8 comments/ 10246 views/ 1 favorites Black Male Genius By: Samuelx A lot of people in this world are prejudiced. There are White men and White women who hate Black men and Black women. There are Black men and Black women who hate their White counterparts. Straight men and straight women who hate gay people. Yes, many women hate gays. Homophobic women do exist. Homophobia isn't a uniquely male problem. And there are gay people out there who hate straight people. Hell, many gays and lesbians hate themselves. Pretty people hate ugly people and vice versa. Successful people hate losers and vice versa. It's part of the human condition to hate. While hate is unavoidable, prejudice isn't. I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally. The name is Mitchell Saint-Marc. A six-foot-three, broad-shouldered and ruggedly handsome, brown-skinned man of Haitian descent living in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. I attend Saint Dumas University on an academic scholarship. I major in Business Administration and I'm currently ranked in the top three percent of a class of four thousand. I intend to graduate with honors. Someday, I see myself as a big-shot in the corporate world. I'm twenty years old and currently in my third year of college. Before Saint Dumas, I attended Cardinal Spellman High School. A maelstrom of trouble. It's where I first developed my motto. The human race stinks. In the end, it's best to only look out for yourself. You never know who people really are underneath it all. History is filled with examples of men and women who have fallen because they put their trust in the wrong person. Samson, legendary hero of the Hebrews fell because he trusted that bitch Delilah. Queen Elisabeth of England nearly fell because of Sir Robert Dudley. Trust is for the weak. This is something I learned from my parents. My friends are constantly telling me that I have the perfect life. I respectfully disagree. When I lived in Brockton, my dwelling was a mansion on Ash Street, in Brockton's quiet and relatively well-to-do West Side. My parents, Francisco and Helen Saint-Marc bought the house in 2001. I lived there until I graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School in June of 2006. It's beautiful on the outside and quite lovely on the inside. A two-story, four-bedroom house with three bathrooms, two living rooms and two kitchens. It has a large yard big enough to play football in and a swimming pool of almost Olympic proportions. My friends envied me. If they only knew that it was my own private hell. I longed to escape it for years and years. Meet the wolves who raised me, folks. My father Francisco Saint-Marc is a tall, dark-skinned and rather stern-looking Haitian-American man who makes his living as a Massachusetts State Police Officer. He moved to the United States of America in 1987 at the age of twenty four, attended Emerson College then trained at the New Braintree facility of the Massachusetts State Police Academy. He never misses a chance to remind me that he had it a lot tougher than I ever will. He thinks I'm spoiled. Just because I didn't grow up where he did. As if my life were a bed of roses. He constantly called me a geek, a punk and a loser. He suspected me of being gay or bisexual because I preferred reading books to chasing big-booty ghetto sluts like a certain male relative of mine. My mother, Helen Joseph Saint-Marc is a tall, square and strict-minded Haitian woman. The prototypical Haitian mother, she is diabolically clever, tender-yet-ferocious at times, and loves God and her offspring more than life. She came to America from Cap-Haitien, Haiti, in the summer of 1986 at the age of twenty two, and attended Northeastern University. She earned herself a Master's degree in business, but quickly found out she didn't like the business world. These days, she teaches business at Bay State College. I'm not her favorite in the family. Far from it. And she let me know this every day of my life. She told me once that she considered aborting me but the doctors didn't recommend it because it was too late in the game. My sibling is her favorite in the family. And she never missed an opportunity to remind me of it. She and dad didn't even show up at my high school graduation. But they made a big deal out of my brother's, though. Yeah, are my parents cool people or what? I regret to inform you that I have an older brother named Louis Saint-Marc. He currently attends the Georgia Institute of Technology in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. He plays NCAA Division One football for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. I'm glad he got away from the parents. Really, I am. I just wish he hadn't virtually abandoned me. Last I heard from him, he had gotten a blonde-haired White female student pregnant and had basically been forced to marry her by her wealthy and powerful Irish-American family. The rich White chick, whose name was Sera Peppers, was basically a shrew whom my brother made the mistake of bedding. Like I said before, she is filthy rich. Her father, Simon Peppers is the CEO of Peppers & Dale, a major manufacturer of automobile parts in the Old South. My