Rita Dove, "Parsley"

This poem discusses a Haitian sugar plantation massacre of 20,000 slaves because they couldn't roll the "R" in the latin american word "perejil" which translates to parsley. The rolling "R" is typical of latin American dialect, and because African Americans failed to adapt to this new form of speaking they were viewed with even more disgust by the general. He is haunted by the death of his mother, and he is frustrated by the mispronunciation of the word parsley by the slaves. He compares them to the parrot, an animal that is capable of the word's proper pronunciation. Through this comparison the general writes off the slaves as being less intelligent than a bird, giving them a subhuman status in his eyes. This is a beautifully written piece that truly highlights the atrocities of slavery and how slaves were viewed as less than human because their cultural background made them so different from people in the Americas.