The Brown Supremacy
“President Barack Obama.” The chalk sounded on the blackboard as if some frantic message were being tapped out in Morse code. Then the symphony of the scratch and swish. The first sound being caused by the chalk as she drew the long line. The accompaniment provided by her nylon sports jacket as she stretched. “Elected 2008, took office 2009.” Professor McCloud cotched on the corner of her desk. Approaching the age of forty, the wiser knew. Under the dumbed down attire and unflattering mop of hair she was still a looker. She juggled the chalk from one hand to the other as she surveyed her class for a victim. “Allegedly leading to what change.... Jack?” she pointed to a student.
“World Domination II – Rise of the Brown Babies.” Jack put on his best gruff movie trailer voice. A titter of laughter rippled through the class.
“Very good Jack,” she turned back to her board. “New order of the West,” she spoke the words as she marked them in block capitals. She turned and faced her students whilst rubbing her hands together to remove the chalk dust. “Referred to by the original right as.....?” A brief silence ensued. “Adopted tongue in cheek by author A. Johnson, come on!” she urged. “It's also the name of your text book.”
“The Brown supremacy,” offered a student from the front row.
“Thank you Melissa. Is there any published biological reason or data to suggest the superiority of the Caucasian / African hybrid?”
“Not mentally, no Miss.”
“Living proof!” announced a mixed race student stepping to the side of his desk and taking a theatrical bow.
“David, sit down and shut up!” the teacher snapped. “So Melissa.” She reverted her attention back to the girl. "There's no credible proof of intellectual superiority?”
“No Miss.”
“Yeah, but physically we got it going on!” David stood up again and posed as a body-builder. Some of the class cheered.
“Mr class smart-ass. Your source please?”
“Melissa of course,” he replied. Melissa blushed, the class giggled.
“David?” she tapped her foot expectantly.
“Dr Roger Bannister, 1995,” he stated proudly.
“Famed for?”
“The first man to run a mile in under four minutes. May 1954, 3 minutes, 59 point 4 seconds.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, he thought he was being chased by a couple of nig...” He was cut short by the stinging pain of a piece of chalk hitting him on the forehead. “Brothers,” he added, frowning, rubbing his head as he returned to his seat. “He thought a couple of brothers were chasing him trying to steal his brand new Nikes,”
“Idiot,” she mumbled. “Back to the point. Why this rise to power? Anybody?”
“The tide....”
“Shut up David, I'm warning you! I've got special punishments. I'll feed you things that'll cause your reproductive organs, one in to particular to shrivel and fail.”
“Melissa will fight you!”
“But Miss,” Melissa interrupted, quickly giving David a cheeky grin. “They are physically superior, ain't they?” Her broad grin challenged the teacher.
“Melissa, the subject is political history. Can we move on?”
“Come on Miss, tell us, you'd know.” Melissa pressed her, the class waited with baited breath. “You know what they say. Once you been black....”
“Melissa, quit it!” David stood up, folded his arms and eyed the girl sternly.
“Anybody else?” the teacher continued, clearing her throat and re-establishing her composure. “Why the meteoric rise to power?”
“Nepotism?”
“Possibly John, I won't dismiss it out of hand. Your argument being based on?”
“Your son being the highest graded student in this class?”
“So John, you're supporting the theory of intellectual superiority, the Caucasian brain being enhanced by the Negro gene?”
“No miss, it's just that somebody always seems to get straight A's.” He looked accusingly at another student.
“I see.” Professor McCloud walked over to him and leaned over his desk. “Are you suggesting not only do I give him preferential marks, but all the tutors in this college are involved in some bizarre conspiracy?”
“John.” She strolled back to the front of the class. “You've an opportunity to catch up with him. In fact you all have an opportunity to catch up. You can all revise in detention for John's stupid remark.” Amanda's unsmiling face eyed the class, waiting for the whispered curses aimed John to subside. “David you're excused,” she added. He immediately stood and danced his way to the exit. The teacher motioned him out of the door, he paused with his hand on the handle.
“Come on guys, she's not that bad. Do you really think my old dragon of a mum would give you a detention on the last day of term?” He hastened his exit closing the door behind him, Amanda burst into laughter. The hurled stuffed-toy bounced off the door-glass. The green wide-eyed frog bore an expression appropriate for one who'd been hurled 30ft without warning or reason.
