COMMISSIONER
In the evening, when I broke the news to my parents, and told them that they would never see my brother again, they wept openly.  It was as if a funeral was taking place at home.  My parents, who were not highly educated - in fact my mother is totally illiterate - and therefore largely conservative as far as politics were concerned  were stunned with disbelief.  They had an inherent fear of white people, and to a very large extent I was conditioned by this fear myself.  My parents became depressed and began to age visibly.  I could see that they would never be the same jovial people that they once were.  My mother would often cry, especially in the evenings, because that was the time my brother would return from work, have his bath, and then my mother would bandage his arthritic knee.