FORBIDDEN WORDS

Nothing can be said anymore

it was just a joke

It's just a word

you know what I mean

oh well but it's not racism

I say it to have a laugh

why are you offended I'm not talking to you

I just mean to say something

I don't understand where the problem is

I can go on, but I guess I'll stop here,

I think I don't have the strength to go on or pretend nothing has happened

today a person said a word that for me is a hot iron on the skin

a mark that still burns as if I had lived it directly

it's tears of a mother separated from her children

broken families

the greatest pain

It's just a word

If so, then why do you insist on saying it

why it is so difficult to understand

every time I see it written or

hear the sound of it

those five letters

vibrate

in my head

warm my heart

awaken an ancestral yet not so ancient trauma

If it is really just a word why so much violence and resistance in abandoning it?

If your language is that rich

if your intentions are that good

if it really doesn't matter

Why spit a word to my face

that doesn't just hurt me as an individual

but the whole community whose skin is not white?

I told you you've hurt me

you replied that we shouldn't deny our own story

which is something sad - of course - but it is useless to censor the voice of those who provoke

but this is not censorship

it is respect

You told me everyone must have freedom of speech

the freedom to express oneself, and therefore the freedom to hurt and attack

people who already have enough injuries and assaults in their daily lives

you tell me it's just a word

which is not that important

that I must be superior

Why must it always be the injured party to bend

to apologize

To simply ask to be heard?

I guess it's easier to take it lightly

and pronounce it as if it was nothing

when it doesn't concern you personally

and does not open ancient wounds

it does not suggest images of people chained

despair

I've seen what that word means

I have seen the remains of such a near and frightening era

I had nightmares about it for days and days

I've lived it

and even today it is impossible for me to even see it written

without feeling violated in something that I don't even know how to describe but that exists pulsating inside me

N.E.G.R.O

Cancel it