“Okay, your text-book 'The Brown Supremacy,' by Adam Johnson. The author speaks of the bigamy of marriage of between science, nature and biblical or Shakespearian morals. Who can give me the scientific aspect?”
“Einstein's theory of relativity,” replied Jack.
“Sounds interesting, I'd love to hear this.”
“All them buggers are related!”
“The answer's Newton's third law, you fool!” Carl elbowed his class-mate in the ribs.
“Thank you Mr Shaw.” She made a hand gesture indicating he should expand his answer.
“For each and every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.”
“In relation to?”
“Movement, miss.”
“Exactly, I want you to tell me in your assignments, what movement? In this instance the reaction was to?”
“Bowel,” John mumbled under his breath. Carl spiked him in the back of the head a ball-point pen. “Ow!”
“Settle down kiddies. Where does nature come into the equation? ... Yes Melissa.”
“The writer indicates nature is redressing some injustice or imbalance.”
“Good good, I need to know what injustice was being redressed.”
“Biblical, Shakespearian, anybody?” She glanced up at the clock. “Come come people, we're almost out of time. Mr Shah, your input please.”
“He speaks of the Tsunami, the wrath of two oppressed waves combining in rebound to take power from the hands of evil.”
“People, I need your assignments to draw conclusions from the text.” She held the book in the air. “And Mr Shah, from memory I think he wrote of tyranny, not evil.”
“But the writer draws no conclusions himself,” Singh pointed out, a confused look on his face.
“No, ladies and gentlemen, that's your job.”
“I suggest this author has produced a mythological cryptic rant which has no conclusion.”
“Mr Blake, I suggest you find a conclusion before you find an 'F' in your grade-book,” she retorted. John picked up the piece of chalk adjacent to his foot and tossed it back to her.
“Amanda...,” Melissa started, the teacher raised her eyebrows sharply. “Professor McCloud,” Melissa corrected her address but whined at her tutor in a childlike fashion. “Gis some clues, this is really hard.”
“Okay,” the teacher scratched her head and twisted her face whilst thinking. “The author talks of empathy between two oppressed peoples, she....”
“He.” John corrected her.
“Sorry.” She rolled her eyes. “Even I need a break. He speaks of supernatural acceleration of a natural aspect of evolution. If......” The bell rang, a stampede ensued. Amanda was pleasantly surprised, no student rushed directly out of the door. Each took pause to exchange pleasantries with her. Whether it be to say happy holiday, thank her for the term, or express their eagerness to see her next term. Very soon she was left alone bar her son's girlfriend sitting pigeon toed at her desk. Melissa sat absently mindedly scribbling, turning the word empathy into a work of art or a piece of graffiti; take your pick.
“If you what Miss?” she looked up, her rich brown curls still bouncing long after her head was still.
“It's okay Melissa, they're gone now, but it's Professor McCloud to you in front of these.”
“Sorry,” she apologised. “What were you going to say before the bell rang?” There was a brief pause as the teacher replayed events in her head.
“Oh, yes. Review statistics, see what other social groups have increased their profile since Obama.” She stooped to pick up the frog before placing back on top of the reference books where it lived.” Are you coming straight to ours?” It was a rhetorical question. The two began to walk to her car side by side.
“My parents already left, you're stuck with me for two weeks.” Melissa smiled at her fantasy future mother-in-law. “And David's training until ten; you and I have girlie time.”
“Melissa, if you want top marks, here's your clue. Research Michael Crichton, died 2008. If you can work out the underlying theme to most of his full-length screenplays, you'll be on track.”
“You mean, Michael 'If Only they Knew' Crichton?”
“You've cracked it.” The two sat in the car, the teacher turned the key.
“Amanda,” Melissa asked sheepishly. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Permission to ask does guarantee an answer, but shoot Missy, go for it. It's never stopped you in the past.”
“Do you miss David's father?”
“Adam?” She thought for a moment before answering. She'd met Adam when she'd first moved to the city, degree certificate in hand. In those days she thought life would be a breeze. Urban life was much harder than expected. Her money was running out and she was a month away from returning to her parent's house in Doncaster. After leaving another interview knowing she hadn't got the job, again. Amanda didn't feel like going home. She thought to sit in a coffee shop with misery as her company and to contemplate the inevitability of failure.
