Black Berry, Sweet Juice by Lawrence Hill

Author:Lawrence Hill [Hill, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-554-68658-2
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2001-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

No Negroes Here

In June 2000, an editor at the Globe and Mail asked me to write an opinion piece about a sensational custody battle in British Columbia.Theodore “Blue” Edwards, a black American millionaire who had formerly played basketball with the Vancouver Grizzlies, was fighting Kimberly Van de Perre, a white woman who lived in a basement apartment and was frequently unemployed, over the custody of their mixed-race son.I couldn’t resist the offer, especially when I learned that the Vancouver media were up in arms over a decision by the B.C.Court of Appeal to award custody to the father, partly on the basis of race.

When I scratched beneath the lurid surface of the warring ex-lovers’ story, I found the case fascinating and troubling.Apart from being a legal battle that I knew would generate debates about race and custody in households across Canada, it also raised issues of class, power, and gender.Theodore Edwards is university educated, a highly successful athlete, and rich by any standard.He is represented by one of Vancouver’s most prestigious lawyers.Kimberly Van de Perre dropped out of high school, and prior to this custody fight, her only claim to fame was that she once won a beauty contest in Vancouver.She currently works part time as a hotel receptionist, and could be struggling for years to pay her legal bills.

Elijah Van de Perre is the boy in the middle.His parents have been in litigation since he was ten weeks old, and he turned four just days before his case landed in the laps of the nine white justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, to which the case was appealed in June 2001.I found myself hoping that Elijah’s custody would be settled as quickly as possible, so that he wouldn’t have to continue the absurd arrangement of flying between his mother’s apartment in Vancouver and his father’s home in Charlotte, North Carolina, every three weeks.As well, I wanted the lawyers, judges, and media involved in the case to examine the underlying racial issues.It doesn’t appear that either wish will come true.At the time of writing, the Supreme Court has reserved judgment, and the case has already spent four years crawling through three courts.And Canadians, being Canadians, have once more proven our mastery of the art of burying our heads in the sand—insisting that race doesn’t matter in this country.

I told my father that I would be travelling to Ottawa to sit in on the Supreme Court hearing, and mentioned that in written arguments submitted in advance to the court, lawyers representing Theodore Edwards and Kimberly Van de Perre had skirted any serious discussion of racial issues.I wondered if he would comment on a certain irony at play.After all, it is largely because of Theodore Edwards, a black American who only lived three years in this country, that Canadians were being asked to think about race.Dad just shook his head sadly and said, “Some things never change.”

I asked what he meant.“Read my thesis again,” he said heavily.He was talking about Negroes

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