Language of the Disempowered

"They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is they very place you, the tourist, want to go---so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself" (Kincaid 19).

The language in this particular passage carries a sarcastic tone, and I find that it is quite unapologetic in its delivery. I think language is very much related to identity, and one idea that I have often come across is that identity, or in other words, "the personal" is political. There is no hesitation in these words, and that tone continues throughout Kincaid's novel. I also find that the repetition of the natives being poor serves to highlight the both the privileges and wrongs of the tourist and colonizers. The natives do not necessarily have a representative voice, or even the means to move freely like the tourists do, so why wouldn't they be envious? Underneath the sarcasm, there seems to be another layer of emotion that wants to say something along the lines of "All these natives want to do is imitate the tourists and live glamorous lives" but that is not the real intention Kincaid wants to get across; but rather it shows that these native people would like the freedom to be their own person. That they do not want to be singled out as a "they" or some kind of Other. That the effects of violence and neocolonialism have stripped them of their right to make a living as a free individual. Instead, they are victim to being the underdog, which causes scuffles among their own people, and in falling victim to the tourists/colonizers, they have fallen victims to themselves. And because they don't have the resources or the right leadership to pull them out of this, the cycle of violence continues.