Black World ,White Lies

White Lies,Black World

BLACK world WHITE LIES

(Slavery and the mindset)

MY name is Colin Rawlins I was born Saturday October 31st 1964 in Georgetown Guyana ,I immigrated to Canada on July 10th,1975 as a landed immigrant with my mother, two older sisters 2 older brother and one younger brother. Like any child I had no idea of the world around me, my friends were of no special color, if we had things in common and I liked you, that was all that matters.

I remember my step father telling us that we could be who we wanted at home. But we came here for a better life and we have to learn to speak properly, learn the culture of our new home.be polite. pleasant and respectful to our new friends, neighbours and countrymen and the law. That worked so well. That I cannot recall any incident of racism in my life until I started looking for work. Back in those days, you read the classified ads called about the job and go from there. I cannot tell you how many times I called for a job, was told the position was still opened and I should come by. The response I heard most often when I showed up was "oh you were not what I was expecting" and of course more often than not the job was suddenly taken un available, or I will call you tomorrow.

I was attending West end alternative school in Toronto, when my English teacher Lydia one day asked me to be friend a fellow student, name Russel Treverse. Rus was adopted or lost his parents or something like that. he was about 5'5 or something like that, he was smaller than me, long black hair, always with his black leather jacket and never smiles i started talking to Rus and the friendship grew over nigh .At that time of my life I had my own issues ,and at West End I became someone, the student council president made great friends. learned about life, was respected and in most case liked by my fellow students. I was so known that the day I took my first drag of a cigarette in was school gossip, they even took a picture and published it in the school newspaper.

Like I said I had my own issues and not long after becoming friends with Rus, I decided I was better off on my own, rather than live by my mother,s rule. While Rus and I never shared an apartment, we lived in the same place. You see we knocked around from under 21(a youth hostel)to the Sally Ann ,Good Sheppard and Seaton House(all hostels for street people in Toronto). Rus was the first true friend I had, he always had my back. If we worked at the car wash we pooled our money so we could have cigarette and food, when he took his laundry to wash at Seaton House, he took mine, what he did for him, he did for me and vice versa, he always had my back. We were street kids and more importantly friends.

I learned a lot from Rus. This guy who was as different from me as night is to day, but I was his friend and that was all that mattered to either of us. Rus and I must have hanged out for a good year or two. I do not even remember how or why we drifted apart, we were in separable. But I recall one day Rus having an argument with another student and calling him nigger, then looking at me said "I am not talking about you he is a nigger" the things that our individual minds hold on too.

Growing up in north America threw me head, feet any everything else first and with no warning right into a war that I had no idea was going on let alone ready for, I was in my late teens early 20,s trying to find me and what I want out of life. i did not give a shit about what was going on outside my circle. Like most people I watched the news, never questioned what I read or saw. i dislike African Americans, believed them to be the gutter of the black race, I watched and never question anything I saw about African Americans on the news, agreed with the phrases used to describe then, Super Predators, Thugs, Pimps, Thieves, Drug Dealers. I drank the cool aid, every time I saw a movie that was how we were portrait. violent, aggressive, lacking logics and a though process.

What I saw being paraded on the news and the front page of every newspaper was a stream of law breaking African American men, criminals, thugs, gangsters, drug addicts. Why are they not like me? but I lived in Toronto. We believe things to be true and factual for no reason other than we are bombarded with it. There was no racism in America, just lazy black people who wanted to blame others for their misfortune and was not ceasing the opportunity that was before them. I dislike African Americans, not because I had personal dealings with them, but because of what I was shown ,heard and was told.