brother is dumb, folks. He could never resist a quick piece of ass. You know most Black college men can't resist the blonde-haired White chicks they meet on campus. Now Louis is going to spend the rest of his days paying for it. He married Sara Peppers without a prenuptial agreement, you see. What a fool! He's supposed to go into the National Football League this year. I sure hope he doesn't screw that up. It's basically his last chance. I sure hope he gets himself a good agent. He's not particularly bright when it comes to financial matters, or relationships with seductive women of ill repute whom most smart men would know to be less than trustworthy. I'm having a devil of a time at Saint Dumas University. It's the only historically Black private institution of higher education in Massachusetts. Twenty four thousand students, with campuses in Boston, Plymouth and Andover. Offering associates, bachelors, masters and doctorates in more than sixty fields. Athletically, it's considered a powerhouse in the NCAA Division Two. Saint Dumas University sponsors Men's Intercollegiate Baseball, Basketball, Cross Country, Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming, Track & Field, Rugby, Wrestling, Football, Rowing, Golf, Tennis and Ice Hockey along with Women's Intercollegiate Archery, Softball, Basketball, Equestrian, Rowing, Cycling, Track & Field, Rugby, Cross Country, Soccer, Swimming, Volleyball, Field Hockey, Wrestling, Golf, Tennis and Ice Hockey. Academically, it's the equivalent of elite schools like Boston College, Northeastern University and Suffolk University. Not that they would ever admit it. I came to the school because they offered me a full academic scholarship. Also, the student body was fifty percent male for the first time in ages. I chose Saint Dumas University over Boston University because BU has a severe gender imbalance in its student body. It's essentially a female school now. There are lots of beautiful women of all races and ethnicities at Saint Dumas University, but no one really lights my fire. Lots of young men on campus are chasing booty left and right. That's not what drives me. The pursuit of power is what I'm all about. One of my most difficult lessons is one I learned recently. You simply can never truly know who your enemies are. Even when you meet someone you feel is a kindred spirit, you should keep your guard up. I learned that the hard way. In September of 2008, I befriended a tall, handsome young African-American student by the name of Jordan Sparrow. He transferred to Saint Dumas University from Morehouse College in Atlanta City. He seemed to be a gentleman from the same class as myself. Jordan Sparrow hailed from ATL, as I said before. And he came from a quote-unquote "good" background. His father Jayson Sparrow was the Chief of Police in the town of Atlanta. The first Black man to become Chief of Police of a major city in the South. And his mother Jennifer Sanford Sparrow was the Athletic Director of Dawson Academy For Young Women, an elite private high school. Jordan was not only good-looking but also smart as a whip. He was fond of writers such as Voltaire, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and others. I'm really big into philosophy. I love the works produced by great men such as renowned geneticist Dawkins and ancient Chinese military genius Sun Tzu. I was impressed with Jordan. At last, I had met someone like me. We became fast friends. Just two brilliant young Black men hanging out on the Boston campus of Saint Dumas University. You could say I was smitten with him. Sometimes, we went to the movies together. Or we chilled at the Boston Public Library, surfing the web for great reads and websites frequented by like minds. In Jordan, I saw the brother I always wanted. My biological brother Louis was as different from me as a fish is different from a rock. We had nothing in common. Louis loved sports, and big-booty Black, White and Hispanic women with loose morals who were quick to drop their panties for a college football stud like himself. He never picked up a book that wasn't a porn magazine, a comic book or assigned reading from school. He used the Internet to look up forlorn and horny women around the country for 'easy' dating. He was a loser. I on the other hand, was something else entirely. I'm an intellectual first and foremost. I'm the first Black Male Valedictorian that Cardinal Spellman High School has seen in decades. I always strive for self-improvement. Jordan seemed to be the same way. He didn't seem like a player hell-bent on partying hard and getting as much ass as he could, unlike most of the young men I knew on campus. Hell, most of the women on campus slept with anything that moved too. They were just more discreet than the men, and thus less likely to get caught in the fact and branded sluts. Jordan and I seemed a breed apart from the rest of the young men and women on campus. We were brothers. I loved him. And he told me he loved me too. Not funny business, folks. Just brotherly love. I really thought he was my brother, until he turned against me. I was working on a fiction novel about Black male collegiate life in urban America. I started