Spare the Child & Reinvent the Rod

Okay so I just had this crazy dream, and it made me upset in the dream and all the way to waking up. It's fuzzy but I remember a raging party of adults... an event i think maybe Zara's Flyest Video premiere or something (lol I swear). So this party is going strong and crazy...fun for me until... there's this little boy no older than 8 years, dressed shabbily with an abstracted but distraught look in his eyes that comes through the throng of people, carrying a bucket on his head laden with alcoholic beverages.

He's the servant/houseboy

...slave.

I'm immediately filled with rage and sadness at the same time. It makes me think of how I think the idea of using kids as indebtured servants and damn near slaves in some cases is so messed up. I think of situations where kids are brought to people's homes to clean, cook, take care of other kids they are not much older than, and then all in all misused and abused.

This made me MAD!

What the hell are we thinking? How can we go through life in any kind of good moral thinking state and participate in this?...I am filled with guilt as I think of my family's participation in this.
No matter how "nice" or "supportive" you are of your slave -ahem- houseboy. That shit is fucked up. Stop it!

If you want a helper hire someone who is not a CHILD. If you want to help another family out by 'taking their kids off their hands' then take the child in, and treat them like you would your child...no strings attached but the expectation of success from that child and their family.

Gosh! *breathe Nk....breathe*

Speaking of child abuse and all...
segue into Staceyann Chin's 'The Other Side of Paradise'... Chin's memoir of growing up in Jamaica, being abandoned by her mother, being raised by her grandmother and then separated from her, struggling to survive despite various forms of abuse, finding her father and finally coming out. It's honest, revealing and very very brave. To be able to just tell about yourself like that, and risk the feelings of shame about where you are from and what you done.


I give it 4 stars (most on amazon give it 5) because I feel like something was missing at the end. it ended too soon...like i had been wrapped and caressed for a long time, and then quickly discarded like a used tampon.

2 things.

I don't think I could ever write a memoir because I don't think I could ever be that honest to anyone about my life past or present

I've come to the conclusion that I love books with lots of vernacular in them. I think that's going to be what I'm doing now. my thing. reading books with vernacular.

alright. that's it for now.
over & out

uhuh,
N