GILLESPIE / DE BEAUVOIR


 He kept saying to cut it and, "it's a shame for a man to have long
 hair." "If that's the case, why is it you have a big picture of Christ with
 long hair and a mustache to boot?" He said, "You shouldn't challenge
 the Bible."
 I said, "If I can't challenge it, then I'm not going to be in this church."
 'Cause I need to challenge things and know why. I can'tjust sit down
 and you tell me why. No way. He wait 'till we got on the beach. Seven
 o'clock in the morning. I had the robe in my hand to put on and the
 man snatched the robe from me. I can't baptize you. I walked home
 and I cried like a baby. I walked right up that road and I cried. I get
 home and I bawl. Bawl like a little child.
 My hair was natural. I went straight to Carlton [a supermarket] and
 bought a relaxer [to straighten hair]. I needed something to bring me
 back But when I went home, I sat in my front door and I heard a
 voice. I hear people saying how they does hear this voice and I was
 like, that's bullshit. I hear this voice, so what's wrong? "I seek your
 heart not your clothes. I don't care what you wear." This voice is
 telling me this. And I was like, this I -my mind playing upon me. It
 was God telling me, "Look, Idon't care what you wear. Just make sure
 that your heart is right. Make sure that you do good to people. You are
 a shining light and example." And that's what I try to be now. I try to
 be a good example for my kindred who don't back me who hate me
 but yet, I had to say to myself, if I wasn't a strong person I would have
 killed myself
 I am writing a novel, Glass Houses. That was the first title. I have
 several titles that I was going through. I've got to live a little more,
 baby. I believe in the future to come you're going to find a lot more
 people like me. I'm just like the catalyst of what is to come. I don't
 think anybody's crazy. A lot of people they have in the institutions are
 not crazy. When they start to take medication, that's when they go
 crazy. We all have the capacity to think for ourselves. The mind is a
 very masterful thing, but is also a very dangerous thing. I'm going to
 write everything. There is still a lot I have to learn.

The interview with Diva creates a space within which to experience the largely
unheard stories that allow for the representationn of subjective experience
and for the interruption of the objectification of Caribbean lived experience.
Diva's narrative and other first person accounts of Caribbean life create a
threshold through which new ways of understanding history, race, gender,
class, ethnicity, sexuality, nationalism, and culture become possible. Through
her forthright disclosures, the interview with Diva challenges the
homogeneity and unidimensionality of popular constructions of Barbados
and the Caribbean by revealing through a subjective and marginalized vantage