writing the story when I was a freshman, and basically saved the whole thing as a Microsoft Word document which I emailed myself. Jordan was something of an artist and he encouraged me to keep writing. I began to re-write and edit the story, fleshing it out. Before long, I had a three-hundred-page book. I really developed the story. The book was titled Modern Black Genius. The hero of the tale was a Boston-based Haitian-American college student named Michael Marks, and he was leaving behind his wicked family to forge a new life for himself. In college, he faces many challenges such as racist men and racist women, the jealousy of his fellow Black people, and the overall Anti-Man Sentiment in higher education circles. He overcame all of these obstacles, and even found love with a smart, beautiful and supportive Black female student-athlete named Joanna. His soul mate. At the end of the novel, they're engaged and looking for an apartment together before starting their senior year of college. When I showed the manuscript to Jordan, he was impressed. I showed it to a few trusted teachers. And that's how I lucked out without even trying. It's really tough for a young, penniless and completely unknown writer to get his or her work out there. However, luck smiled upon me. Mr. Neil, the bespectacled Director of the Library of Saint Dumas University hooked me up with his grad school buddy James Lancaster, founder of Lancaster & Schultz Publishing. Lancaster had been on the verge of launching an urban literature series and was looking for cool, stylish writers who captured the soul of urban America. To him, I was a diamond in the rough. He read my book and loved it. And just like that, he hooked me up with an editor. Three months later, my book hit the stores. It was on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores. I had no idea people would react to it the way they did. There are a lot of Black male and Black female writers out there. Many of them are really talented and the urban literature world loves their work. Too many of them only write about gangster sagas, street life and the criminal lifestyle. Not many urban fiction authors focused on more positive storytelling. By making the hero of my story a Black male college student working his way up in America the legal way instead of some super thug, I captured people's imaginations. Many in the urban literature world were looking for a bold new voice. And I was that voice for them. This changed my life, folks. I became a celebrity overnight. Lancaster & Schultz Publishing released the book on audio tape, paperback and hardcover. Five hundred thousand copies were sold the first week. I rose to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list. Millions of copies of my book were sold. I was being compared to world-famous Black writers like Terry McMillan, E. Lynn Harris, Eric Jerome Dickey and others. Folks, I was doing book signings. People on campus were asking for my autograph. Hell, I even went on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah loved my book. Once I got her blessing, I became an even greater sensation. It's hard for a Black male fiction author to appeal to both men and women across racial, class and cultural lines, but somehow I did it. Everybody loved me. Even my parents seemed to remember that I exist. As did my brother, though he wanted to borrow some cash. I never returned any of their calls. They're bad people. Negative influences. I don't associate with the likes of them. Not anymore. As my world changed, my friendship with Jordan Sparrow began to reach an interesting dimension. We went from a brotherly partnership of equals to one of celebrity and celebrity friend. I never let the success get to my head. I know people can turn on me at any time. If I were stupid enough to date some woman who would falsely accuse me of assault or something worse, if some female teacher or female student accused me of harassment, if some White person accused me of robbing them, I might lose everything. Black male and Black female celebrities sometimes forget that they're Black and will always be Black, thus should always watch themselves because the world is harsh and unforgiving to our kind. The public quickly turned against professional basketball player Kobe Bryant, boxing legend Mike Tyson and R & B artist Chris Brown when they were accused of wrongdoing by some women they made the mistake of knowing. Guilty or innocent, the Black male celebrity, just like the ordinary Black man, will always stands guilty in the public's eye. I didn't forget where I came from. I was sure to share the spoils with Jordan Sparrow, my brother, my ( platonic) love, and my only friend in this world. Unfortunately, Jordan Sparrow wasn't satisfied that I took care of his student loans for him. Or that I bought him a bright red convertible. You see, he resented me. He resented me for being famous. For being successful. Many Black men and Black women who accomplish great things in their lives find out the hard way that sometimes, those who hate them the most are their fellow Black men and Black women. Seriously. My favorite celebrity in the world, United States President Barack