A Black Man's Burden

By: Emma C. Holmes

Narrated by: Victor Gibbs

This narrative speaks of a young lady named Vicky. She complains of her idealistic brother Allen, who teaches her the essentials of surviving in a bad neighborhood. As he advises, “When negotiation doesn’t work, learn to box.” This dramatic message came into play many times during Vicky’s young life.

Another wise idiom of relevancy was to "learn the difference between a wide receiver and a quarterback.” Her brother Allen believed such an analogy was also appropriate for survival as well. The other siblings were similarly soldiers in her brother’s imaginary army, in which they were expected to comply by obeying orders, cleaning, saluting, and addressing him with the proper military protocol.

The epic of the story reveals that later in life, Vicky meets and falls in love with an anatomical artist named Paul. The saga revolves around his traumatic experience being falsely accused of rape, then suffering inevitable consequential imprisonment. We observe a brief glimpse of past encounters in Paul’s life, including the highlights of his happiness.

However, after imprisonment, Paul writes emotional, riveting, bold controversial letters which convey sentiments of struggle, love, and hate. What seemed at first like an attack on women, men, and society was his desire to expose man’s inhumanity to man....

©2017 Emma C Holmes (P)2023 Emma C Holmes