Lying in bed, Mona Ismail cried herself to sleep. In her parents plush suburban townhouse in affluent Barrhaven, the young Lebanese Canadian Muslim woman bit her lip, thinking about what she lost. Every time Ismail Mona thought about her Somali Muslim ex-boyfriend Rashid Ali, her heart winced. In all her life, no one had ever loved Mona or made her feel the...
The name is Samuel Xavier. A big and tall, openly bisexual young Black man of Haitian descent who has lived in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts, for a decade. I'm heading to Canada in a few days. I'll stop by Buffalo first to get some things squared away. I'm glad to be leaving the city of Brockton. My once-beloved city has begun to disgust me. The racism...
Angry White Person Syndrome. It's the most widespread virus in the United States of America. I see it all the time. White women and White men don't like having so-called ethnic minorities around. Especially those of us they see as "not knowing our place". The person of color, whether Black, Hispanic, Asian or Middle-Eastern, who works hard and achieves thin...
The name is Damon Edwards. A tall, good-looking young black man living in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. And I'm surrounded by the fakest people on the planet. They're everywhere I go. At the library. At school. At church. At the Westgate Mall. Like I said, they're everywhere I go. Must be something in the water or something. As a brother who's keeping...
Samuel Xavier here. A big and tall, openly bisexual Black male college graduate and urban fiction writer living in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. I've lived in America for almost a decade, having moved here from the Republic of Haiti in the early 2000s. My history with America has been one of love and hate. A very complicated history. And that's what t...
The name is Stephen Joseph Magloire. My friends call me Stevie. I'm a big and tall young Black man of Haitian descent living in the city of Toronto, province of Ontario. I recently moved there from the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. I find myself missing my old hometown of Brockton more and more. There is no city like the city of champions, folks. You see,...
My name is Anthony Blake. A big and tall Black man living in the United States of America. Boston is the city I call home. I've lived there ever since I graduated from Brockton Community High School in 2000. Massachusetts is like no place on the planet Earth. Yet even this venerable state isn't free from the influence of those men and women I label the hat...
My name is Cynthia Wilson. And I'm the whitest black chick you've ever met. Tall, slender, brown-skinned and green-eyed. The daughter of a biracial businessman and an African-American supermodel. I was born into wealth and privilege, and I'm sorry to say that I was quite stuck-up because of that. Also, I was one of those privileged black women who looked dow...
Sometimes goodbye's the only way. My name is Minerva Ramirez, and I'm a young woman of Mexican descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I am the mother of two biracial sons, Elijah and Matthew, and recently got divorced from their Jamaican father, Jefferson Keen. Long story short, folks? I couldn't stand to share my bed with a man who cheated on me. Ch...
"I don't believe it!" I sat on the couch in my aunt Tywrella's house, staring into the startled face of my mother, Renisha. Auntie Ty stood behind her with Uncle Revis at her side, his mouth hanging open as well. I had just told them the most important news of my life. Being twenty-three and a new college graduate, I was excited about finding a job in my c...