That night, he went home after seeing a group of friends. Mostly white people.
He remembers their conversations. They were littered with racist bullshit. It
was more than usual, and he felt sick as he made his way home.
He entered the bathroom, it was dark. The light was broken... He couldn’t see
his reflection in the mirror. The mirror was black. For a few seconds, he
actually hoped he’d disappeared. He was afraid to see what was in the mirror:
someone he always tried to hide from others, but mostly from himself.
In the dark, the mirror was shattered. In each piece he could see a different
reflection of himself; a myriad of truths about himself. He always knew he was
multifaceted, dynamic, and complex. These were truths about himself his
environment never wanted to accept.
He didn’t understand why people around him never wanted to see him entire-
ly. See the black man, but also the indie rock fan, the soccer player, the artist,
the friend, the lover, the immigrant, the clown, the ghost. He always wondered
what they were seeing instead.
He realized years after that what they wanted to see in him, was themselves.
He turned into the mirror of their own limitations. He became their expansion.
He became their strength and let them take his energy and vision away from
him.
The only moment he was truly himself was in that dark bathroom, in front of
the black mirror. Multiple faces, multiple realities, multiple outcomes.
He remembered his parents. When they moved to Belgium in the late 80’s. He
remembered how they were acting different in front of white people... It was
their way to survive a world that was openly violent with them.
Now that he is older, he tries to reclaim the past he never had to change his
future.
