The Brown Paper Bag Boyz & the Colorism Experiment!

By Darrell Harper

How powerful of an effect does colorism have on twin brothers Malcolm and Luther King? They're from Compton, California where beating the odds is not an easy thing to do. Colorism is at the center of personal dysfunction and unbelievable self-hatred on a level you've not seen in a while! These people are real as can be, but express their stories in extraordinary ways. They go through similar yet vastly different experiences. Through colorism, they find two different paths based on the way they're perceived. The perceptions not based on individual merit, it's based on the skin tones of the brothers. Malcolm King is light-skinned while Luther King is dark-skinned. Each one gets treated a certain way, whether good or bad. Choices are made that influence their paths. One goes off to Harvard; the other one goes off to prison. Together they're a magnet subjected to the pain, judgment, favoritism, and the mirror is bright through comparison. Powerful truths, sacrifices, and high crimes will be revealed in this poignant coming of age drama. The consequences reach an all-time high. It could end very badly! Can the Brown Paper Bag Boys make it through the hurricane that is the colorism experiment? The Brown Paper Bag Boyz and the Colorism Experiment is a fantastic fictional commentary on today's times. This book is a fresh new look into the subject of colorism. This title will be a staple on the topic of colorism, even creating a standard in dialogue through these two exciting characters, Malcolm and Luther King. You'll find their humanity through the thick cloud of self-hatred weaved into the gripping entertaining yet heart-drenched bond the brothers have with significant life-changing consequences. What would you risk for the love of a brother? Everything! I dedicate this book to my mother and father Cassandra and Derrick. For the strength and perseverance, you've instilled in me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644243244

Book preview

Chapter 1

Water Broke Her

Malcolm King

Luther has all the creativity in the world. He sat there at the table in my living room, in my small little apartment in downtown Los Angeles. My brother constructed the mask of all masks. They spoke volumes to both of our experiences in life together for the last twenty-five years through the stark abundance of our skin hues, our pain, and our struggle together in general. Even from the racial and cultural experiences as a whole, we’ve both endured plenty of trials and tribulations that led us here. You will see what I mean by that soon.

He brought two presidential masks, one of Abraham Lincoln and the other one of Donald Trump, from a local party store down the street. The masks were not good enough alone to make the statement that I wanted to make. The distinction had to be totally different and harsh at the same time. I’m sure my brother didn’t know he was getting political, but I sure did. So that’s why I never objected to his creative choices. He was smart but not as bright as me. As his decisions were in line with my vision, Luther had his reasons, but they spawned from people’s fears of him, his dark skin tone, and his heartbreak about it, which is a real issue Luther would always project. My reasons spawned from people’s expectations of me and my need to be perfect at all times. To my OCD behavior to plan everything, my light skin somehow gave me the opportunity to be allowed.

The two masks lie there on my cold, drab plastic table propped up against the wall. Luther looked at them. I sat in a chair away from him, thinking and thinking clearly about this direction I was about to take and the necessity of it. Luther stood there like a surgeon as if he was about to make the proper incision into the chest of a heart patient.

I’m about to make sure they know shit’s about to go down! Luther said with a fever in his eyes.

I nodded and let him get back to the art of making the masks. Luther took a pair of scissors and molded the mask thinner by cutting around the faces. The fork in the road named Luther was what I was walking on, and it’s going to be a strange trip.

I was thinking of a way this could be done differently, but as far as loyalty goes, it’s the only way. You see, I could never abandon my brother and leave him in a ditch somewhere. I’ve always been in a better position than he was all our lives. This is probably the stupidest thing I’d ever do in my life, but it was worth it for my brother. There have been other thoughts that I’ve had about what Luther could do with his life. But they would never work out for Luther. The things I would do to stop his decline in life, there was no end to what I was willing to do for him. Even if I have to throw myself in front of a bullet for him, I was there to do anything to slow down the death of him in connection with his poor life choices.

For Luther and me, it began rocky for us in the early nineties, and it would be a long journey. The wide double doors burst open, in this dull aseptic hallway with its black-and-white checkered floors. The robotic nurses look in her direction. In my mother’s sister’s direction, the nurses scramble.

Doctor, Doctor, how’s my sister and them babies of hers? Angela said.

The doctor stood there for more than a few seconds, reluctant to speak right away. He was a soft-spoken man with an equally quiet demeanor. He was the kind of man that didn’t need many words to tell the story that was written all over his face.

There were complications. He grimaced as he never got used to telling someone bad news, especially bad news about family members. There was a great deal of bleeding, and Carmen expired, he said.

Angela looked away as she fell. The doctor could not catch her fall in enough time before she hit the ground hard. My mother, Carmen King, did not make it through the day we were birthed into this world. Her body could not handle both of us coming out of her fragile body back to back. The amount of blood loss was too much for Carmen to handle. There was a surprise other than Carmen’s death that day. Something strange happened in the hospital room, on that bed. She tried so hard to keep us in this world, and she forgot to keep herself here as well. The doctor was stunned at what he saw.