“Forty-three pounds twenty,” said a mysterious voice. The voice's owner was a tallish black man, impeccably dressed with the most British of accents. No, it wasn't a British accent, he had no accent. There's probably some place near Hertfordshire where they have no detectable accent, she surmised he must have come from there.
“I beg your pardon?” she responded, startled.
“What use is a penny in this day and age? Anyway, your thoughts are probably more valuable than that, a penny.”
“I'm glad somebody values my opinion,” she replied. “Can you give me a job?”
“If I get two, I'll give you one, no innuendo implied or intended.”
“I'll leave that to the Judge,” she jested, before quickly dropping her smile. The way things are going, I'd probably let you give me one if you were paying me enough. That, by the way does not constitute any sort of an offer, it's just an indication of how broke I am.” She swivelled around and looked at his face for the first time. She'd never really looked at a black man before. He seemed well groomed, his neat moustache sat amid almost perfect skin and perfect white teeth. The long second she spent looking into his face allowed him to see she'd been crying.
“Just a second,” he walked away, his steps deliberate but his overall movement rhythmic and graceful. She waited patiently observing the cafés foliage of huge palms and yukkas. There were some benefits to this bygone age. People conversed directly with each other, face to face. No mobile phones or iPods as excuses for socially ignorant behaviour and not an infernal ring-tone to breach the peace. Amanda relaxed immersing herself into the pre-recorded Jazz, tapping her foot lightly to the rhythm of the bass. Two loud blasts from a trombone seemed unexpected and off-key.
“Mrs McCloud! I think the car behind is trying pass. Are you going to stop revving the engine and go?” Melissa's voice brought Amanda out of her daydream. “I guess that's a yes then? You do miss him.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Amanda drove out of the car park, turned right and found her enjoying a sedate cruise down memory lane.
Adam returned with two cups of coffee. “Do you mind?” He cast his eyes to the vacant seat.
“Go for it,” Amanda managed a weak smile and accepted the coffee offered.
“So what's been upsetting you then?”
“Oh it's nothing.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Is the answer to my next question, fine?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, if you're going to say fine, and nothing all evening, it's gonna be a long night.”
“You wouldn't understand.”
“Try me. I've time.”
“It's as simple as eight management job applications, eight short-lists, no job.”
“I see.” He leaned back in his chair.
“I thought I had a real chance this time.” She sniffed before sipping her coffee. “There were four of us but they told me it was a choice between the two previous candidates and I lacked industry experience. All three of us were straight out of university for Christ's sake.”
“That's really harsh.”
“I don't understand, three of us were sent by the same agency. The agency said I was the best qualified. I thought I was up against one other candidate.”
“Where was your interview?” He clasped his hands together.
“Sun Media, over the street. Assistant Graphic production manager.”
“Oh right, well don't fret. There'll be other opportunities. A girl like you is bound to impress somebody, somewhere, sometime.” She suspected she'd glimpsed a lustful look in his eye.
“I don't want to impress like that, but today I'll take any kind of compliment I can get.”
“You'll do fine,” he replied reassuringly. She reassessed her opinion of his intention.
“No, I don't think you understand. I'm convinced, the only reason I keep getting turned down is because I'm a woman. You're a man. These things don't affect you.”
“True,” he pursed his lips and agreed.
“Why forty-three pounds twenty?” she changed the subject.
“It's all I've got to my name, less now.” He threw two twenty pound notes and change onto the table.
“But you look so well presented, you look like you're in some high powered job.”
“No, sorry to disappoint, unemployed. Just been to a job interview.”
“Oh right, how'd it go?” she sounded enthusiastic for him.
“I didn't get it,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Sun Media, across the street. Assistant Graphic production manager.”
“What? The same interview as me, what happened?”
“You just told me what happened. I was the last to be interviewed. A decision had been made before I got there. We never stood a chance. So yes, I know how you feel. I'm used to it. I just wish they'd told me so I didn't waste thirty pounds in travel expenses.”
“I suppose you do understand.”
“For me it's worse if anything.”
“Why?”
“You're a woman, you're used to getting shafted.”
“Very droll Mr....?” she uncrossed her legs and returned her coffee cup to the table.
