“Die, bitch.”
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
—from “won’t you celebrate with me”, by Lucille Clifton,
M pa pitimi san gadò.
— Haitians, knowing our worth
Nearly every morning I wake up eager to taye banda ak lavi a. I feel energized by the love I have for myself, my children, my peoples. I wake up looking forward to chipping away at my life’s works (plural, of course, cuz genius polymath). If, on top of all that, I see a particularly delightful dance move while scrolling through the socials — I jump up and wine, or twerk, or booty pop (or all of the above!), then head to the washroom with a literal pep in my step.
The quiet part.
The quiet part is that every morning I wake up forgetting that there are voices telling me to “die, bitch.”
The most immediate of those voices is that of my children’s father.
For thirteen years my ex-husband, the father of my children, has been abusing me in one of the most ingenious and insidious of ways.
I am a Black woman born in a white supremacist, genocidal nation-state (aka Canada), to two Haitian foreign students of working class background¹. Much like Ms Clifton and other Black women before and after me
everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
But I’m still here, right? They didn’t win. Djab la fouye twou a…
And so like Dorothy I rally the troops and keep easing on down the road…
But I can’t carry nothin’ that might be a load, because every time I make a plan, pay for this instead of that, get involved in this project instead of that one, the quiet part is the father of my children telling me to “die, bitch.” So I’m always on high alert. Always in fight or flight. Always teetering on the brink. Because one false move and I lose everything.
Everything.
This is the life of a domestic abuse victim.
I’m not a survivor, because it’s not over yet.
For thirteen years my ex-husband, the father of my children, has been abusing me in one of the most ingenious and insidious of ways.
Economic abuse. Post-separation economic abuse.
Of course, the abuse didn’t start at separation, but it most definitely intensified. In the hubbub of early parenthood, a full life, plans of starting things “for real” in a whole other country, it was not obvious to me that while my finances were shaky at best, he was doing ok. But complaining, of course. Cuz that’s what the Québécois do. Plenyen vant plen.
When I met my ex-husband I was 19 and a student. He was 27 and on welfare.
As we planned our future together, and merged our lives together, I sank into precarity while his professional and financial situation improved. He got into a workfare program. I was fired from my summer gig cuz goofing around with him in the morning had me show up late once too often. In preparation for our life together in Haiti he enrolled in a training program to become a medical lab technician. I slowly slipped out of university and eventually started working part-time as a community organizer.
There was a miscarriage. Then a first baby born to term. Then a move. A wedding. Then a second baby. Lovers. Trips back home. Adventures. New life callings. And the math was that I was making an average of $18–19,000 CA a year. And he was making an average of $42–$45,000 CA a year. I knew cuz I did our taxes².
But then he said he wanted to go 50/50. I answered I wanted a divorce.
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The year 2010 was one of collective trauma and personal trauma. The earthquake happened. Then the divorce happened. Then the custody battle started.
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Of course there had been signs. Little things. Ways he tried to control me, or crush me, or isolate me, or belittle me.
I didn’t notice in large part because they usually failed. Quite miserably, at that.
Paske m konnen kote m moun. Paske m pa t pitimi san gadò. Paske m gen nen nan figi m.
So when he said those things, or did those things, I just dismissed him outright. Or ignored him. Left him to stew in his juices.
Cuz I’m smart, my family is awesome, my friends kick ass, these projects are the bees knees, and if you can’t see that there’s not much I can do to help you.
What I didn’t understand was that every single one of his misfires was him whispering “Die, bitch.” in my ear. That every new friend I made, every legendary house party I hosted, every new facet I discovered within myself that I sought to explore, nurture, develop — each and every one of these was a personal affront to him³. Everything I did that was a testament to my drive to put all my talents to flourish undermined his own desire to keep me contained, subservient, and most especially: lesser than.
It took me nearly a decade to understand that so much of my ex-husband’s rage toward me stemmed from his own investment in white supremacy. As a blan je ble my ex-husband thought he was doing me, ti nègès la, a favour.
I, in my Haitian naiveté, always thought the opposite.
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I didn’t even bother articulating it because it was — and is — so obvious to me. Even though I didn’t know then what I know now (that Black women and expansive genders, myself included, are simply magical). I was simply going on the incontrovertible fact that Haitian civilization is a gem and everyone who gets to rub up against it in any minor way is blessed and highly favoured.
“You’re welcome, white boy.”