As I came out, my skin was really light, which wasn’t a big deal but considering my brother, Luther, my twin brother, he was darker skinned, yet, we looked exactly alike. Same nose, ears, mouth, and we had the same straight-slash-curly black hair texture.

In the nineties, our birth was quite the local news story, because of the way we came about. The news of our birth spread like wildfire. It was unique to have twin boys that looked like us. Dr. Iman, the doctor who delivered us, had never seen anything like this.

Well, Angela, I’m sorry it came to this. But what will you name the twins?

As he handed us to her, she started to cry. This one’s Malcolm. She looked at me. Now this one will be Luther. Aunt Angela beamed as if she carried us herself throughout her body. Carmen King, our mother, always wanted us to have prominent names. She would say to Aunt Angela, The name is make or break. Angela cried some more and walked out of the hospital. Dr. Iman and the nurses greeted her with so much love. There was an onslaught of people that heard about the strange circumstances surrounding the departure of our mother, Carmen King. People wanted to see the twins with two vastly different shades. That would become even more prevalent as we got older and our opposite shades solidify. Black babies are one color when they’re born, but it changes as they age.

Angela King, our aunt, was a twenty-year-old beauty, with beauty pageant ambitions she let go of to raise Luther and I. At first, she would cry every night in her bedroom, of her rough shoebox-sized apartment in Compton, California. She used to live with our mother in a tough neighborhood. There was a little money left over from a life insurance policy Carmen left behind that paid for the funeral. Angela was the only family Carmen had in California. As sisters, they were very close. Carmen was older and always looked after Angela and encouraged her to follow her dreams and goals. They both struggled in this small apartment we soon began to occupy via our upbringing in the developing stages of our youth.

Aunt Angela had ambition, and she was hungry for success. She had all the makings of a superstar. She was blessed with beauty, brains, and a strong will. Carmen, on the other hand, had reality in her pocket. Our father was James Butler, and he wasn’t around to sign the birth certificate. He left Carmen at the midway point of her pregnancy when she discovered she was carrying twins. But he quickly left her. He was twenty-three years old.

I have to go out of town to see my mother in Chicago, he said to Carmen. He never came back to her. All he left behind was a picture of himself for Carmen, with her not knowing of his imminent exit.

Angela King was a strong black woman. She attended Compton College. She now had twins to raise, making her journey tougher. The insurance policy was small, but she put it to good use.

The media covered our strange birth. A lot of people sent in donations on our behalf, things such as diapers, money, clothes, shoes, and many other things helped in the very beginning. Angela handled the load. It was a sad story of the mother that died while giving birth to a unique set of twins black boys. It was part heart and part freak show that entailed all sorts of fake smiles in Angela’s direction. Some people wanted to exploit us with big offers for talk show appearances and commercials. Thank God, we were not born directly in a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or social media era. A video of two twins who are light-skinned and dark-skinned would have gone viral. Angela filtered all offers for a good reason. She wanted to raise us with integrity and intelligence. She would not let anyone in with a chance to hurt us. But she would come to find she couldn’t keep us safe forever.

As babies, it was hard to deny that Luther and I were cute. We got a lot of attention just because we were twins with two different shades. You didn’t see that too much. People did not initially believe we were twins. Aunt Angela, being a young caretaker in her early twenties, was trying to figure out motherhood after the loss of her sister Carmen. The reactions were different from everybody. People had their own interpretations of how they took us.

Aunt Angela walked us to the liquor store one day. The first time she put us in the stroller, we went into the store. The liquor store owner was an Indian man. He couldn’t help but notice that we were two completely different shades of light and dark. He made a face to Aunt Angela.

They’re twins really? he said.

He thought we were both adorable. But he was really fascinated by Luther’s chocolate skin versus my light yellow tint. Aunt Angela noticed the preference he had for Luther. She went on with her purchase of milk, eggs, and orange juice. She took a mental note because everything wasn’t clear at the time that there would be a lot of that and the start of a dangerous road to self-destruction for us.

She didn’t settle with the fact about the way that store owner made such a big deal about Luther and virtually ignored me, raised a red flag. She could not start to pinpoint the favoritism that could happen, but at that time, she couldn’t think of anything but trying to take care of us the best way she knew how.

Her new responsibilities were weighing heavily on her shoulders. She had no real family willing to help with us. The sacrifices she had to make now were momentous. Everything was new to her, and it seemed like we were new to everyone else that met us for the first time because of our twin glow. We were not loud babies. We were quiet most of the time, except when we were hungry.

The mailman in our neighborhood was a short, light-skinned black man in his fifties. He was delivering the mail for the longest time when our mother Carmen was alive and living with Angela. His reaction started off the same way as everybody else’s. We were very adorable, but he noticed the fret on Aunt Angela’s face.

These two babies are very special but only because they’re together as a pair people will judge them. Expect a difference, he said.

As he picked me up to the sky, he looked like he made a choice too, but it wasn’t spoken. It was shown, with actions and gestures. The preferences were very easy to notice if you were looking at it. It was a simple matter of apples or oranges. Single babies get all the attention. It’s special and doesn’t require you to think to make a choice. With both of us together, it was as if you had to choose which one you liked the most. People didn’t give us mutual respect initially as a pair the comparison game started for us as babies. It would never end.

