My name is Manuel Vasquez Johnson. A big and tall young man of Black and Spanish descent living in the City of Detroit, Michigan. I was born in the City of Brockton, Massachusetts. On the first day of February 1987. My father James Johnson is originally from the island of Jamaica and my mother Estella Vasquez is from the Republic of Spain. Just a pair of immigrants from opposite sides of the world. They met in the City of Boston in the 1980s, got married and had little old me. They got divorced three years later, and after that I mostly grew up with my mother's family. It's only recently that I began to identify as Black and embrace my African-American heritage. My mother's Spanish family never got over her marrying a Black guy and made me feel nasty about being part Black. No more! I am who I am and I fully embrace it.
These days, I am a student at Wayne State University right here in Detroit. Why did I choose to attend a school in Detroit when I had acceptance letters from Boston University and Brandeis University? I wanted out of Boston and I also wanted to live in a predominantly African-American metropolis. If I hadn't ended up in the City of Detroit I might have chosen to attend either Morehouse College, Georgia State University or Clark Atlanta University in the City of Atlanta, Georgia. Folks, I have fallen in love with the City of Detroit. I wish President Barack Obama and the higher-ups in Washington D.C. hadn't listened to the White people and given up on this fine town. Detroit has a lot of culture, integrity and history. It's a beautiful town. It's also the place where my father lives. Let's not forget that.
My father James Johnson is a Sergeant with the Detroit Police Department. A big and tall Black man who looks just like me, only his skin is jet-Black while mine is a really light shade of brown. We have the same roughly handsome features, strong build and kinky hair. The only big difference between us is that my eyes are green. Of course, I'm younger and better-looking, as I playfully remind him. My dad remarried after my mother finally gave into pressures from her racist family and left him. These days, dad is married to this Italian lady named Nina Tartaglia. They have a daughter together, Arianna. My half-sister Arianna is a freshman at Wayne County Community College. And she doesn't care for me in the least. I think she's a bitch just like her Italian but my father says they make him happy. I guess my Pops doesn't like to date Black women. That's a shame because I really, really like Black women. My Spanish mother has no love for Black ladies and constantly reminded me that she thought they were no good. I took a Black chick named Monique to the Prom senior year and I had to hide that fact from my racist mother. My father practically wept when I told him that. My mom can be a bitch sometimes, man. For real.
I'm going out with a lovely Black woman named Lamika Harding these days. This five-foot-eleven, dark-skinned, voluptuous and big-bottomed Black woman simply took my breath away when I first saw her. She's in the MBA program at Wayne State University and clearly a few years older than me. Also, she used to be married to a White guy from Ireland named Eric O'Shea and has a son by him, Little Jimmy. Apparently, her marriage ended when she caught her Irish-American husband in bed with Todd, a Black guy who lived in their neighbourhood. Wow. I guess White guys sometimes have jungle fever not just for Black women but for Black men as well. Lamika Harding is a no-nonsense Black woman raising a mixed-race son in the City of Detroit while attending business school.
