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Without a positive male figure to influence and guide me in the right direction, I looked up to
my cousin who also came from Africa when he was 11 years old. At the time, he was processing feelings
of losing his father at war back home. Therefore, he liked to get into trouble; he wanted to get as much
attention as he could from everyone around him. He taught and showed me things that I wasn’t supposed
to encounter at such an early age such as stealing, smoking and pornography.
Because my Mother was on her own now, she had to work extra hours to keep things afloat. While
she was gone, I kept myself busy by hanging out with my cousin and his friends. When they weren’t around
I made friends of my own that lived in the same complex as me. I remember being ten years old and having
a wrestling match with a couple friends of mine. After having a fantastic time, one of my friends Josh went
to the convenience store and came back with a beer. To this day I have no idea how he got it and at the
time I didn’t even know what it was. He offered me a sip; I tried it and spit it out. This same friend shortly
after would dare me to go into the local convenience store to steal those 5 cent gummies. Looking back,
outside of school, there wasn’t much out there for me to keep me out of trouble. We were playing basketball,
playing video games or getting into trouble.
The population at my school mostly consisted of people of Asian descent. I remember racial slurs
being thrown out towards me or the other two African Canadian kids at least once a week. I remember
having to defend myself on many occasions because of the emotional abuse that was going on. Each time
that I was called a nigger, I would get into a state of rage and react without thinking. It got to a point where,
because of my large size, I became a bully and displaced my anger, even towards my friends who treated
me well.
Fast forward to age 24 and I can now say that there are facilities and organizations established that
I could have only wished to have in my days of growing up. For example, there are organizations such as
RISE, Unity and Manifesto that give youth a platform to openly express themselves without the fear of
being criticized or judged for the manner in which they choose to express themselves. Within these organizations
there is a sense of inclusion, belonging and community. I can personally say that because of these
community based organizations, I have been able to accelerate my growth and development as a person
far beyond the years that I’ve been alive on this planet. There are also facilities in priority neighbourhoods
such as the S.P.O.T. which provide youth with a safe environment off the streets and an opportunity to
learn new outlets of expression such as photography, spoken word, hip hop and design. Lastly, there are
programs that go on in the community centres situated all around the city of Toronto that I didn’t have the
luxury of being aware of when I was younger. There needs to be an awareness campaign when it comes to
these programs, especially if they’re free.
On stage Anthony Gebrehiwot is known as “Qi”.
The rap artist recently dove into music but has
years of experience in photography, with a new
tumblr blog titled “XvXyphoto”. Although Gebrehiwot
has graduated from York University with
a degree in Kinesiology, he is now pursuing music
and photography full time.
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