*****

Luther King

Aunt Angie didn’t know what she was doing yet. With no help from our father James, no help from our grandmother Rose, and the only help coming in at the time was from donations from people that heard the local news stories about us. We were popular babies, but that was another story. Aunt Angie had all eyes on her to see if she would fuck up the money that was involved, and people were invested in whether this would play out well for a young black woman with big new responsibilities. The money would only last for so long, but the newness of it all made Aunt Angie nervous when people came around us.

It wasn’t just that we were being judged—she adjusted to it. Assholes always looked but didn’t step in. There are fucking simple basic things that a decent human being should do. Like when you see a lady struggling to get two babies in car seats, as a neighbor, if you’re walking by, you should offer to help. Many mornings she would have to do that. Those same neighbors would either stare through their windows or be bold enough to sit there outside while Aunt Angie struggled with us.

But my aunt was no punk. So you’re just going to stand there, bastard! she said to a man that was supposed to be a friendly neighbor. Aunt Angie was a tough chick. She wasn’t taking anyone’s shit, especially because she had to clean ours.

As we got older, we developed our own little personalities. I called my aunt, Aunt Angie, because I thought that was cooler. Malcolm was a boring guy he stuck with the standard Aunt Angela as his go-to name for her. She didn’t mind it either. It was her way of allowing us to be different and responding to us with a respect that we had two separate minds who didn’t have to conform to the ways of the world if we didn’t want to. We would be individuals if Aunt Angie had her way.

I’m a realist, that’s what they say. Shit that happens it’s whatever, as long as you make it that way. Aunt Angie is better than any angel that’s up there in heaven, to me! In my eyes, Aunt Angie is like a God. She made miracles with what she was handed. We could have been left to the system, or she could have helped just one of us. I know I would be the burned nigga taking all the heat and being put up for adoption. It would have been an acceptable thing to do to keep my light-skinned brother with her instead of me. I understand I know how this shit goes. There’s not even a question in my mind. But Aunt Angie saved me and my brother, Malcolm, from a life of loneliness, abandonment, and hurt.

It was kind of hard for her back in the nineties when she was young and pretty. She’s still pretty, but you know what the fuck I mean! Aunt Angie held down different jobs for us all while going to school at the same time. We were fed and taken care of as well as could be. There were times where Aunt Angie went without eating, so we could. One hungry ass day, when we were cubs, she picked us both up in her arms as she dropped the rent check in the mail. She held us both and knocked on the neighbor’s door. Ms. Zenger was a retired schoolteacher in her late sixties. Sometimes she was a bitch. But Aunt Angie had to be desperate, so damn desperate to knock on her door. Ms. Zenger opened the door.

Angela, what do you need this time?

Food, I need food, Aunt Angie said.

Ms. Zenger had a soft spot for us, but she was still judging Aunt Angie. She made her wait at the door for five long minutes. Ms. Zenger came back with a plastic bag filled with canned foods, lunch meat, bread, and fruit cups.

Thank you. I promise this is the last time. I just had nothing left after the rent. Aunt Angie smiled.

Girl, I know you got all of those damn donations for your white and wheat toast babies. Ms. Zenger folded her arms.

You know the money was spent taking care of my sister’s babies. It dried up by now. But you don’t have to worry about us, bitch! Aunt Angie was emotional and was nice until you pushed her too far. She cried a shitload of tears on the way back to the house, and she still took that woman’s food. The next few days went by, and things were better. A knock came to the door. As Aunt Angie opened it up, there was a tall white dude and a short black lady in buttoned-down white shirts and black pants with badges on. But these folks were not detectives. They were from the CPS or Child Protective Services. Yep, that dirty bitch Ms. Zenger made a call on my Aunt Angie. They were about to haul us away for good had it not been for the fact that when they looked in our refrigerator, it was full of food and the house was very clean. Aunt Angie was smart. She asked other people for food as well and filled that bad boy up. It was organized with plenty of baby food for us to eat. There was no question that Aunt Angie provided for us in their eyes. That could have fucked up everything had we lost her, who was our only real connection to our mom, Carmen. With no real help, rapidly all things changed once she got herself a damn man.

Rodney was the kind of nigga that didn’t work a regular nine-to-five job. He was a big ole nigga, Rodney was yoked as fuck. He spent his time in and out of prison working out to no end. His hustle was the dope game, and he was good at it. Crack was his gold mind. He had druggies coming and going. People were willing to sell their own mama’s soul to get a quick hit of what Rodney was selling. He was a baller with a slick hustle. He supplied and continued to control the drug scene locally in and around parts of Compton. Rodney was a little too heavy-handed. Aunt Angie just put Malcolm and me down to sleep. Rodney came barreling in the door of our tiny apartment. Aunt Angie was at the table in the kitchen.

Hey, honey.

She looked up as Rodney raised his hand and slapped the shit out