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My ancestral line to John Locke. When he wrote "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" in 1689 he had already been the Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations. No one disputes this. He had, too, investments in the Royal African Company, whose holdings along the Gambia included forts, factories, and military command of West Africa, etc., ... etc., ... No dispute here either. These statements - an essay on human understanding, and the board of trade and plantations - these identifiers can lie beside each other with no discomfort, apparently. But as I said, I am a soft-hearted person. I cannot get past this. I am just a lover with a lover's weaknesses, with her manifest of heartaches.

Verso 32.2

Dionne Brand

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translated from the Polish written by
Tomasz Różycki