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Disorienting Family
My brother married a white woman. My family is not sure how this came to pass, seeing as all his girlfriends to that point, as far as we knew, had been Black. As a teenager, he was adamant about going to a Black high school (Central Peel, nicknamed Central Africa). He listened to Big Daddy Kane, Nas and Biggie Smalls on his Walkman so our mother couldn’t hear the swearing. He played basketball behind a Catholic school. He watched
Fresh Prince and Spike Lee’s
Malcolm X. He wore his clothes baggy. His jeans sagged down his skinny butt. He kept his sneakers spotless with a toothbrush. Got a fade every two weeks at the cool barbershop, not the one for old men. He was casual about school, dropped courses, failed math once, took only what was essential to get into university. When the time came to apply, our mother pressed him to apply to York University in Toronto, my brother laid down the ultimatum that he was going to a Black college in America or no college