Here We Go Again

It’s about that time– the end of the semester. Which means I’ll be totally consumed by my studies and won’t have time to post until mid-December. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at a few of my favorite posts.

Dirty Laundry Read more »

Eyes Wide Shut

My undergraduate course has been watching Hotel Rwanda for the past couple of days. I’m not sure what I expected. They seem to be stunned into silence most times. Although it was my second time seeing the movie, my stomach and heart hurt just as much as it did the first time I saw it. The idea that millions of people were viciously executed while the world watched…Many of the students were toddlers during the massacres that took place in 1994 (not the first massacre of it’s kind that took place in Rwanda) and the only thing they may remember about the Clinton administration are the stains on Monica Lewinsky’s dress. In the 3 months it took to kill approximately 1 million people, the Clinton administration and the world opted to turn a blind eye. With strategies specifically designed to avoid using the term “genocide,” the United States’ government implicitly and explicitly contributed to the deaths of each and every one of the victims. After all, we had no interest in Rwanda. They had nothing we needed. 

My stomach is still sick. Sick because those very same acts of genocide are taking place around the world as once again, the world watches silently. Much too concerned with our owns needs, we’ll go about our daily routines while people are horrendously executed and while women are raped with glass bottles and machetes to ensure the cessation of their blood line.  Read more »

Rape and Genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

A Globe With Their Eyes "Wide Shut"

Women screamed all around me. Some clutched their babies while others held onto each other. With weapons in hand, men entered the open structure and randomly grabbed women, brutally raping them as the rest of us watched frozen in fear. In the chaos, I had not noticed the man suddenly standing in front of me. The machete he held was far less intimidating than the scowl on his face. He yelled at me in a dialect I was not familiar with and even though I could not understand what he was saying, I knew what was about to happen. Read more »