Obama, should take care not to trust anyone, male or female, straight or gay, Black or white. I'm sure treachery stems from every pore of every man and woman in the White House. The world hates the successful Black man most of all. I'm learning that the hard way. Jordan turned against me unexpectedly. We hadn't been hanging out too much lately. I still went to class. Even though I was now worth millions, I still wanted to get my bachelor's degree in business, and eventually my Master's. You can't put a value on education. The undereducated man does himself and the world a great disservice. The money didn't change me. I kept myself on a budget. I invested my money wisely. I still lived in a nice apartment off campus. I was still on scholarship. Waste not, want not. Having money had changed Jordan. He was now hanging out with a posse of African-American pseudo-intellectuals with too much power and not enough wisdom. The sons and daughters of wealthy Black families who were attending schools like Harvard University, Boston College, MIT, Northeastern University and Brandeis University. I didn't like this new crowd he chilled with. Especially a tall, beautiful but shady-eyed young Black woman named Marguerite Simpson. Marguerite Simpson was the daughter of Oliver and Nikita Simpson, a wealthy Black couple from Atlanta. She attended Spellman College before transferring to Boston College. She was Jordan Sparrow's new girlfriend. I didn't like her. She was a loud-mouthed hussy who was filling his head with ideas. And she was taking him to clubs all the time. He was skipping class, and doing too much partying and drinking. I had created an account for Jordan. There was one hundred grand in it. He was drawing cash from it all the time and wasting it on Marguerite and her rich friends. I felt bad for Jordan. What happened to him was my fault. By giving him too much money, I had changed him into a jerk. So I cut his cash slow. And watched my best friend become my worst enemy. The day after his bank account got flushed, Jordan came to my apartment, drunk and angry. He had a baseball bat in his hand. And he was mad as hell. I didn't let him in, of course. He was blaming me for all of his problems. He claimed that Marguerite and her friends ditched him and his world was falling apart. He'd been placed on academic suspension because his grades were really low as a result of his hard drinking, late partying and lack of interest in showing up to class. Like all short-sighted people, Jordan blamed everyone but himself. I tried to reason with him. I told him he'd get his money back if he agreed to get clean. I was hoping to check him into rehab. He wouldn't hear of it. He didn't want to listen to reason, and tried to bash my head in. I was forced to have him thrown out of the building, as he swore to kill me if it was the last thing he did. After he was gone, I lay in my bed and cried for the first time in ages. My parents disowned me long before I struck it rich. And they were only interested in my money. My older brother was a moocher. And now my best friend wanted to kill me. Whoever said money doesn't buy happiness was one hundred percent right. It took me a long time but eventually, I moved on with my life. In June of 2009, I graduated from Saint Dumas University's business education program with a bachelor's degree. I graduated with high honors, and was automatically accepted into the MBA program. I also published a second book, the saga of two lifelong best friends, Black college men, who turned on each other after becoming millionaires. I titled it Brotherhood's Ending. It was more cynical and bitter than my first book. It didn't sell as well but still generated a financial success. Only two million copies sold in the United States. I was a big moneymaker for Lancaster & Schultz Publishing. One of their top people, as they say. I intend to stick with them for a while. Maybe publish a few new books. Someday, I intend to launch my own publishing company. Solo. You see, I've learned something in all of my adventures. In the end, we're alone. Everything else is just a wish upon a fallen star. Black Male Genius in Ottawa Keeping away from nutcases is always a good idea. My problem is that I'm basically a magnet for them. Seriously, on the bus, the train and at work, at the school library and everywhere I go. They're there, passive-aggressively sneezing, coughing, staring, spitting and hatefully staring in my general direction. Can someone save me from them? The name is Samuel "Sammy" Vivant and I'm a young man living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. My father Joseph Vivant is Haitian and my mother Mira Santiago is Hispanic, originally from Venezuela. They met at university while in Montreal, fell in love, got hitched and had little old me. I am the offspring of an interracial couple. Technically that makes me biracial but I identify as black. Six feet tall, burly, brown-skinned and black-haired, that's me. I am used to people staring at my parents and I whenever we're out in public together. I study Criminal Justice at Canada's Capital University, and when I'm not in class or at home, I'm working security in a government