By Nancy Monnya

if you forced your way into my house, forced me and my children to speak your language, pray to your god and fear you like you were some god, work me like a slave and tell me I am the sporne of the devil, my skin color was a sin, my hair was a problem, and that I was an inferior being – if you did all these things and more, claiming my house as yours and giving me the little corner in the yard that served as a dump site to live on,  etc.. and then put up a fence in the yard and tell me I am now free to live on that little piece of dump site; would you expect me to forgive you? How would I even forgive you unless you instilled obedience and fear in me to the extent that I continue doing what you say even as I say I am now free to live on my little piece of dump site?

my logical mind tells me the first thing I would do is abandon your language and speak my language
shove your god and religion down the latrine where it belongs
poison all your dogs and burn down the fence you put up. then move back into my house and make your life unbearable until you move out. if you came to your senses after my death, I’d expect my children to have learned that the plan was for them to return to their identity and move back into their own house by all means necessary
I’d declare your language, religion and way of life as an abomination and unlawful act and make sure anyone in my household who does not abandon them is punished and ostracized until the message is clear – abandon the forced teachings of those who sought to wipe your identity off the face of the earth and treated you inhumanely

this is the story of the African – except the African claimed the language as his own
the African would give his life for the forced religion
the African teaches his children to never stray away from these teachings
he even tells the little one not to go near that fence because the dogs bite and because we must forgive our enemies. in the meantime, he sits on his little dump site and wait for death. ever so slowly asking for   massa to open the gate and give him the scraps meant for the dogs. the little ones learn to live on that little corner and learn how to lament and survive the filth