“Johnson, I'm being rude. Sorry, what's your name anyway?”
“Amanda, Amanda McCloud.”
“Okay so you must be the E.A McCloud I saw in the signing-in book. What does the E stand for?”
“Yeah, that's me, and mind your own business.” She smiled at him. He swilled his coffee around his cup.
“E.A. McCloud, I'm Adam Johnson. Do you fancy a drink?”
“Why not? - I didn't get the job and now I'm going out with a man with,” she counted the money. “Forty-pounds and forty-pence.”
“Amanda!” Melissa called to her. You've just driven past your house.”
“Oops!” She pulled the car over.
“Are you okay, you seem to be away with the fairies.”
“Yeah, I'm fine. I've just been driving along memory lane when I should have been on Park Avenue. Ever since you asked me that question. I've been living in another world.”
“Missy, I'm going to soak in the tub for a bit, see if I can't get my head straight!” Amanda shouted from the kitchen. The other had installed herself in the lounge in front of the television with her laptop on her knees. Amanda's eye caught an unopened bottle of brandy. She remembered that flat quarter-bottle of liquor and the awkward ungainly huge plastic bottle of lemonade. She took the brandy from the shelf, Adam took it from her hand and passed it to the cashier.
“Are you sure you're comfortable with this?” he asked, returning his change to his pocket after paying for their purchases.
“I'm gonna have to be,” she said flashing her eyes at him. “After the day we've had, the fifty-quid we have between us can't sink the ship. Just promise me you're not a rapist.”
“No, I'm far too spoiled a person to commit such a sin.”
“But kind sir, your statement hath no logic.” She skipped to avoid a cracked paving slab.
“Between me and you.” He moved closer as they walked. She continually bumped him as she avoided the cracks. “I like my women willing. All that effort, trying to hold them down with one hand, undress them with the other. It all sounds rather acrobatic and energetic.”
“Then I'll take you at your word kind sir. You'll be goodly and of perfectly gentlemanly behaviour if I take you to my abode, humble though it may be.”
“Alas fair maiden, I cannot give my word to thee. Though I'll swear on mine honour whilst the three of us keep company. I shall behave in an appropriate and goodly manner.”
“Three sir?”
“Yes, three my fair maiden. One cannot misbehave with misery as a voyeur. Misery is a most treacherous beast and I will not keep it's company. It is for us to cast out the demon and let us be alone.”
“Hmm!” She linked his arm. “Don't know about that one. Tell me again why we are speaking like characters from a Dickensian / Shakespearian mash-up?”
“You started it.”
“Okay we shall cease forthwith, but I agree, it's one of my favourite clichés, misery loves company.”
“Well tonight at least let's give misery the night off. We have the company of each other.”
“Let's drink 'til we are drunk. You can drink to a time when more of your people are in authority and I'll drink to a future when more women are in power.
“There are more women in power since the Obama administration.” Melissa shouted up the stairs. “Is that right? Is that the statistic I'm looking for?”
“Missy, just make your observations and write them in your notes. I'm not your teacher right now, I'm relaxing in my bath.”
“David told me you and his dad were ships that passed in the night. He didn't make it sound bad or anything. It sounded really romantic.”
“David says a lot of things, I wouldn't pay him any mind.” Amanda relaxed, closing her eyes, submerging her head below the water to mute the Melissa's words. Under the water there was a moment when she flicked opened her eyes. In amongst the blur she saw every detail of Adam's face.
“Will I ever get a good managerial job,” she asked him before she put her key in the door.
“Yeah we both will. McDonalds is an equal opportunities employer.” They both stepped into the dark, damp-smelling hallway of the dated shared house.
“Ha Ha,” she responded dryly. “Equal opportunities, what does that mean exactly?”
“Fuck knows,” the expletive's emergence coincided with the loosening of his tie, he could be himself now. “It's some new buzzword, some corporate PR bollocks to deny the existence of our problem.” Amanda smiled to herself, she felt his eyes surveying the silvery sheen of her tights as she mounted the stairs.
“So we've established it's our problem then?” She unlocked the door to her small room.
“Tonight, we, have no problems. The problems are theirs.”
“I'll drink to that,” she agreed, thrusting a tumbler into his hand.
