I saw Straight Outta Compton the day before I arrived on campus. Because of the sensationalist nature of social media, I had already been barraged with a plethora of opinions supporting and denigrating the film. Perhaps I entered the theater already biased. Nevertheless, when all was said and done, I left with conflicting emotions. I…
Each time that I hear a Yale student use the word “ratchet,” I die a little on the inside. They’re appropriating a word that has a specific and serious cultural context in Louisiana, where I’m from. The first time most Louisiana natives hear the word ratchet is not in a frat house, but in their…
At precisely seven o’clock Sunday night, the disembodied head of instructor Nicholas Charleston peers out from the screen at eight expectant students. Skype carries his voice from Oklahoma. Of those in attendance, six sit behind thick copies of A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language. Nearly all are Choctaw themselves. Dr. Angela Gleason, director of the…
On September 13th, 2015, fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed from Irving, Texas effortlessly constructed a digital clock in the span of twenty minutes. For a young NASA fanboy whose passion is to engineer and innovate, this was just another Sunday night. Before going to bed, he placed it in his book bag, eager to share his latest…
On the evening of Saturday, September 19th, the Yale Film Society (YFS) and the Religion and Social Change Film Series hosted a screening of Spike Lee’s masterpiece biopic Malcolm X at the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC). The beautiful WHC auditorium, paired with the grainy 35mm film, created a powerful atmosphere in which the depiction of…