I really can’t stress this enough. If you want to make an impact, don’t simply sit idly by and ‘hope’ for courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the decision made in...

The open road. Seemingly my only friend for years upon end since leaving war. The road embraced me, let me breathe, and more importantly, did not judge me.

With even the slightest upset, detachment soon followed. I didn’t lose sleep over men, and I was too restless to be tied down. The grass didn’t even have time to grow around my feet before...

Stigma’s power lies in silence. The silence that persists when discussion and action should be taking place. The silence one imposes on another for speaking up on a taboo subject, branding them with a label...

Indifference is the worst kind of response when love is expressed. Hate is not the antithesis of love; it’s the nonexistence of feeling, a pervasive apathy. When hate is present, so is love. It’s passion...

How often do the poor in the US get to stand in front of their nation’s Marie Antoinette’s and shove the stale, mass-produced cake of lower class reality back into their mouths?

Ramadi’s sky was generously filled with stars. Celestial ornaments set against a banner of a deep blue velvet sky. It was a place where hell, death, and heaven were so clear and the closest I’ve...

Fine art is the discipline of breaking rules.

Get acquainted with your shadow, or find yourself surprised when a crisis emerges.

natives” tend to tourists like indentured servants with plastic, lifeless smiles. It’s not such a charming picture, is it? The truth is ugly, but so is ignorance or denial of such atrocities and pain.

If anyone thinks interracial “anything” is a big deal, they’re probably inbred.

I have been cheated out of being treated like a human being. In my reflection I saw an empty vessel. They had cheated me and I was desperate to make the sharp pain in my...

That’s what imperialism is all about, shoving your language, religion, culture, and race down others’ throats and telling them that they’re beneath you – and it’s not unique to the West either.

I wasn’t a person after all. I was simply this exotic thing for people to observe and investigate, an alien in any environment I was in.

Someone can tell you all your life that you’re inferior, but it doesn’t matter until you accept it and allow for validation. Once validation takes place, it’s then that the colonial malaise sets in like...