“A toast to us second class citizens!” he raised his glass. “Long may we sit at the back of the bus together.”
“I'm not second class,” she objected.
“By your own admission, you are but a wench, and that's how they'll always see you. No amount of certification or fancy clothes will change that fact.”
“I won't ever accept that. Who are, they?”
“Amanda,” he sighed. “Four people went to a job interview today. Two white boys, a nigger and a wench. Who got the job, again?”
“Maybe...”
“Maybe bollocks!” he cut her off. “I qualified the statement with inclusion of, again. Eight you say?” He pulled his own collection of 'Dear Johns' from his pocket and cast them onto her bed. They both sipped liquor in the ensuing silence of her small bed-sitting room.
“So we are equal?” she questioned eventually.
“As carbon,” he mused.
“Carbon?” she questioned
“Yes, Carbon.” He grinned and sipped from his glass. “I am the black coal, my purpose to give you warmth. You are a diamond of indestructible eternal beauty.”
“Bless, a perfect diamond.”
“No, my sweet. Perfection is a white man. Our respective blemishes exclude us from the club. You, a woman are second-class by gender. I'm second-class by colour.” Adam drained his glass. “Well, the glass is half-full, we must celebrate.” He refilled both their glasses.
“What's to celebrate?” she took the glass he offered.
“We are not black women, they are perceived as the dregs of the full-facultied able-bodied members of society. They are twice afflicted and therefore doomed.” He sent her a smile before turning his attention to his brandy. Amanda giggled before attending to hers. Next she looked up, he was close to her.
“Who else is here?” he whispered.
“Nobody, just us,” she whispered back, a half-smiling half confused look on her face.
“Then misery has left us alone,” he kissed her passionately. Amanda was immediately consumed, overwhelmed, she felt herself struggling for breath. Never before had a kiss from a man caused these feelings. She gasped for air, choking as she surfaced. She watched the water swirling violently around the bath. How long had she been submerged and reminiscing?
“Researching the period 1960 to the millennium. If I look for groups oppressed in the West, as opposed to groups oppressed by the West. I've got immigrants, mainly Afro-Caribbeans and women. The oppression was worse in English speaking countries.” Melissa shouted through the bathroom door.
“Missy, you've got four whole weeks to complete this assignment. Can I just have five minutes?”
“Is that all it takes?”
“Is that all what takes?”
“Amanda, I'm seventeen, talk to me like I'm a woman. You were one of the oppressed right? You and Mr Mcloud must have been empathising like mother-rabbits.” Melissa vigorously rocked the squeaky stair-rail for a good thirty-seconds. Amanda couldn't suppress her laughter.
“It was Mr Johnson, now go away!” The house fell silent. Amanda remembered dancing with Adam in her room to the warbling sound of her little cassette player. He kissed her again.
“Amanda!” Melissa's voice broke into her daydream to ruin the kiss. “The mini-pill never really hit the big-time until the late seventies, early eighties did it?” Melissa hadn't left, she was leaning on the rail thinking.
“I suppose not.” Amanda froze wondering what inspired revelation the girl was going to plague her with next.
“And AIDS never got a major distribution deal until the nineties,” Melissa continued. Amanda chuckled silently, Missy's terminology tickled her. “Well I know where the Tsunami came from! Free love in the sixties, you lot were empathising for fun for thirty years with no birth control. Them brown babies must have been an epidemic. I reckon the government invented HIV and aerobics just to slow you lot down.”
“Melissa! Go away!” Amanda was caught in two minds, Melissa's interventions were annoying yet humorous.
“I'm going, but even though you're young lookin', Mrs M, I can't bring myself to imagine you running around all oppressed and horny.” Melissa's footsteps faded as she descended the stairs. Amanda quickly returned to her dance, her date and the cassette player. She found herself laying on atop bed next to him.
“Don't you lose faith,” she asked him.
“No not really, first you must understand it's a handicap race and you have to be that much better to get ahead. And sticking with the horse-racing theme, success requires a little bit of luck.”
“Doesn't it make you hate white people?”
“Nah,” he laughed.”It's just their way. All things being equal I cannot say if I was in a position of authority I would not favour a brother.”
“But that's the difference between them and us. You said, all things being equal. That surely would be a start for us, a level playing field. I'm beginning to hate them, surely you must.”
