The first time I ran into my cousin Sammy Charles, I didn't recognize her. I was visiting my family members in Orleans, Ontario, but I lived in the town of Nepean at the time. The slim, dark-skinned young Black woman with the braids came to the door and gazed at me curiously. I stood there, big and tall and Black. The name is Thomas Jean. My friends and family members call me T.J. I flashed a friendly grin and asked her if Aunt Shawna was there. The Black girl looked me up and down, and asked me to wait. I had no idea who she was, and found her more than a little bit cold. Truth be told, I just about had my fill of Black women with an attitude problem. I ran into them at church, on the bus, at school and everywhere else. They seemed mad as hell when they saw a brother with a white female but always treated brothers like dirt. What the fuck? Anyhow, the chick came back with my aunt.
Aunt Shawna Desmond is a tall, light-skinned Black woman with glasses and a butch haircut. She works as an accountant in downtown Ottawa. Aunt Shawna kissed me on both cheeks in the Haitian manner, and introduced me to my cousin Sammy from the City of Atlanta, Georgia. I looked Sammy up and down, and we shook hands. For the rest of the afternoon, she looked at me strangely. I sat in the living room with Aunt Shawna and my other relatives, telling them about my plans. I moved to Ontario from Massachusetts recently. My credits from Brockton Community College in Brockton, Massachusetts transferred nicely to Nepean University in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. I intended to study Law at Nepean University because I studied Criminal Justice back in the States. My aunt Shawna was really proud of me. She's got two sons, Henry and Eddie, both of whom were in their early twenties and both of which were born and raised in Canada. Like the majority of Black Canadian males, they have zero aspiration when it comes to higher education. My cousins Eddie and Henry preferred going clubbing every weekend, chasing fat white women and working at the mall as clerks or whatever. To say my hard-working aunt Shawna was disappointed in her sons would be an understatement.
From my experience, Black men born in America or Canada lack ambition and drive. Black men born and raised in the Republic of Haiti have both ambition and drive, but lack opportunity. When we move to places like Canada or America, we tend to do really well if we have access to higher education and decent employment. Most of the Haitian men I knew in Massachusetts were hard-working, law-abiding, God-fearing family men. My father Franklin Jean moved to Massachusetts from Cap-Haitien in Northern Haiti in the 1980s. He worked as a gas station attendant while studying at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Later, he went to study business administration at Boston State College, which would later become the University of Massachusetts in Boston. As soon as he became a United States citizen, my father sent for my mother Helene Cote Jean and myself. We moved to America to be with him. My father paid for my mother's college education and she became a nurse. As for me, I became a naturalized U.S. citizen but I was raised with conservative Haitian family values. I wasn't one of those foolish Black American men walking around with their pants hanging low, aspiring to be NBA or NFL players, rappers or gang bangers. I think my parents would have killed me rather than let me follow that path. They made sure I focused on school and church. I wasn't allowed to associate with Black American guys and gals at school, or racist White brats. My parents thought of Black Americans as thugs and White Americans as two-faced, fake-smiling racists. The only friends I was allowed to have were the sons and daughters of hard-working and church-going Haitian families living in my town. I grew up with a firm sense of my identity as a Haitian man living in America. I was American on paper, Haitian at heart. I knew Haitian history as well as United States history. My loyalty was with my family and the Haitian community of America. To hell with everyone who wasn't one of us.
Yeah, all those things I went through helped shape me into the man I am today. I graduated from Brockton Community College with my Associate's Degree in Criminal Justice and earned my Bachelor's Degree from Bridgewater State College in June 2009. I was twenty two years old at the time. That summer, there was a rash of shootings throughout the State of Massachusetts. White cops shooting Black American guys and Hispanic guys. Black guys and Hispanic guys shooting each other. Italian guys shooting Irish guys. Angry wives shooting cheating husbands when catching them in bed with other women...or sometimes other men. Honor killings as certain Arab-American patriarchs slew their own daughters for falling in love with non-Muslim men and embracing Christianity. Oh, yeah. The summer of 2009 was a lethal one across the State of Massachusetts. In Brockton, Avon, Boston, Raynham, Great Barrington and Newton, the blood of the innocent flowed along with the flood of the guilty. My parents panicked. It seemed to be a tough time to be a young Black man in America. Even though President Barack Obama was in the White House, and both the States of Massachusetts and New York had Black men serving as their Governors. My parents thought it would be a good idea if I got out of town for a while. They sent me to my uncle and aunt's house in Orleans, a suburb of the City of Ottawa in Ontario. Man, I got sent to Canada! And since my parents are Haitians, that means I don't get to say no!
