Animal

Someone called me coolie, that n-word equivalence in Trinidad which was first used there to tag labourers replacing slaves on plantations following emancipation. Most everyone else said I was an East Indian, which was not, as many think, to distinguish us subcontinental-sourced Indians from the misnamed Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, but a reference to our ancestors’ shipment by the British East India company. We are cargo. Maybe just Indian was better? We move to Oshawa and at the time there are barely any of those around. The closest mirror and spiritual salvation from the persistent racial violence is Black culture, and for