building downtown. You know, one of those places full of middle-aged bozos with inflated egos. Enter at your own risk, ladies and gentlemen. The most boring, tedious, dull and bigoted human beings in existence work there. A lot of people don't like their jobs but they're not starting to slip mentally like I feel I might be. I try to keep my head down and just do the job, but I really can't stand the fuckers. Add to that the fact that the other security guard on site is a passive-aggressive older white dude named Donald Gardener, and you can understand why I can't stand my job. I'm close to completing my studies at school, so I can't afford to quit my job now. You don't give up when you're close to the finish line, folks. What would be the point? Anyhow, the part of my job I hate the most is riding the elevator with all of these government worker types. Everyone is middle-aged, portly, dull and boring. They have endless conversations about cottages, and lament the fact that their idol Stephen Harper, Canada's deeply Conservative and bigoted former Dictator-in-Chief lost in the October 19, 2015 election. Seriously, that's all they talk about and their discomfort and their fear about a racially diverse future for Canada is sweet nectar to me. The Liberals are in power now, and they're a racially diverse and gender-inclusive bunch. I guess this royally pisses off the middle-aged, racist and sexist old white dudes working in Canadian government offices in downtown Ottawa. I wish these fuckers would retire and play bingo so the Canadian government could hire more young people. Like dinosaurs must have clung on after the asteroid fell, the bozos are still around. I wish I could say these old crones are my biggest problem right now, but they aren't. No, my problem is that I am starting to lose it. For five days a week I wake up at five in the morning so I can be at work downtown by six thirty in the morning. I live in the West End of Ottawa, which means riding the bus downtown takes me a long damn time. Every morning on the bus I see the same old faces. Let's see, there's an old white guy who wears a brown jacket, and he's always sitting in the middle of the bus next to a mousy-looking brunette, and this tough-faced, dark-haired broad with hard dark eyes and kind of a nice ass. Government workers one and all, I know the look at this point. They always look at me, because I'm the only person on the bus who is not old and pale. They're wondering what my occupation is. I live within walking distance of the bus station, in a middle-class area of Ottawa. They're always assessing people. I can see right through them. I typically wear a dark jacket with a nice dress shirt and black dress pants, complete with my black timberland boots. I don't wear my security shirt on the bus or anyplace other than inside the building where I work, and only during working hours. I arrive dressed business casual and leave the same way. Bozos are always staring at me, thinking I'm awfully young to be working in a Canadian government building. I guess they feel that they are the envy of the world. Let them wallow in their delusions. Not much awaits them besides a nursing home, endless bingo games and a grave. When I look at them, all I see is decay and entitlement, and I can't tell you which one disgusts me more. I don't want to work for the Canadian government. Too many middle-aged bozos and old people there. I hate the smug, boring and dull people who work there. Everyone's gray and wrinkly. Thanks but no thanks. I want to go to Law School and practice law. Seriously, I don't want to be one of those creeps who walk around downtown with their government worker's ID badges around their necks and either a cigarette or a coffee cup in their hand. I don't want to spend the rest of my adult life in some boring government office, wasting the government's time because I come down the elevator every hour to smoke or chit-chat, or gossip. These people are wasting the Canadian taxpayer's time with their bullshit. Seriously, if you work eight hours a day, and you have a paid lunch, you shouldn't duck away from your work station or desk or whatever every hour. That's called being a cheat. I can't stand those. What do I want to do with my life? I want to be a criminal defense attorney. I want to help people in need. I know that Law School isn't cheap but my grades are good and my professors like me and like my work. I know I can get in. Paying for it is another matter, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I consistently make Dean's List almost every semester. Oh, and I'm not on OSAP like the majority of students at Canadian universities. Nope, I'm paying my own way as a security guard who makes twelve dollars per hour. Yes, it's not glamorous and I put up with a lot of bullshit from people with low-IQs but when I graduate from university without any student debt, it would have been all worth it. My life on campus isn't all peaches and cream either. Let's take my favorite class for example. We were discussion Abortion Rights, certainly a fairly controversial topic, and like the rest of my classmates, I listened with rapt attention as our professor, a rather