Long post because it needs to be…
I have gone through a range of emotions in the last 24+ hours. Yesterday was mainly anxiety and grief. Today is also grief but anger has entered the chat.
When I learnt that Krystal Primus-Espinoza was missing I was incredulous. I must have said ‘No man’ to myself about 100 times. I dropped to my knees and prayed immediately picturing her in my head, picturing her kids and her mom. I forwarded that post to as much groups as I could have and even though I knew deep down it may have been an exercise in futility, I held out hope that this gem of a person I knew would be found and returned to her family. I stared at my phone for about two hours scrolling and refreshing, waiting for any update. I thought about young Ashanti from San Juan as my husband and I had a long conversation about her and the state of things literally the day before.
Now this morning they are both dead, bodies lifeless and literally washed up, killed by cowardly men.*
I love Trinidad. I am Trini and proud but I absofuckinglutely HATE this particular part of our existence here. This DESPERATION and ANGER that I feel that NOTHING is going to come as a result of this! What’s my proof? The pattern!!!! The fact that after nine days we will be on to something else!!!! The gall of the people who have or claim to have the power to do something but will only stretch out their necks out or get in the ring if they feel like their career or ego will be threatened. That is how it seems. What’s my proof? Go on the Comissioner of Police Gary Griffith’s Facebook page and post two things: ask him to make a full, detailed statement on the repeated disappearance of women in this country through his Communications “department” or call him an incompetent, blathering, thin-skinned jackass. Which one you think he will respond to back and forth with the quickness? Disgusting….
We have A LOT of work to do because the fact of the matter is that what the way things are looking, we have to investigate, mind and save our own damn selves with this crisis that is embedded in our societal structure. So here are some issues, if it fall in yuh garden, yuh know what to do…
Women:
Discipline your children. You are their mother, not their friend. When my gremlinz vex with me I does be damn glad because I know they cyah come round me with no mad-ass behaviour and not expect consequences. Deal out the consequences!! And stop harbouring your sons as big men. Stop babying these men. Stop making excuses for these men. Stop scorning the daughters-in-law and putting your sons on a pedestal when they doing ah pack ah assness. Stop protecting these men from themselves. Stop pimping your daughters to grown ass men to get money. Stop sending your daughters back to live with abusive men. Stop using the fact that you survived 30 years of marriage with a serial, cheater and abuser that your daughters should ‘grow a backbone’ to suffer the same. Stop with the silence with your sons when you KNOW they are beasts in human form. Stop substituting your sons as your husbands! Abuse is not normal, violence is not normal, if he lash you it does not mean that he loves you, it means that you remind him of his failures and he needs a show of power to get back on his pedestal at your expense! And stop going back when he keep rinsing out yuh ears with the ‘I’m sorry, I will never do it again’, what you accept is what will continue. To ass with them if they stop talking to you or giving you money! If you claim to love these men as you do, stop perpetuating the damn cycle!
Men:
What is your manhood to you? There is NOTHING manly about feeling that your power comes from controlling, violating, abusing women in all forms. NOTHING. You have heard this before over and over because it is true. Some of you feel ashamed about it because it is true. Some of you of you boast about it because you take the coward’s way out and it is easier if you prefer to front than to face your own worthless reality.
Normalize caring for mental health along with physical health. As much as you wanna gym it out, or feel you could drink it out or fuck it out, NONE of that shit helps if you never talk it out. When you lie down in your bed at night all of your thoughts and feelings will be lying down right there next to you staring at ceiling with you waiting for you to fall asleep to HAUNT your dreams. When you wake up, same thing again. Use that same manhood that you carelessly degenerate and own up to your failings!
Stop shaming other adult humans with XY chromosomes who express their emotions when it comes to their vulnerabilities. You’re part of the problem because now they’re bottling all this shit inside and guess who they’re out taking it out on? Save the women!
I’m sick of it and I have nothing more to say. Let me let the men talk:
Sigh.
We are going to have to talk about this again.
So often – Actually too often we sit in sadness as we read or feel about a young woman being killed my a man and loved her greatly 24 hours ago. We cuss and carry on and want to hang them all in Woodford Square. Yet in 9 days the anger disappears and we await the next victim. How come the anger isn’t directed at why this “thing” continually happens?
I throwing this out there.
Many generations ago systems and protocols were developed to help guide how men and women interact. Women were lower and less than men hence their roles were just listen, react and be naked. This was simply the way.
Up comes about 40 years and that protocol has been changed. Women doing what? Working? Voting? The financial wizard? Making their own decisions? Thankfully by the way. Women are not simple baby vessels. Women are taking their place and driving progress and mapping our future. (Of course I’m generalizing. I know some cultures are holding on the old way with a Clark Kent grip.)
However how we teach and nurture boys & girls into men & women hasn’t changed. Not one flipping bit. Too many parents are still subconsciously teaching their sons that women are objects. Girls are to be seen but not heard while boys can go out and hunt.
When was the last time you sat down and listen to how young people talk to each other? Just listen how they talk. Or don’t talk. The last 40 years primarily because of technology resulted probably 2 or 3 generational changes. We didn’t prepare and still in the dark. We want to use a Cortina and get Benz performance.
The more disturbing problem is us as men. We fail ourselves. We fail our sons. We fail our daughters. And finally we fail our women! It is too much at times.
We don’t support a brother when you see him struggling. We don’t lift his spirit. We just laugh or Ole Oak it. We teach boys to reach and pull for bonus vagina and if we get hurt pull for more and smoke weed it out. We need rewire the entire server rack. We must!
We must do better.
We have to do better.
It is tiring.
Another word, click the video below:
Blessings
TMIDM
*allegedly
Trini Mom in D Middle 
Thank you. It needs to be said