What is Truth?

Turns out, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) raid in 1993 was not the first time Mount Carmel—what the Branch Davidians affectionately called their home near Waco—was under siege. While casually browsing their Wikipedia page on a random Wednesday (as one does), I came across a detail we had not discussed in class: David Koresh was the leader of a siege before the siege. But first, a quick recap. Before he was David Koresh, he was Vernon Wayne Howell, a bullied kid with a lonely past who arrived at Mount Carmel in his early twenties. Howell barely had time to learn everyone’s name before he began an affair with Lois Roden and challenged her son George’s claim to the Davidian throne. After both Lois and her husband, Benjamin, died, George inherited power. Once Davidians, now members of the town of “Rodenville.” Howell wasn’t having it. He left, his loyal band of followers by his side, leaving the Rodenites to fend for themselves.  In a desperate bid for...

Laughter is a universal language. While watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels , our class communicated in that intrinsic mother tongue at specific moments of irony, embarrassment, or just plain humor. In many of the film’s moments, I found myself chuckling when a character would say something and the punchline of the joke landed slowly, like at the beginning of the film when Freddy Benson (the American hustler) sat across the table from a wealthy lady and cited his grandma as “the one who taught me it is better to be truthful and good… than to not.” As a class, we were thrown into a fit of giggles when jokes were made at another’s expense. For example: When Lawrence Jamieson (a British con artist) descended into an extended allegory about being a bad painter and recognizing his own limitations, but concluded his story by telling Freddy, “You are a moron.” When Janet Colgate opened the door to “Dr. Emil Schaufhaussen!” (Lawrence), as Freddy watched in complete shock. When Lawrence asked Fred...

What does “innocence” really mean? Is it the absence of guilt? Childlike naivety? A person’s chastity? Or is it racism in disguise, a microaggression where Black and brown people are blatantly cast into the role of “guilty” or “impure” before we’ve had the chance to speak? I am used to being cast as the villain, onstage and off, because of my outspoken nature. Whether I’m performing or simply existing, the “angry Black woman” stereotype hangs on me like a chain I never agreed to wear. And though I recognize I carry a boldness that others covet, I cannot help but feel, ever since I was a little girl, that I will never get to be the “innocent” victim or the pure-hearted heroine. After all, even when giving the world its first animated Black princess, Disney relegated Tiana to life as a green frog for the majority of her film. Black women are always the sassy sister, the wise grandmother, or the fierce executive; never the girl-next-door, the damsel in distress, or the “pure” love intere...