My name is Byron Langston. A six-foot-one, lean and muscular Black man of Haitian and Native American descent living in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. I recently graduated from the University of Massachusetts ( Boston campus ) with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Presently, I work for United Credit Union, a local business. It’s okay, I guess. Pays the bills. I’m currently attending Suffolk University, trying to get my MBA. The life of a Black man in America is never easy but it’s not pure hell either. Intelligent, educated and hard-working Black men and Black w omen can do well in America if given the chance.
The Recession is in full bloom and at United Credit Union, we’re feeling the crunch. The men and women I work with have been acting more like loan sharks rather than educated professionals lately. Suffice to say that I’m not exactly in love with my job. However, I’d be a fool to walk away from a sixty-thousand-dollar a year job in the middle of the worst recession to hit the country in almost a century. My wife Menaja Troy and I recently bought a nice, two-story house on Brockton’s quietly affluent West Side. We think it’s the ideal place to raise a family. I was born in the city of Harmony, Maine. The only son of Haitian-American police officer Robert Guillaume and Native American schoolteacher Tamora Moon-Gold Langston. Life wasn’t easy for our family in the Whitest state in the Union. I want to start a family with my beloved Menaja and I want our family to live in a nicely integrated community.
Now, even though statistics say that White people will be minorities in the United States. America in mere decades, a lot of cities are still lily-White. Take the city of Bridgewater for example. It’s a small town located right next to Brockton, one of Massachusetts biggest cities. Brockton has a population of one hundred thousand people. Fifty two percent of the population is of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Middle-Eastern or Cape Verdean descent. Now that’s what I call progress. People of color are the majority in the city of Brockton. I just wish most towns in Massachusetts were on the same track. Boston’s population is fifty percent non-White, which is pretty cool. It’s one of the most diverse cities in New England. My beloved wife Menaja didn’t like the idea of us moving to the city of Brockton. She liked Bridgewater better, but there was no way I was going to live in White Central again.
When I met Menaja Troy, I was visiting some relatives of mine in Atlanta, Georgia. Menaja was attending Spelman College at the time. This five-foot-ten, busty and big-bottomed, delightfully curvy young Black woman totally stole my heart. At first glance, too. And you know what? Menaja actually liked what she saw when she looked at me. A lot of people wonder about my politics and personality due to my unique heritage. I’m biracial rather than merely light-skinned, and hail from a really, really White town. The way I talked also put off a lot of people. I got tired of African-Americans telling me I sounded White. I also got tired of White people telling me I was articulate. They use that word to describe any person of color who doesn’t butcher the English language with every syllable. I can’t stand to hear that word. Seriously. The word articulate sends shivers down my spine. When I enrolled at the University of Massachusetts in Boston in 2004, I found myself surrounded by scores of African-American students for the first time in my life.
The University of Massachusetts in Boston is one of the most racially diverse schools in New England. There are lots of African-American, Hispanic and Asian students there. I fell in love with the campus the first time I visited. When I attended Saint Albert Academy in the city of Harmony ( Maine ), I was one of one hundred and ten non-White students in the entire school. A school with a student body of eight hundred. Most of the other non-White students were Asian or Hispanic. The few African-American students didn’t like the company of a biracial guy like myself. The wealthy White students didn’t like me either. Folks, I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. At the University of Massachusetts in Boston, I finally felt at home. You see, right outside of Boston is the city of Brockton. A city with a thriving population of Cape Verdeans. The Cape Verdeans are a unique people from Africa. A people of mixed African and Portuguese heritage. Many of them looked like me, and they sent their sons and daughters to Boston-area colleges like UMass-Boston. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. And I loved that.
At UMass-Boston, I found myself fascinated by the many sexy young Black women on campus. Unfortunately for me, most of them weren’t into me. I’m an intellectual first and foremost. I graduated valedictorian at Saint Albert Academy and I attended UMass-Boston on an academic scholarship. The young Black women at UMass-Boston didn’t like geeks like myself. They preferred two types of men, the jocks and the thugs. I’m one hundred percent nerd, folks. Back at Saint Albert Academy, I was President of the Student Body and I was also on the Math Team. My best friend Joel Rosenthal was a Jewish guy. And he was also nerdy in the extreme. We collected Marvel and D.C. comic books. We played chess. We loved video games. Two nerds in a nerdy city. How quaint.
Even worse for me is the fact that I stunk at football, basketball and cross country. African-American student-athletes dominate these sports at high schools and colleges across the country. I can’t throw a ball to save myself and I’m a lousy runner. However, I excelled at swimming. My mother used to take me to the YMCA every week. I loved the water. In high school, I joined the swim team and made captain. I was also on the skiing team and I was the co-founder of the coed rowing club. Yeah, all of these interests of mine alienated me at UMass-Boston. When I joined the men’s swim team, I had no idea I was making history. I was the first Black man to join the UMass-Boston men’s varsity swimming team. And guess what? In no time I made captain. How about that?
At my new campus, I was academically successful but I was also the loneliest person on campus. After my first year of college ended, I dashed to Atlanta to meet some of my long-lost relatives. I met my uncle, James Guillaume and his wife Martha along with their sons Jericho and Adam. My uncle is a professor of liberal arts at Georgia State University. His wife Martha is a corrections officer working for the county. It’s through my uncle that I met my future wife, Menaja Troy. My uncle invited me to a family barbecue attended by many of his friends, including his college buddy, attorney Mark Troy, his wife Darlene and their daughter Menaja. The tall, curvy and big-bottomed Menaja Troy was definitely my kind of lady. She was pretty and dark-skinned, just the way I liked my women. And unlike the gorgeous but aloof Black ladies of UMass-Boston, she had nothing against tall, light-skinned nerds like myself. In fact, she kind of liked them. We were made for each other.
Fast forward five years and we’re happily married and living in a beautiful house we bought together. Menaja works for the Attorney General’s Office. She’s currently attending the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. At the end of 2009, she’ll be done. Then all she’s got to do is ace the Bar Exam. My sweet wife’s going to be a lawyer. She’s a I’m so proud of her. She already has law firms from Boston showing an urgent interest in her. I’m happy for her. She inspires me to keep going. I’ve got pace myself to keep up with her. We’re just a regular Black couple trying to make it in this life. I love her dearly. I’m lucky she’s in my life. No matter how hard things get, she inspires me to keep going. God willing, someday we’ll have it all. We already have the loving relationship, the fast-paced careers and the beautiful house. All that remains is success and a big, happy family. We’ll have that someday. We’re happy together.