Oscar Baker III grew up believing violence was written in his blood. Facing down that lie changed his life.
N
ight sinks in deep. It’s August 2009; I’m 18 years old, six-foot-nothing, and brown: half-Black, half-Mi’kmaq. I’m eight beers deep, which is nothing for Kent County, New Brunswick, and I’m lost, stumbling through the dark trying to find myself. It’s party weekend on the res, and I’m heading to my cousin Colton’s place, a beat-up single-wide trailer, its front lawn strewn with empty beer bottles and boxes.
The wooden steps creak—a familiar, hollow sound that reminds me of everything I’ve tried to run from. Growing up caught between two worlds, weighed down by generations of trauma, I believed the path was already set. But even in the dark, there is a way to turn the light on.