unique, flamboyant and upbeat fellow, told us about the struggle of Canadian women for abortion access in New Brunswick. Something bugged me about the whole thing, and it had nothing to do with the topic. There was this annoying, kind of tomboyish white chick in a flannel shirt sitting behind me, and throughout the lecture, she kept bugging me by kicking the chair behind me, or putting her feet up on the chair right next to mine. Um, what the fuck? Look, when it comes right down to it, I believe in showing some basic respect to all human beings. I don't care if you're black or white, male or female, straight or gay, I will show you some basic respect. That being said, don't cross the line with me. Otherwise, well, I'm going to have to make your day a lot more unpleasant than it has to be. I cleared my throat loudly and Miss Flannel Shirt seemed to get the message and pulled her feet off the chair. A few minutes later, she resumed kicking the damn chair. Um, seriously? I tried to focus on the lecture, but the bullshit kept getting to me. Finally, at the end of class, I had a few choice words for Miss Flannel Shirt. I told her I found her chair-kicking habit annoying. The flannel shirt chick, flanked by two of her friends, a black chick I'd seen in class and a white gal I didn't know, stared awkwardly. I walked away, and that's when she began talking trash to her friends. I went to the campus library and wrote an email to the professor detailing the incident. Look, I believe in being careful, alright? In this world, if you're a black man, everyone seems to be out to get you. Male or female, straight or gay, rich or poor, everyone seems to have something against us brothers. Most of us are fairly nice people, so I don't know what their problem is. That being said, I don't make a habit of underestimating anyone. I've seen false accusations made by women ruin men much more powerful than myself. Knowing how campuses routinely trample over guys in favor of women, I made sure I let the admin know about the incident. That way, if something comes of it, at least I was the first one to approach the appropriate the authorities. Be on the offensive, not the defensive. It's the better position to be. Alright, some of you think I'm exaggerating. I can see your heads shaking on this one. Whatever. Oh, and for the feminist types and what-have-you who are reading this, you know I'm right. False allegations made by women can ruin even powerful men, and I'm not a powerful man yet. So, black or white, male or female, straight or gay, rich or poor, I consider everyone who isn't me at least a potential threat to me. So, when they initiate hostilities, I process it intellectually, come up with a sound strategy and take action. Yeah, I'm working hard, excelling at school, staying out of trouble, dealing cleverly with my enemies, and staying ahead of the game. The only thing lacking in this soap opera that my life has become is a leading lady. There was one, once. Her name was Annie. Tall, lovely, smart, and Haitian. We met at a movie theater in 2012 and she stayed in my life until late 2014. I miss her quite often at times. Annie was good to me, and we had some wonderful times, but you can't have a love story when it's just one person in love, while the other, due to having been hurt in past relationships, is afraid to love. I tried my best with Annie, I was patient with her, but it wasn't good enough. The damage that bad men do to good women's hearts causes good men to suffer. I wish Annie the best with her future, though it is not with me. Anyhow, enough of this romantic stuff. I'm mere months away from graduating in the Criminal Justice program at Canada's Capital University. My LSAT scores are excellent and I've gotten accepted at the University of Ottawa. I am already looking for a better job. Playing servant to the boring, dull and bigoted old crones who work for the Canadian government doesn't suit a man of my intellect. For now, I'm playing along and paying my bills. Got to live one day at a time, you know? As for the future, who knows what it can bring? I'm sure there are plenty of lovely, intelligent women school and I'll meet plenty once I get there. The gals at my school lack maturity, and while I've had a few dalliances with them, they're not the type you take home to meet mama and papa. One last thing before I leave. I wasn't totally honest about the reason why I hate government workers. They are annoying, and dull, and bigoted, all this is true. The reason I despise them is much more personal. Alright, I might as well fess up since we're at the end of this journey. Canadian government workers irk me for a very I don't like the way they treat us security people, and the cleaners and even the helmeted contractors like we're subhuman. Anyhow, this lousy job will soon be in my past. I've got my Law School Acceptance letter framed, and next September I will be in Law School. Still, if I ever become the type of bozo who feels superior to other human beings on account to his income or occupation, you are more than welcome to deck me. I am dead serious. Trust me, you'd be doing me a favor, for I would have become everyone I presently hate. Goodnight.