“Nope, there's only one man I can ever hate; Wallace fucking Carothers.”
“What did he do?” she tried to work out the significance.
“If he hadn't invented Nylon, I could at least get job bailing cotton. Fucker destroyed the market.” Try as she might Amanda couldn't help but laugh. Alcohol emphasised her feeling of joy and loosened her tongue, she rolled over and found herself in an embrace.
“I suppose you have an advantage, you could always sleep with someone for the sake of advancement,” he suggested.
“The thought had crossed my mind.” She rolled onto her back. “Today I've been shafted by Sun Media. The brandy's fucked me good and proper. Good things I hear come in threes. Why not?” She began with one hand to unbutton her blouse, stopping at the second button. Suddenly she felt a chill, she panicked feeling she'd aged like in some sort of horror film. The bath water was now cold, her skin had become wrinkled and she realised she fondled her crucifix between thumb and forefinger. Amanda extricated herself from the bath, feeling slightly silly.
“Melissa,” she announced, entering the lounge wrapped in her towelling dressing gown. “I'm bushed, I'm going to call it a day.”
“Well I've cracked it, all of it,” the younger announced triumphantly. “I've just got it write it up. What you're saying is the establishment, taken to mean, the white man, is responsible for the production of the wave of brown babies currently reaching maturity. If he'd foreseen the consequence of his prejudice of sex and race, then evolution in modern history would be different. In effect the Caucasian male is the unwitting engineer of his nemesis.”
“Well young lady, write it, polish it and I'll mark it.”
“I also found Thomas Becon's quote, the dead cannot reveal any secrets.”
“That's a new one on me.”
“Oh, that's very old, 1550ish. The likely origin of dead men tell no tales.”
“Relevance please?” She easily slipped back into the comfort of her teacher mode.
“David's father's dead. How come he's still writing books?” Melissa slid the text-book along the carpet with her foot. “Don't panic Mrs Ghostwriter, it's okay,” she continued. “Some things haven't changed. I doubt the education board would have so readily adopted it into the curriculum if they knew it was written by a woman.” Amanda stood speechless but relieved. “Wow!” Melissa shook her head in disbelief. “That's some awesome proper big-time romantic love. In one day, the man gave you a child, a pen name and a globally debated theory. That's a proper seven in my book.”
“Seven?”
“Magpies, a secret never to be told.”
“Thanks,” She smiled almost tearfully, bemused by Missy's random referencing. “Tell David not to do one of his midnight fry-ups. I'm off to bed.”
“Question?”
“Make it quick,” said Amanda, yawning.
“Why are men and women so different? Women just want to be each other, or meet somewhere in the middle.” Amanda gave her a questioning look. “Black women straighten their hair, white women have curled theirs for years. Black women use skin bleach, lighter skin is considered more attractive. White women go on sun-beds. Botox... Shall I go on? There'll be just the one global brown woman in the end. The origins and accent of brownus womanus.”
“You can write that book yourself,” was the tired reply. With that, Amanda was gone.
In her dream the smell of her son's cooking reached her nostrils. Amanda thought to get up but then she realised. She was not at home. Through the murky darkness she recognised her old bedsit. Adam lay asleep next to her, his breathing deep and even. First she felt the warmth, then heard the cracking sound of burning timber. Her lungs began to fill with smoke.
“Adam!” she shook him violently, he woke rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I think this house is on fire!”
“Fuck!” he cursed, leaping from the bed. The roar of the flames threatened to deafen them as he opened the door to the blazing hallway. Even as he slammed it shut the heat caused the paint to blister on the inner surface. His mind raced to formulate a plan for their escape. The air was already thick with smoke, neither could hardly see. They searched out each other's hands. A window smashed, a voice called out. Adam pushed her in the direction of the yellow helmet appearing in the window.”
“Do you think we can be together as equals? Did I advance?” She questioned Adam about their future as the fireman tried to pull her onto the ladder. She stubbornly refused to loosen her grip.
“E. A. McCloud, we'll never be equal, we're not the same!” He forced his thumb-nail into her knuckle. The sharp pain caused her to release him. “It's still better that women and children go first. But yes, we were together, you definitely advanced. We were right at the top for a while. We scaled the heights.” She looked back to him but the window where he stood was engulfed in flames.