Judgment is your language
Judgment, some of you calls it your opinion. Some of you believe your opinion deserve to be heard every 5 seconds of everyday, especially on social media. You comment on everyone’s comment on what you think, and the fact that you think what you think is always right, and you are judging every other person all the time, hoping that no one ever judges you. This is your language. This is the social media age, the total rhetoric that every day tears people down, all in the name of free speech, your opinion.

Because your opinion matters, all the time? About everything, to everybody? Even when you know nothing about the subject, to you, your opinion matters and you speak so ignorantly with so much audacity. You are creating cracks in people. You are creating this little tiny sliver of pain that never goes away. The heart will always remember where it has been broken. And every time you give your opinion, every time you give your judgment, most especially, ignorantly and carelessly, you hurt a soul.

I love your judgement
But there is something you should know; your judgment doesn’t hurt me. It makes me stronger. Every stone being thrown makes me stronger. I pile them up and I climb up higher. I love your judgment, because with it, I can show the world, you see, the world can throw stones at you, but you don’t have to die. You can pile them up and climb up higher and higher.

You can’t kill me with your stones, not with your judgment, not with your opinion and you can no longer create crakes in me, I am fortified. But there are people out there who aren’t as strong as I am. I speak for those people. But guess what? Most of you are those people that I speak for. Most of you can’t survive stones thrown. Most of you can’t pile them up and you are hurt. Somebody told you are too poor, you are low life, nobody, too black, too ugly, you are fat, too tall, and you are too skinny, not good enough for something or someone. Somebody created cracks in you.

Judgment of a sinner against other sinners is invalid
Judgment is your language, but the judgment of a sinner against other sinners is invalid. Your judgments are invalid. Your opinions on someone else are invalid because you are not any better. There are no good sins, your sins are not better than my sins, my sins are not better than your sins, no body’s sins are better than the others, we are all sinners. So, your opinions on other people are invalid, but you give them so freely, you create these cracks and now you have all these wounded people. You are all wounded because, hurt people, hurt people.

Hurt people hurt people
And then, a hurt person goes out to the world in a perfect condition for predators to prey. An abuser can see a crack a mile away, and he can smell blood from water circle. But you broke them down first, remember. You have all these stuffs to say, but you make this person feel as if they weren’t good enough for you. Because who are you? Who are you to satisfy? Who have you ever satisfied, to expect others to satisfy you?

Which one of you is God? Please stand up.
Nobody is standing, was stand, and so I am supposing everybody is mortal. That’s good to know. Now, you have sent this hurt person out because hurt people hurt people, and so you hurt someone with your judgment and you send them out the world not feeling good enough. And an abuser comes along and say, this person doesn’t love themselves very much because probably somebody tell them every day, why are you wearing that, why do you look like that? Why did you do your hair like that? You aren’t cute, you can’t sing, you are not that beautiful. Everybody has judgment. Now you meet this abuser, and this abuser has these cracks and this abuser slitters in under the armor and they begin to dismantle this person piece by piece, bit by bit, breaking them down to their smallest molecule and the next thing you know is that we have larger and harsher abuses happening. Verbal, emotional, sexual, financial, digital, and stalking and we are all aware of the physical abuses that show signs. Many have heard their lips busted, nose busted, some bleed all over a new born baby when the man beat his wife, some have been beaten since the day they were born.

When we learn abuse
It started in those formative years, between birth and age 5. We learn certain things. We learn alphabet, numbers, shapes, colors. We learn to tie our shoe lasses, bath by ourselves. During this period, 90% of who you are going to be, your personality begins to be formed. 90% of your brain forms between birth and age 5. This is when most people learn abuse.

You think that it’s being punched in the face. You think that it’s being thrown out from up stairs, you think its bloody and the bruises involved, you think abuse works in a certain way. You think abuse is domestic violence or rape, you think it is killing or marginalization, you think it is political and economic mismanagement, but no, it is more than that. It is your experience, when you knew nothing. Between the age of zero and 5, someone taught you something that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Someone said something about you and it hurt you. It could be another kid. It might be an adult. Maybe you weren’t as pretty as your sister, as smart as your cousin, maybe you just couldn’t run as fast as your brother, but someone planted a seed of doubt into your mind and you didn’t think it was an abuse. Every time someone tells you, you aren’t good enough; they are abusing your mind. They are diminishing a part of you and it happens every day. Abuse is so silent; it happens so easily and often goes undetected. That external rhetoric then becomes the internal rhetoric and you say to yourself, maybe am cursed because I am black, the black man is cursed. So you wish to be white or struggle at all cost to travel abroad or even if you didn’t, you hold in your mind that the whites are better. Oh, my hair is too nabby, I got bad hair. Or I am too black and yes, I wish I were a little lighter like Toke Makinwa, so am going to stay out of the sun. Oh, I am not that smart because I don’t get best grades. My sister does better than I do and I can’t just compete. I am not good enough for this course, it’s only reserved for certain kind of people and you don’t realize you are being abused and then you could see someone else, maybe it is your best friend, and you say you are just too fat, or you are not clever. Now, you are abusing your best friend and you call it your opinion.

Abuse is a language
And it’s a language. Abuse is a language. It’s something we are taught in our formative years that we never let go. And now that we are in a social media age where everything is so open, everyone wants to share their taught every 5 minutes of everyday without realizing we are abusing each other and goes from being familiar to being societal.

You are running around judging people without ever asking, what has happened to you? But wait, what if someone asks you, instead of judging you? What has happened to you? Who did what to you? Who said what to you to make you how or who you are today?

