by Ian Williams
Convincing students that they have something to learn about composition or the mechanics of language from someone who looks like me and “misspells” colour and “mispronounces” about, to use cute examples, is an issue not automatically faced by American speakers. Though Canadian English is “close enough,” I still heard an insinuation of doubt regarding my claim to the language when a student asked, You guys, like, speak French up there, right?
* * *
—
Chiayi set her laptop in front of me.
Look what I found, she said.
Onscreen, there was a Black man, smiling and wearing a tie.
Who’s this? I asked.
The library school hired a Black professor.
I scroll down the screen. He’s the only Black face among fourteen.
* * *
—
Welcome. I’m your professor for Nineteenth-Century African-American Literature, Ian Williams. I’m not actually African-American.
The American students smile. They titter. They exchange looks, unsure what’s going on. Then I try to clarify. It takes longer than you’d expect.
I’m Black, I say. Canadian.
Some light bulbs go on. Some stay off.
Yeah, someone says, but you’re still African-American.
That’s the moment that I’m prepared for. Many white students don’t see the term African-American as being a national designator. It’s a term that applies to all Black people whether we are American or not. So point number 1 in class with Americans, who are prepared to talk about race to some degree, is to expand the notion of Blackness beyond America, then beyond Africa.
* * *
—
For a Canadian to pass as an American is easy enough. Our accents, our mannerisms, our cultures are similar; our motivations are explained by similar theories, whether those be capitalism, Judeo-Christianity, evolutionary biology, or Freud. By comparison, anxiety about being a Black man who passes as an African-American seems self-inflicted, an almost unnecessary conundrum. Yet being Black is not the same as being African-American. African-American is a brand of Blackness so popular, powerful, and performable that it relegates other diasporic brands to the negligible cultural margin. Even next to unhyphenated Africanism, African-Americanism stands as the imperial brand referenced most easily as the stereo/prototype of Blackness.
Passing implies a hierarchy. One passes for inclusion into a group above one’s own. I’d be deceiving myself if I believed that the class joker was well-intentioned as he offered an invitation to become part of the hegemonic group, albeit on conditions that preserve my otherness. Dr. Williams, you can come in now. We have your green card ready. I feel the condescension in his comment, premised on his sense of entitlement as a middle-class, white American man. Between us, age and educational disparity disappeared. Being American trumps all other identity markers.
In order to pass in my role as a credible professor of African-American literature, I became African-American. I’d go as far as saying that every person of African descent in America becomes African-American regardless of association with Africa or the Caribbean or Britain or Canada. Thus, the history of African-Americans became mine by virtue of my skin and my temporary placement within the borders of the country. It’s a peculiar feeling, this generalization that claimed me; none of my white American colleagues would become British in England or Canadian in Canada. American status (I don’t mean that legally) is maintained everywhere in the world, unless it’s convenient to hide under shared whiteness. Being American trumps all—I already said it.
No surprise, then, that such a universally acceptable brand of being is alluring. Passing as American or African-American does not have to turn one into a race traitor. It can be a temporary convenience. It can destabilize the fixedness of national and ethnic identity by its fluidity. Right. But to be perfectly honest, which means foregoing that contrived, optimistic conclusion, if I exploit at whim my ability to pass as native to Canada, the Caribbean, or America, I am little more than a philanderer, a coward who denies the complexity of his multiple allegiances. Instead of quarrelling with systems archaic and powerful enough to make identity categorical, my passing signals tacit submission. It endorses stratification of those who have power, those who pass for people with power, and those fighting for some.
* * *
—
I have one body, yet it receives so many reactions. This is true for many racialized people. As Chiayi was getting into a cab in Washington, DC, two drunk politician-looking men leered at her, glanced at me, and made some between-men joke.
My partner and I share an immigrant understanding that other ways of thinking and living are as valid as North American ways. We get smug sometimes at the blind spots of North Americans. The smugness, I think, attempts to elevate our occasional outsider status. We have charged memories of the countries where we were born and the years when white kids made fun of our pronunciation and the categories that people are so intent on filling with our bodies. We know, too, that as kids who were raised here, who pass adoptively, we live on the inside of North American culture in a way our parents do not. Between us, there’s an immigrant code that the West is not the centre of humanity. The whole world is livable. People live good lives never having encountered whiteness.
Given our position both inside and outside, it’s no surprise that we ended up together. We orbit each other.
SIGHTING
Vancouver
Sun Oct 18
I am sitting in my car behind a friend’s building with my partner. I sight a Black boy. He’s alone, about ten years old, wearing green camouflage clothing and a mask. He waits near the rear entrance of a community centre. He reads the sign on the fence. He’s hoping that the centre is open. He walks to another entrance. A Black girl with a backpack joins him. His sister? A white man comes, tries his card at the door. It doesn’t work. He leaves. The Black children leave. A white woman opens the door from the inside.
