"These words come back to remind me that I am a slave, and it is in this truth that my strength lies. Whether a field slave or a house slave, man, woman, or child, the slave is a creature who has lost his soul between the mill and the sugarcane, between the ship's hold and its steerage, between the crinoline and the slap in the face. Shame stains our every gesture. When we place our feet, undeserving of shoes, on the ground, when we let our exhausted bodies fall on cornhusk mattresses, and when we swing the bamboo fans, we crush our souls under the weight of our shame. Only our gestures of revolt truly belong to us. (p62)"
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Évelyne Trouillot
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