When parents fight each other, beat each other, bunch of people fighting each other in the present of children, nobody ever bothered about what it would be doing to the baby, the kids.

Abuse is a language. Our parents taught us abuse is normal, it couldn’t be wrong, can it? So when we go into other relationships, every single last one of them more abusive than the next.

When people are being abused, especially domestic violence, the usual question is, why don’t you just leave? Why don’t you just end that relationship, that marriage? Why don’t you just leave? But the simple answer to that question is that, abuse is a language. It’s built in to our DNA, as much as part of us as the language we speak. It’s how we speak, how we communicate, its how people communicate with us; it’s how we find each other. As an English speaking person, you walk into a foreign country, let’s say you are in France and you don’t understand anything. Who is the first person you are going to look for? Someone who speaks your language right. Okay.

None Violent is a foreign language
I saw a video recently when some ladies in UK are being asked for the kind of man they wanted and I wasn’t shock by their responses. None of them wanted a gentleman. They said they want a tough guy who can be tough on them when they needed to be toughed on, someone they can’t disrespect because of the consequence. According to one of them, ‘’ I need someone that can tell me to shut up and sit down without me reacting because of fear of the consequences’’. To them, that is being confident as a man, being man enough. The ability to abuse them is what they consider as being man enough. So in a foreign country, you go about asking, do you speak English, do you speak English, it’s the same thing with abuse. Do you speak this violent language of mine? Do you? Because none violent is a foreign language and when you are raised with this language, you don’t know how to speak any other language and when someone says why don’t you just leave an abusive relationship, the answer is, why don’t you just speak German, Swahili, Italian, anything else? Right now, don’t learn the new language; just speak it, just do it. You cannot do it, because it is not your language, you haven’t learned it, you haven’t acquired it, you haven’t practiced it, you haven’t used it, you haven’t created a life around it.

It might take years to learn a new language. So when people ask why don’t you just leave, why didn’t she leave, why didn’t he leave the abusive relationship, the answer is, why don’t you just speak another language. These are two people who speak the same language in a foreign country. We have to stick together, me and you. I don’t understand what everyone else is saying, what do you mean none violence.

Abused and abuser are victims
So, the abuser and the victim are speaking the same language only the two of them understand. They recognize each other no matter where they are. Another thing here is that, abusers are victims too, because someone taught them this. Someone taught them to be this way, and they need to be saved also. They need to be looked after also, they need to be taught another language also, because if you save an abuser, you can save 10, 20, God knows how many victims. Let’s not leave them out for condemnation because they are the aggressors, they are the monsters, let’s not just look at them and say you are a bad person, we are going to put you in jail, we are going to help this woman, or this man who was the victim. Because that aggressor is also a victim, someone taught this person that abuse is okay. Most abusers were victims at some point. Abuse comes silently, but it often doesn’t leave that way. It starts out with your judgment; it starts out with those cracks. It starts out with thinking and saying someone isn’t good enough because of what?

Don’t break people
Most people you come across would not be this strong, they will not be this strong because society doesn’t make them that way. We are living in a world that would tell you, you are not good enough every minutes of everyday; it is designed that way. You are been flooded with images that are telling you that your life is worth nothing. Do not compound that by abusing the person next to you, by telling someone they are not good enough, by judging someone, because judgment from other sinners is invalid. No one is better than the other, abuse starts with your judgment. Do not prime someone for an aggressor, do not get them ready, do not send them into the world broken and ready for someone to even do more damage.
It took me a long time to come into this body right here, to be this secure, this strong, unbroken, and unbreakable. Be careful what you say to others and watch what people are saying to you. Abuse starts there. Don’t send yourself out into the world prime for bigger abusers, and don’t send anybody out there that way. And before you judge, before you say another word, before you use the language of violence, of abuse, ask a question. What has happened to you? What happened? Tell me about you.

Listen and Talk
Share your stories, listen to others. Tell the world who you are, let them know that you are here. Leave proof of life, because your life does matter, what you go through matters, find out why you are on this journey, it all matters. Don’t be ashamed of your pitfalls, of your mistakes, as if God doesn’t have a bigger plan for placing that so called mistakes in you. Regret nothing, don’t be ashamed. And don’t shame other people. Don’t break people down, by trying to shame them for living there life the way God has allowed them to live. Everybody’s path isn’t your path; everybody’s truth isn’t your truth.

As from today, you should know that, your judgment of other people can be the seeds of abuse that can change, chain or even end their lives. Uplift each other, please. Be responsible for each other please.

A transcribed and edited speech of Karin Steffans by Abdulrazaq O Hamzat

Beautiful piece

Lengthy

clapbest:
Lengthy

its worth the read

okay

OK

clapbest:
Lengthy

go through it, it worth every second of your time

Nice way to start today...
this your post is perfect for nairaland...but the kain people wey we get for here sha..

Nice read.

I just love this piece

Educative.
Nice piece

Nice piece there.

clapbest:
Lengthy

If you can't read, go back to nursery school

Wow! Too long but thanks for this piece.

Phewww. Nice read. Great enlightenment.

A good write-up; this is the sort of educative topic that is front page worthy and not the sort of un-educative topics i see on there these days.

bilms:


If you can't read, go back to nursery school

I'm so glad you read it but for your advice? Let me not trade words with you

EtherealAnn:
its worth the read

Okey thank you ma

Ray1251:
go through it, it worth every second of your time

I swear it is thanks for the caution am truly grateful sir

Lol, even the abusers are saying the piece is nice. Let's hope the message really sunk in. Because what people don't know is that in hurting others with thier words they create cracks in themselves.

I get time read this so