Mon Oct 19
5:09 p.m.
While driving, I sight the long brown dreadlocks of a pedestrian. Maybe he’s— Is he? No, he is not Black.
5:11 p.m.
A few blocks later, I sight a Black man entering a car. A woman with a surgical mask is strapping a (her? their?) child into the car seat.
6:23 p.m.
I sight a Black woman pushing a white girl in a stroller.
6:30 p.m.
I sight a Black boy waiting on a white man to throw a Frisbee to him. The man sees me walking along the edge of the park. He throws the Frisbee to the child and congratulates him loudly for catching it.
Tue Oct 20
On my way to the dentist, I see a Black man mowing a tiny patch of grass on city property. I think the words invisible labour.
Wed Oct 21
White rain.
Thu Oct 22
On Zoom, students return to the main room after I close a breakout room. A Black face flickers, but before I can process it, the student turns off his camera and disappears into the 120 students in the class. A Black woman, same—a flicker before she disappears—but she has a photo of herself as her Zoom profile tile.
Fri Oct 23
White rain.
Sat Oct 24
I count eight Black people at church. It’s the only time I see a critical mass of Black people each week. Sister Alma is back from knee surgery. Her husband is celebrating his eightieth birthday. The only Black woman around my age is back for the first time since the first COVID lockdown. She is keeping her hair natural. The pastor’s son has not cut his hair in months either. His box cut slopes outward from his head like Nefertiti’s crown.
Sun Oct 25
I am driving south on Main Street. A Black woman waits to cross the street outside a Tim Hortons. She is wearing snow pants although it is not very cold b
y Canadian standards. New immigrant? I feel ashamed of the snap assumption.
Mon Oct 26
White rain.
Tue Oct 27
The automatic doors of the Save-On-Foods part to reveal a Black security guard. I head-nod. He smiles under his mask. After I check out, I see him enter the dollar store in the mall, still in uniform. He pauses in front of the soda fridges. Something has changed in his movements. He seems more relaxed. No, not relaxed. Submissive. I wonder what drink he will buy there that he wouldn’t buy at the expensive store he protects and who, apart from me, is watching him.
Wed Oct 28
White rain.
Thu Oct 29
4:09 p.m.
I think I see a Black man inside the U-Haul storage office. In reality, he is actually a life-sized cardboard cut-out of a U-Haul employee.
4:28 p.m.
I go to the Vancouver dump to dispose of old building materials. It’s a dark, foul, indoor place. I back my car up to the edge of the pit and toss baseboard and flooring scraps into Jabba. I place a bucket near the edge.
What’s in the bucket? an employee asks.
It’s drywall compound. I read part of the label to him. It keeps the dust down when you’re sanding.
You can’t dump that here.
No?
Seeing my confusion, he lowers his mask. He is Black. He says, There’s a place on Ontario and 69th. You can take it there.
At Ontario and 69th, I meet a Middle Eastern man.
We don’t take that here, he says.
I was sent here, I say.
Well, we don’t accept it.
Where does?
Dunno.
Can I ask someone else?
I’m the manager, he says.
I look around. No one is close enough to intervene. I ask, Where would you go if you were me?
The dump, he says.
I drive home between two questions: Which of these two men is lying? Which of these two men would a white person believe?
Fri Oct 30
Movers arrive. One of them is gregarious and upbeat, nearly evangelical, in a manner I associate with successful twelve-step recovery.
He asks, What do you do for a living?
I respond, What do you think I do?
Some kind of office job, he says.
I’m a professor, I say.
Oh, good for you, he says. I never would have guessed that.
He then tells me stories about “Indians” who broke into his moving truck in northern Ontario and stole a TV. Then about an “Oriental” man who went surfing for the first time in Hawaii, caught a massive wave, got tossed, and landed right back on his board like a ninja. Chiayi is in the bedroom on a Zoom work call, missing this. I don’t update his terms. I know I should, but I want my furniture to arrive undamaged. He happily takes all of my things away.
Sat Oct 31. Halloween.
Chiayi and I take the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria. I think I see a Black person on the deck taking photos of the wake of the vessel in the ocean, but no, not Black, he’s only styled Black. We walk around the ferry, inside, outside. No one like me.
* * *
—
Victoria
Sun Nov 1. Daylight savings
My partner discovers this list of Black people on my phone. It’s called Ian’s List of Comforts.
Very creepy, she says. What would you say if a white person kept a list of Black people?
They already do, I say.
Not as comfort, she says.
11:35 a.m.
I pick my feet up as if I have stepped in gum. I have stepped on a Black face. It is part of a mural painted in a public square. The mural says, MORE JUSTICE MORE PEACE. As I am looking, a white cameraman approaches me.
