very time I sit on a crowded street car, bus, or subway train in Toronto, I know I will have an empty seat next to me. It's like a broken record. Sometimes I don't mind having the extra space, but other times I feel awkward, uncomfortable, and annoyed.
I know I have good hygiene, I dress appropriately, and I mind my own business. However, recently, I finally became cognizant of why people might fear being around me or in close proximity to me: I am a black male. Although Canadian society presents the
façade of multiculturalism the truth is Canada has a serious problem with the issue of race.
I didn't realize it until my sister said to me:
Orville, people are afraid of you. You are a six-foot tall black man with broad shoulders.
My sister is right, people don't sit next to me on the street car, the subway or on the bus because they are afraid.
The issue of black self-hatred is something I am supposed to pretend does not exist. However, the great French psychiatrist Frantz Fanon wrote about this issue in his groundbreaking book
Black Skin White Masks, in a chapter called "the Lived Experience of the Black Man". According to Fanon, the black man is viewed in the third person, and he isn't seen as a three-dimensional human being. The black man internalizes the perspectives of white society and its negative thoughts about blackness affect his psyche. In the chapter, Fanon discusses a white child calling him the "N word" and how he becomes cognizant of how he is different and viewed as someone people should fear.
