginal Australian guy she knew. I didn't know much about Australia to tell you the truth. According to Madeline, there were about a million people down there who looked Black. They were there at the time of European settlement of Australia in the 1800s. They weren't descended from African slaves forcibly brought around the world by Europeans like my Haitian ancestors were. Hmm. I found that proposition puzzling. To me, if you're Black then you're from the Continent of Africa. I didn't know what to make of Australia's Aboriginals. They were really dark-skinned and looked Black. Of course, Tamil people from the Republic of India looked Black too. And the Tamil folks I encountered in the City of Ottawa were very quick to tell a Black person that they weren't Black. Maybe Australia's Aboriginals were more like the Tamil folks than my African brothers and sisters.
Yeah, Madeline Franks and I got along okay. I found her quite funny, friendly and pleasant to be around. Her racial views irked me. She always views Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Arabs as victims of White colonization rather than individuals. Now, I know that racism exists. People of color are discriminated against every day. However, I feel that we fight racism too. We're not just victims. I have encountered racist White policemen in Ottawa and bigoted female professors at Carleton University. I don't accept their treatment of me. I contacted an attorney both times I felt my rights were violated. I don't consider myself a victim. I fight against prejudice and discrimination. It's the Haitian warrior in me. Haitians proved to the entire world that White men with guns weren't invincible by slaughtering the French forces on the island of Saint Domingue and creating our own nation. The Republic of Haiti. Come quakes, occupations or high water, we are proud and we still stand.