I’m with CTV News, he says. We’re looking for a comment about the incident that happened here.
The bear trap yawns.
I say, I can’t comment on something I don’t know about.
The mural was defaced recently, he explains. He points to the S of JUSTICE. This section here was about defunding the police. Some witnesses saw a man with a helmet come by and spray-paint over it.
A white man? I say.
Yes, the cameraman says. Do you have any reactions you’d like to share?
I say, That was my reaction.
Later, Chiayi asks, What do you think that reporter wanted?
You heard him. You were there, I say.
Right, yeah. He didn’t approach anyone else for comment, though. Just you.
12:27 p.m.
I say, Do you think we’ll see a Black person today?
She says, Today you might have to look in the mirror. Then she imitates my voice: Hey, buddy. I’m so happy to see you.
4:24 p.m.
Chiayi and I hike up a mountain at sunset. At the top is a white man and a tree. Before we can take in the full view of the surrounding mountains, the lake below, before I can use the word nestled, the white man starts talking to us. He is holding a beer. He knows everything about everything. Behind him, in the distance, a Black man emerges. We squint at each other. He toasts me with his water bottle. I toast him back. He sits down behind a ridge, hidden from sight. I can only see cigarette smoke rising from where he is. I turn my attention back to the white man, who has not stopped talking. He is explaining the bark of the arbutus tree, which is shedding to reveal new brown bark below. Peels right off, he says. Like skin.
Mon Nov 2
White rain.
Tue Nov 3. Election Day
White reign.
Wed Nov 4
White rain.
Thu Nov 5
White rain.
Fri Nov 6
White rain.
Sat Nov 7
On the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver, a Black teenager sits alone at a table with a bag of fast food in front of him. He eats some of his meal and wraps up the rest for later.
* * *
—
A tall, thin man who wears a bandana in place of a mask considers the menu of the cafeteria then leaves.
A middle-aged man scrolls through his phone. The pace of his scrolling suggests that he’s looking for someone to call.
I sight a family. A husband and wife try to feed their squirmy, distracted children. Seeing the woman and the two daughters makes me wonder, Where are the Black women in this province?
* * *
—
Toronto
Sun Nov 8
The flight is full, despite the pandemic. One of the flight attendants is Black. She’s extremely courteous, like flight attendants from the eighties. Maybe she’s new to this. I don’t search her chest for a name tag because I don’t want her to misread me.
I am waiting outside Pearson Airport for public transit. It’s 20 degrees Celsius, unseasonably warm for Toronto in November, but I am wearing a puffy coat and several layers because my luggage is maxed out. I bet, no, I worry that people think I’m a new immigrant. I want to be the kind of Black man who never worries about such perceptions. I consider chewing gum aggressively like a jock.
Mon Nov 9
A muscular Black man walks a tiny dog in Liberty Village while talking on his cell. His girlfriend’s?
The Black salesman at the car rental place hooks me up with a car in record time. His shirt is too tight for his belly.
Tue Nov 10
Every time I go out now, I sight Black people.
I make eye contact with a Black man in a parking lot and his walk turns into a swagger.
A Black woman rides a bicycle with a basket. I am afraid for her.
A man holds his daughter’s hand with one hand and pushes the empty stroller with the other.
Wed Nov 11, Rememb
rance Day
At the bike racks outside FreshCo, closing time, I sight a Black guy and his white girlfriend. It looks like he’s breaking up with her from how he hangs his head, won’t meet her eye, from her stiff body, her hands in the high pockets of her coat. Beneath her coat, she is still in her FreshCo uniform. They’re each waiting for the other to say something.
Thu Nov 12
My partner asks, Are you still recording?
What? I ask, because I wasn’t taking video on my phone.
Black people, she says.
She has noticed a change in me, a relaxation.
No, I say.
She says, You have enough. You’re in a good place.
Fri Nov 13
While walking to get some daisies for an event at the specific request of the organizer, I sight a Black man with artificial daisies in his cart.
Where did you get those? I ask him.
Dollarama, he says.
We talk for a while. His nose is busted. After busking, he tells me, he was carrying all his stuff on his bike and he tried to ride over a railroad track, but he was going too fast and everything went flying. His nose broke his fall. He says that sentence like a punchline to a joke he’s told many times. He has a slight accent. Maybe he’s Brazilian. I want to ask him where he’s from. I see the blue stitches through his nose. I hurry away. I see myself—a man on a chi-chi mission to buy gerbera daisies at 10 a.m. who wanted to ask him where he’s from. How easy it is to become the whiteness one beholds. It’s like learning to speak: you don’t plan to learn, you just hear these voices around you and join in bit by bit until you’re speaking the language of the master’s house.