
Interviewing the Caribbean Volume 2 Issue 1
vi·o·lence
‘vī(ə)ləns
noun it seems a misnomer a grave error in judgment really how can it be a noun my name is a noun my island is a noun my house is a noun a noun is soft on the tongue it announces
but violence...
violence severs obliterates reduces
1. behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
perhaps we were warring before they arrived perhaps we did not trust or respect one another perhaps we wanted to be in charge but then they came the Europeans they chained they flogged they stole us from all we knew all we loved all we hoped for and they huddled us in the hold of their ships and they carried us across water and they starved us and we bled and cried and shat and vomited and urinated and bled and died and recovered and died and hoped on each other until we arrived where we were prodded genitals fondled teeth counted arms and body tapped for strength womb assessed for reproduction bodies sold for free labor and forced sexual pleasure
synonyms: brutality, brute, force, ferocity, savagery, cruelty, sadism, barbarity, brutishness
everywhere europeans discovered people had been living and growing food and having societies that fed and clothed their people and they practiced their religion and had structures and institutions
everywhere europeans went they brought diseases they ripped apart people they smashed their temples and places of worship they called them evil and they turned their gods into black magic
superstition projected their own barbarity onto the people whose land and culture they stole after they annihilated many
strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.
“the violence of her own feelings” what about my feelings what about her feeling what about my people’s feelingsthe yearning of our feelings to be whole free to love ourselves
are we still talking noun when you cut out someone’s tongue from protesting their condition
are we still talking noun when you amputate someone’s toes for running from an oppressive system where there is no justice nor compensation for her tireless labor
are we still talking noun when someone who buys another human being rapes her for his own pleasure and when she bears a child sells the child without any consideration for her desire to mother
are we still talking noun when a man is beaten until his back looks like a railroad track for defending his honor for refusing to be insulted over and over again
are we still talk noun
is this about a noun
whose noun is nouning whom?
synonyms:intensity, severity, strength, force, vehemence, power, potency, fervency, ferocity, fury, fire. “the violence of his passion”
when my teeth were knocked out for speaking twi/berber/hausa/mandung/fulani/yoruba/oromo/amharic/ibo/ashanti/ewe/luo/dinka/maasaiit was not a noun
it was an action a verb extermination
when i poured water for my ancestors and put out food for my orishas and was punished denounced for practicing witchcraft
that was not a noun that was violation
when my childrenbrothersistersmotherfathercousin were sold away
from me that was not a noun that was trafficking
when i was told my skin was too darklipstoogenerousnosetoowidehairtootightlycurled
that was not a noun that was terrori’ve been living in terror since i entered the new world
terror has been my constant shadow and friend
terror has become my way of life
i’m terror i’ve become terror i terrorize
violence is my identity and the more i try to distance myself from it the more it spews from
my skin i’m really trying to expel it all from my gene pool so i can return to being a noun
i am this is my home these are my people
we care for one another we resolve our difference amicably
we live in peace as we remember who we are and accept that we are beautiful
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