Earnest Supplication – Higher Education, Travel, Art, and African History

Repeat after me: I will…not…be taken…fi idiot. What does this mean? It means to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves”. I feel that I was raised without a true backbone, without a true understanding of self and the amount of self-respect necessary for me stand up on my two feet as a woman.

Jamaicans can be a bunch of bullies. Trust me—I have a Jamaican mother who bullied me throughout my tender years. I could never understand why my tears were deemed as oversensitivity when they felt like a genuine reaction to pain and hurt. Was I wrong for feeling pain? Was I wrong for feeling hurt?

I was never wrong. I was always valid for how I felt. The work done during my 20s to undo the harm inflicted on me—the bullying, the beating, the loneliness and isolation of my childhood and adolescence. The life of a first generation American is not always easy—although those who suffered in poverty and the circumstances of a post-colonial global south would beg to differ.

When I turned 25, I was baptized into the church of Christianity. After battling suicidal ideations for some time, I had discovered identity, salvation, and purpose in Jesus Christ. The ideologies of the Christian religion seem to contradict the culture of rebellion baked into the crust of Jamaica. Christianity taught me to be meek, quiet, subservient, and unquestioning—to submit to authority, to not complain, and to always be grateful. Yet, I feel as a Black youth, the balance between subservience and righteous rebellion is tricky to strike.

Once again—I will not be taken fi idiot. I know my rights, I know my worth, I know who God made me to be. Having a backbone takes work.