I have witnessed many characterizations of 'slave ships' but never has one to so vividly detailed the pain and agony of the MIDDLE PASSAGE. Perhaps Ralph Ellison said it best..."any people who can endure all of that brutalization and keep together is one of the great triumphs of the human spirit".
BEAR WITH WITH THE AFRIKAN BLOOD OTHERWISE HIDE BEHIND THE EUROCENTRIC AFROPEAN AND NEGROPEAN FANTASY HIDE OUT .
WHAT OUR STORY HAS TAUGHT US , WE ARE GOING TO TELL IT TO OUR AFRIKAN BLOOD PEOPLE . TO EVERY MAN , WOMAN , BOY AND GIRL .
"Imagine lying in filth, disease, spittle, vomit, puss, slime, unidentifiable excretions from bedsores, fleas, ringworms and lice, yes, lice because they were so numerous on the crewmembers, and we had become so soiled that they had something to latch on to. Imagine worms, maggots in bodily waste, maggots thriving in the bedsores on your back, arms, legs and head, the whip's welts and the wounds cut and kept open by the metal cuffs locked to our wrists, ankles and sometimes necks (wounds that salt water was often poured into to increase your pain under the lie of washing your skin).
Imagine the never-ending scratching, tearing through skin wherever you could reach to get at the parasites and disease infesting your body. Surely, you can feel the splinters that have been digging under you skin since you were slid headfirst into your wooden hole. Or, maybe like many, they have been in so long that they have begun to feel normal. Imagine sweat, tears, human and rat feces, blood, pieces of flesh, teeth, toenails, fingernails, hair, menstrual blood, aborted fetuses, broken water, dead babies (yes, many captured women were pregnant when captured and many more were impregnated through their rape by sadistic aliens during the coffle marches and in the dungeons), afterbirth, screaming, moaning, numbing pain, living bodies not moving for days.
This was no game, no pleasure cruise, no joy ride for our ancestors. It was the beginning of the worst living nightmare a people experienced since humanity stepped foot on this planet. It was raw, unrelenting horror. Only someone seeking to universalize and normalize european barbarities or make our Hellacaust less tragic than it actually was would paint a picture that allowed us to rest easy with our past as a mercilessly dehumanized, enslaved people."
Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Wednesday, November 21st 2012 at 3:24PM
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