This past week in Trinidad and Tobago has been really trying for my soul. as a Trinbagonian. I had to endure the police road blocks on Monday which effectively paralyzed the country (we made Yahoo news!), it’s the last week of school and the usual drama applies and now this nonsense in our national Parliament last night.

I don’t usually get worked up about what happens in Trinidad’s Parliament because as far as I see you have to have a certain amount of brain cells to follow what goes on in the Lower House and I don’t have brain cells to waste. It’s a lot of shouting, derailed “arguments”, unnecessary picong and time wasting. Yesterday this senseless motion of no confidence that was brought against the Opposition Leader Dr. Keith Rowley was enough for me to steups but what that woman Vernella Alleyne-Toppin from Tobago said enraged me to the highest when I woke up this morning to the news. How the hell are you going to abuse the cover of parliamentary privilege to accuse another Parliament member of being conceived through rape which resulted in his aggressive, arrogant behavior. Hellooooo? You had that mess written on the paper from which you were reading??? You using the story that he was born due to RAPE to make a political point of no confidence against him??? Rape is a damn crime!!!!!!

Of course I heard the full broadcast on the radio this morning and I was beyond shocked and starting yelling in the car to myself and well the gremz in the back seat who kept asking what was ‘disgusting’ and who was a ‘damn fool’ and if I was alright. I was so damn mad. I started thinking about one of my relatives who was a victim of rape and how BROKEN she was months after being stripped of her dignity in her own home. I started thinking about one of my students who was a victim of incest and rape and how dehumanized she felt and the sea of tears that she shed in front of me. Rape victims have to deal with that act that crushes their soul and then be strong enough to deal with the possibility of disease and pregnancy. Do you know how strong you have to be to raise a child of rape? Do you know how strong you have to be not only to raise a child of rape but to raise him/her with strength and love and to destroy the residual feelings of resentment? Do you have any idea of the level of trauma facing rape victims and to a lesser extent their family members?

Whether this story is true or not, what kind of human do you have to be to decide to include that in your speech to “get one on him” in a parliamentary debate? And better than that, what kinda implication is that to make, that a child of rape is aggressive and uncouth and therefore cannot aspire to attain a lofty position as the Prime Minister of a country? To make it worse you are the Minister in the Ministry of the People and Social Development, a ministry with dubious beginnings but dreamt up to “care for the people”!!!!!

Vernella Alleyne Toppin, do us all a favour and get the hell out of office and take all those others who agreed with your atrocious view by thumping their desks in the house. Your statement was sick and repulsive, was an affront to all rape victims and children of rape victims and brought down whatever scraps of dignity that remained in the Parliament. I wish you well on your return to Tobago, you will have it to deal with across there. They waiting for you…