Category: Weekly Reflections

Waco and the Branch Davidians

Recently in our final months as PLP 12 students we have been working on our zettlekasten. We have officially gone through the Turning Points, Terrorism, and Music units. Our final unit before we begin our exhibition is Extreme belief’s, mainly looking at New Religious Movement’s (NRM) formally known as cults. I have been tasked with doing some background research into a certain cult to share in this post, and I have chosen Branch Davidians.

Branch Davidians are a offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists, which is a recognized autonomous branch of the Protestant Christian church which believe in a second coming (return of Jesus after his ascent to heaven). The Branch Davidians also believe in a second coming, though they also believe in a more apocalyptic end to society. The Davidian movement was founded in 1930, and passed through 3 people’s leadership before David Koresh became leader in the 1980’s. He joined the group in 1981, and quickly climbed the ranks, through a sexual relationship with the leader at the time, as well as the fact he claimed he prophesied the group’s future. He also claimed he was the Messiah as part of his New Light doctrine which declared all women as his wife, including underage girls, and women who were already married. Also any child of the Messiah is a sacred child, and so he went on to have 13 children with many of his  illegitimate wives within the commune. The Branch Davidians lived in Mount Carmel, a large piece of land in Waco, Texas, turned into a commune. There were many things that brought the commune to the attention of the law enforcement, such as sexual abuse, child molesting and possession of illegal firearms. Though the last one caused the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) to invade the compound on February 28th 1993. In the unsuccessful invasion of the compound 5 Branch Davidians, and 5 AFT agents were killed. This began the 51-day standoff between the FBI and the Branch Davidians. During the standoff Malcolm Glawell, from the New Yorker said this of the operation:

“the F.B.I. assembled what has been called probably the largest military force ever gathered against a civilian suspect in American history: ten Bradley tanks, two Abrams tanks, four combat-engineering vehicles, six hundred and sixty-eight agents in addition to six U.S. Customs officers, fifteen U.S. Army personnel, thirteen members of the Texas National Guard, thirty-one Texas Rangers, a hundred and thirty-one officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety, seventeen from the McLennan County sheriff’s office, and eighteen Waco police, for a total of eight hundred and ninety-nine people.” Link

The 51-day standoff ended in a siege of the compound by the FBI which ended up killing 76 Branch Davidians.

This group was determined to be a cult because of their charismatic leader, the brainwashing of members, the disruption of normal life through seclusion, and offered an answer to the apocalyptic ending people had been looking for. David Koresh also had an incredibly strong hold on the members of the group, to the point that people would give up their children if they misbehaved. They were also told to beat thier children at as young as 8 months old to teach obedience. They wanted the kids to listen so that when the day came (as they were a doomsday cult they prophesied the end of the world) the kids would listen to the adults and follow orders. Children who grew up in the cult said, “You were raised with just fear, everywhere is fear” (Kiery Jewel). Inciting fear into the children gave Koresh more power, and demonstrated further the development of the Branch Davidians as a cult.

The apocalyptic ending of the cult also enticed members to join People had been attracted initially to the group because it branched away from the traditional Seventh-Day Adventists, and brought more light upon the second coming (return of Jesus after his acent to heaven). Most members though had been first or second generation members, or had been involved before Koresh became a leader. Though what enticed many people to join Branch Davidians was David Koresh’s claim that he was a messiah, had spoken to god, and knew the end of the world was coming. He spoke so powerfully, people just believed him. The answers he had gained from being a Messiah made people want to join the cult, really demonstrating that people in vulnerable states, or at a crossroads in life, will listen if you give them answers.

I highly suggest you visit this website if you would like to learn more about the cult (The Waco tragedy, explained)

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Weekly Reflection November 1st

I learned that I can sing “rapey” (Kai) lyrics with knowing. Am I normal?

“She say she won’t, but I bet she will, timber,” is a lyric in “Timber”,

by Pitbull and Ke$ha. This lyric has a very clear hint at sexual assault, and/or rape. Its weird that when you actually listen, just how many songs have this same theme.

“In The Summertime”, a song written in 1970, by a British songwriter, highlights drinking and driving, and sexual assault. In the second verse, a lyric rings out, “If her daddy’s rich take her out for a meal, If her daddy’s poor just do what you feel.” Sure like Mr. Hughes, I agree the song is catchy, and I have a hard time condemning it, but that lyric when sung clear from my speaker shocked me. It opened my eyes to how many songs have inappropriate lyrics but continue in circulation. One song I have listened to countless times, sung every lyric, and never caught just how sexist it is. The song is “Blurred Lines,” by Robin Thicke Feat. T.I. and Pharrell.

Throughout this song while reading the lyrics many stand out as sexist, take “Okay, now he was close. Tried to domesticate ya. But you’re an animal. Baby, it’s in your nature.” When Thicke was asked about this lyric he said, “Even very good girls have a little bad side. You just have to know how to pull it out of them.” This answer angers me highly because WHO EVER SAID IT NEEDED TO LEAVE? A woman is allowed to have an aggressive personality. How would we be able to play sports? Get to university? Or even maintain a job with all these men trying to silence us? This reaction reminds me a little to much of Taming Of The Shrew, with the treatment of Kate. Everyones goal is to “tame” Kate, exactly what this comment is telling men today to do. Another song with the same sort of lyrics is Back To Sleep, by Chris Brown.

Where the lyrics read, “Just let me rock, I’mma f*ck you back to sleep, girl. Oh don’t talk to me, girl, right now.” This song is filled with horrible lyrics and a horrible beat, so I have less of a problem condemning it, but I’m still lost as to how songs like these can become part of our culture without us even seeing the issues. If you wonder what songs I’m talking about I’ve created a playlist.

