Edwidge Danticat - The Butterfly's Way - Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States

that came bounded with IMF loans

International Mother Fucking loans

for the structurally adjusted

where the rules of the game are

I am going to fuck you

and you are not going to enjoy it

tell me how do you imagine a better world in this place

tell me how to imagine a better world in this place

where the rules of the game is this diplomacy

where blackness still equals poverty

where even after over 400 years

still too black too strong not French enough

never really French enough

and the new generations don't want to be men

raging youths are now more committed

to seeing blood run

raging youths are now more committed

to seeing blood run

to seeing blood run on sidewalks

just to see blood run through the streets

next to expensive cars

outside of elite-owned stores

because they say they have had enough

jan I pase I pase

jan I mouri I mouri

however it goes down it goes down

however it dies it dies

the end result is still the same

the revolution is not over

‹Call Mr. Martin

tell him to build a coffin›

the revolution is not over they cry as they die

they have had too much adversity

this is the generational gap

don't need to ask them when are they going to grow up

when are they going to grow out of this phase

it is not a phase this is about the game

it was at the university that they learned the rules

through liberation theology they learned they were comrades

it was at the university that they learned

the multiple meanings of the word diplomacy

how you have to be pliable

acquiescent

don't make waves you don't get the perks

no gains if you misbehave like a good little neg

that's what you are being trained to be

a docile body without integrity

like the ancestor who sold my ancestor to the west

depi nan ginen neg pat vie we neg

gede nibo gad sa vivan yo fe mwen

plante mayi m mayi m tounen rozo

rozo tounen banbou

banbou tounen ponya

ponya yo ponyade m gede

How do you overturn four hundred years oj history in less than one century?

And I keep thinking back to my life here

And I keep thinking back to my life right here

in this white power center

ain't no misbehavin' here

in the ivory tower

abounded with liberals and marxist scholars

where liberalism is rhetorically defined

as a floating signifier associated with

the ever-growing pony tail

the peace sign

the old leather jacket from undergrad

the backwards baseball cap

nightly homage to the celestial herb to justify being a function

commitments

commitment to the metaphysics of diversity

commitments

to the environment to animal rights

the pet projects

and pet cultures

signifying signifiers

are recreating structures

these signifying signifiers are recreating structures

these signifying signifiers are recreating bourgeois structures

bourgeois bourgeoisie bougi bouginess

blackness bouginess blackness

contradictions

disjunctures

underplayed identities

downpressing privilege

down

down

down you got to keep it down

sometimes it just wants to rise up

but you gotta keep it down

Shut your mouth!!!!

stuff it in your mouth

just keep your mouth shut and get out

ram it down your throat

deep down your throat

swallow

it

down

you're being forced

to

deep throat

But I don't want to

I don't want to

swallow

it

down

you gotta keep it down

you gotta keep it down

why you have to be down to keep it real

downplaying privilege

little white rebels wanna be niggers

and niggers wanna be niggaz

bourgeois blues

opportunities denied

blackness bouginess

disjunctures?

contradictions?

In Haiti the bourgeoisie funded coups

in Jamaica uptown bougies tried to silence a revolution

but rastafari had a free black mind

so they self-fashioned an everyday resistance

the self-fashioning of an everyday SEXIST resistance

an everyday HOMOPHOBIC resistance

‹don't let them fool ya

or even try to school ya›

blackness bouginess blackness

in the Caribbean bouginess has funded revolutions

little white rebels wanna be niggers

and rebelling niggers wanna be niggaz

these signifying signifiers are just recreating bourgeois structures

Can life exist without ideals

Can life exists without dreams

where does your soul go

when all you do is function

where does your spirit go

when all you do is function

Lately I have been thinking a lot about writing

a poem about class comfort

and color and privilege and guilt

about the social luxury of whiteness

about the social luxury of the white skin

a poem about the rules of the game

and I think back to the keeping it real conference

how we had the rhetoric to deconstruct performance

the performance of blackness and black identities

but we couldn't talk about black privilege

for fear of having to talk about black guilt

like the good doctor says we can't talk

about the fact that we like trashing on the weak

because we don't have the courage to confront the powerful

in this place

in this white power center

this bastion of liberalism

where ANTHROPOLOGY incubates racism

where anthropology INCUBATES racism

where anthropology incubates RACISM

this place of learning who the players are

what the rules of the game are

and how to play and win

How do you play knowing that at every moment in time your identity is in question

How do you win when at every moment in time your identity is in question

I'm criminal

compulsive alertness

always having to be alert

criminal

always ready to answer questions

that never get asked

because of assumptions

that lead to even more questions

‹All I need is a good defense

coz I'm feeling like a criminal›

How do you overturn four hundred years of history

in less than one century?

Since this is about why I can't wait

I am gonna tell you why I am so tired

why I'm so tired

of not being able to imagine a better world

so I can change my world so we can change the world

why can't we talk about the things that make you wanna

can't talk about the things that make you wanna holler

make me wanna scream

cry

yell

let my people go

let my people go

right here

right now

right here

let me go

how far will we go

when we're still in chains

I can't wait because I am tired

tired of smiling

tired of masking

I'm tired of signifyin'

tired of being on the front line

tired of fighting the same damned isms

daily

I am tired of wearing this suit of steel

I am tired of being weighed down by armor

I am tired of carrying a banner of love

while THE war

still rages

on

Ma tres chere Aimee,

You have not yet even arrived and already I worry about what your life may be like, far from Haitian shores. I can already see it- the day you enter kindergarten, all frills and curls, bright-eyed, with some butterflies making your little stomach queasy: No one will know how to pronounce your name. Aimee, like the pan-Africanist Martinican writer Aime Cesaire, but named for love. Aimee: French for beloved. Will you know to tell your teachers and schoolmates how to pronounce it correctly? They will insist on transforming it into "Amy." Will you wince, misrecognize yourself, crawl into your infantile shell and reemerge as something closer to their expectations as I had done so many years ago only to return, at long last, to my own bright self, name and all? I must pause now and smile at the thought of how long you have been loved and awaited. You are bound to arrive in the next century, not so long from now. I want this letter to be a bridge for you, to people and events already come to pass that you will not have the opportunity to experience, but which are nonetheless yours to hold and have, a part of your heritage.