There’s likely an essay somewhere explaining that — contrary to popular belief and persistent propaganda — Haitians and Québécois are not “cousins” or “siblings” but rather opposing archetypes. Like all white supremacists, the Quebecois rankle at Haitian self-worth and pride. And like all oppressed whites, they find it doubly vexatious that we n*ggers (from a sh*thole country at that!) don’t even have the decency to know our place and hang our heads in shame.
“Die, bitch.”
everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
Every day as a Black woman on this earth there are voices loud and strong telling me to die. I don’t blame myself for failing to hear my ex-husband’s in that chorus. I don’t blame myself for not anticipating a vindictiveness and rage that was so over the top as to seem absurd.
In April 2010 my still husband emailed two of my oldest “friends” saying he had the intention of leaving Haiti with two of my three children. He was hoping to rally their support against me and my family — and he did, to a certain extent. Because neither one of those “friends” warned me.
In July 2010, while in Canada for a surgical procedure, he sent me an email stating his intentions. When I countered that I wanted custody of my children and that they would spend holidays with him, he immediately escalated: threatening to take me to court, prove I was an unfit mother, and get full custody.
“Die, bitch!”
He was back on welfare. Living in a studio apartment. An hour’s drive from his parents. I was country director of an environmental NGO, lived in a multifamily home, with two domestic workers, and a driver.
He demanded full custody of the children and child support.
This white man wanted to take my Black children to a white supremacist country and for my Black ass to send him money from the world’s first Black republic to a country where they’re still unearthing bodies of children killed in residential schools. It was Europe versus Africa writ small: first we steal your people, then we extract your wealth.
The courts agreed.
“DIE, BITCH!”
I fought back. The lawyer who saved my life and my children’s lives was also a Haitian woman. She also said that in her whole professional career she had never encountered such clear and unfettered racism — from the bench.
“DIE, BITCHES!”
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My father once asked me what my (professional) life goal was, and I answered without hesitation: “To be recognized as a preeminent leader in arts and culture in Northern Haiti and beyond”.
On January 9th 2010 I sent an email to my friends and board members. It was finally a go! Ayiti Arts et Vie/Art Lives Haiti was to be a professional development organization supporting performing artists and performing arts institutions in Cap-Haitien and across Northern Haiti⁴. When the earthquake struck I temporarily tweaked the mission (despite objections from my childhood friend and board member T.) and did humanitarian runs where I brought non-perishable staples, broad-spectrum antibiotics, condoms and whatnot to people I knew who would give to folks in need, and artists I found through teledjòl.
By November 2010 I had secured Fractured Atlas in New York City as a fiscal sponsor. The goal was to do direct donor fundraising outside of Haiti and therefore have a diversified income stream instead of relying solely on the usual project-based grants so common in the non-profit world.
But…
“Die, bitch.”
The cost of having my children near me and raising them in Haiti — as was literally my life’s dream since I was 15 — was the violence of economic abuse. The combined weight of processing and understanding my ex-husband’s hatred; of dealing with the daily labour of parenting in a country that was, um, “facing challenges”; of paying for everything (and also accumulating piles, and piles, and piles of debt) — all of this undermined my plan to devote the best of my skills and energies to my passions and my peoples.
It continues to severely undermine my mental health and overall well-being to this day.
I am not what people expect when they hear the phrase “domestic violence”. I am not miserable, I am not sad. I did not retreat from public life. I am deeply engaged with friends, with society, with ideas, with art. With love and with hope.
But the quiet part is that every morning I wake up and there’s this one voice among many telling me to “die, bitch.”
Every time I make a plan, every time I pay for this instead of that, every time I get involved in this project instead of that one, the quiet part is that the father of my children is telling me to “die, bitch.”
I’m writing this May 2023. My back of an envelope calculation of how much my ex-husband owes me in unpaid child support is $147,000 USD. And counting.
I’m not asking for help. Not because I’m too proud to do so. Everyone who knows my story knows that I’ve consistently asked for all kinds of help to make it through this past decade+ of extreme violence. My budget spreadsheet has a tab with outstanding debts to friends, some of who lent me money to address this very problem. But, you know, Other More Immediate Emergencies…
I’m writing this so people know. So people understand better what this is. So people know that there’s always another story, some not-so-secret horror that’s happening in plain sight but yet still invisible.
I’m not asking for help because I don’t even know what to ask for anymore. I am currently running on fumes. I am so exhausted I cannot say “Here’s the plan, here’s what I need my friends and allies to do”. I am the poster child for decision fatigue.
I don’t know what to do anymore.
All I know is that I want it to stop.
Thank you for listening.
