A Credit to Your Race

A Credit to Your Race Description

A longtime resident of Surrey, Truman Green wrote 'A Credit to Your Race' (1973), in which a fifteen-year-old black porter's son falls in love with, and impregnates, the white girl next door. Set in Surrey, circa 1960, 'A Credit to Your Race' is a disturbing and convincing portrayal of how the full weight of Canadian racism could come to bear on a youthful, interracial couple. If Isolation is a key theme of black B.C. writing, says social historian Wayde Compton, Green's protagonist Billy Robinson is the most fully-drawn expression. Compton says Green was diplomatic in the way he described racism, but his novel was passed over nonetheless. After rejection from several literary presses in Canada, Truman self-published his novel in a limited edition of three hundred copies. If isolation is a key theme of black B.C. writing, Green's protagonist Billy Robinson is the most fully-drawn expression. author and social historian Wayde Compton