A History of Violence

Growing up caught between two worlds weighed down by generations of trauma, Oscar Baker III believed violence was in his blood. Facing down that lie changed his life.

by M. Halliday

by Oscar Baker III
Illustrations by Aziza Asat

What’s Written in Blood

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.

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The wooden steps groaned under my weight as I climbed toward the sound of muffled rap music thumping through the aluminum walls. I didn't know it then, but that night would mark the beginning of a long, arduous process of unlearning what I thought I knew about my own heritage and the ghosts that haunted my family tree.