An article by The Standard that I found about just this said, “Some of the most well-known, top-selling artists are unknowingly raising the expectations for men to act and women to be submissive,” which I couldn’t agree with more. These lyrics become what young people look up to. The lyrics are basically woman being submissive. Each of the songs in the playlist I created have had their time on top charts, or are known. Which means that people have listened and are now susceptible to their flawed meaning. Personally I feel that we can’t escape these songs, instead we have to learn as a culture that woman being submissive is not ok, and that it doesn’t have to shape who you become. Because once at that point, sexist songs will not hold such a strong hold on woman, because people will understand that sexism shouldn’t sell.

I highly recommend you visit Bustle, which had a lot of good insight into this topic.

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Weekly Reflection October 24th

After a refresher this week on what this post is supposed to be about, I am still lost, but I’ll try my best.

This week I learned that the line between shrew and “good” is very vague.

I can speak, have been able too since I was young, my first word was “dadda” when I was 1. Since then I have been spewing words as I learn then. Also known as speaking or talking. Only recently did I realize that because of my gender I would have been punished for spewing words, had I been born earlier. The lottery of birth protected me but it did not shield me from it entirely. I was really shocked that men would actually prefer it if women, or their wife, didn’t have any opinions, and didn’t partake speaking on any subjects other then the house. Thats like having a conversation with a wall. Wouldn’t it be more fun to argue a point? To see each others sides? To express both of your thoughts, not just make the woman stomach them, and the man speak for both of you?

We took a shrew test this week, to see how shrew’d we were, (I highly suggest you take the quiz, linked here). The woman who wrote the quiz was writing it to show women what they need to do to change, she wanted your score to be as low as possible. I took the quiz and was proud of my high score until I saw the objective. I was sort of confused. Obviously there are areas where I found myself placing low numbers, but I finished the quiz and got the score, “your man is probably immobilized, comatose and cached underground.” Hmmm. My man is dead? He couldn’t keep up? What did I “disrespect him to death?” Thats new. I found myself questioning where the male equivalent was. Where is the matching him and her shrew quiz? Huh? But that was the extent of the quiz. I also realized that it didn’t matter what the man had said, each of the categories (disrespecting, criticizing, nagging, lecturing, opposing, and punishing) were just never allowed for a woman to express. Basically a submissive woman is ideal. The woman who wrote this is obsessed with demoing homes, and finds herself happiest “when she has a power tool in her hand.” So how does she get to do a “male” job, but is not allowed to have her own opinions? Where is the line?

This question of where is the line is something that just continues to reoccur, with the suffragettes, there were “feminists” who were against the movement and found it was working against their efforts. When I did research for my Academic Conclusion this week I found countless STEM women who had had their discoveries usurped from them. Are they supposed to be happy that people realized? Next time they’ll get the nobel prize, right? Would it be inappropriate to fight? And when we read taming of the shrew this week, and had to draw the line between good and shrew, this line, the same line I have been talking about the entire time, is very very hard to find. 

This is when I wish I was in math, so I could just find the equation to the line. So I could find what the maximum amount of effort I could put in before I cross the line.

This line is exponentially hard to differentiate between, and I look forward to slowly placing it.

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Weekly Reflection October 18th

Welcome to my weekly recap! I will be creating one of these every week to just cover what I have learned each week, so sit back an relax and let me wrap up an old project and uncover a new one.

This week began with a lovely and much needed pro-d day. I was in Tofino, obviously respecting COVID guidelines, we barley ever went into town, and surfed the entire weekend, which made me feel much better after a stressful 5 weeks. Monday we headed home, realizing that missing one day of school was the equivalent of missing a day 2 week. So I was back and ready on Tuesday. On Tuesday I was in class and we just wrapped up our google map, and made sure that everyone had their information in. The google map was almost completely fined by the end of class, Jesse just had to finish putting the numbers on each stop, and we had to double check and make sure everyones info was in. Here is our final product, and here is the Wolves (class b’s) final product the pamphlet. On Thursday we officially hit 5 weeks and switched cohorts, english becoming an everyday class, and math becoming an every other day class, which also meant that we switched to Ms. Willemse as our teacher and switched projects. The new project we have begun Ms. Willemse has not released to us the driving questions but I have reason to believe that it has something to woman’s suffrage and The Taming Of The Shrew, a Shakespeare comedy, actually one of my favourite plays I have ever seen. So let me rehash this weeks learning.

“So they basically steal Dom’s wallet, and someone straps a bomb to themselves outside, but my bare legs are the big issue? Got it.” Joey a character on the Netflix show “Grand Army”,  a newly released and super interesting TV show based on “Slut: The Play,” says to her teacher, during a lockdown in the first 20 minutes of the show. Joey had just come from gym, and didn’t have time to change. Her friend attacking her with a rude comment on the way out of the gym, “you’ve had an abortion haven’t you?” Joey feels unfairly treated which is the basis of the work we’ve been doing in class this week. We’ve been covering an intro to the treatment of woman in the past and present, mostly relating to the word slut. To be called a slut is basically someone saying you sleep around, and regarding you as less then. Its a really detrimental term, and it sucks that ever since entering high school it has entered the lingo for many young woman, including Seycove students. In class we watched 4 clips where the word slut is thrown around, clips that were part of major on air tv shows. The first of them being the notorious, “Jane you ignorant slut.” Our class had a big discussion about this one, how all she had done was stand up for another woman, an all of a sudden her sexual life became what she was defined as, honestly this one sickens me. The way Jane immediately is quiet, and how she must shake his hand at the end, makes me green. I see reciprocal versions of this all the time, and I’m tired of girls feeling like they need to stomach the way they feel to make the man happy. Just the other day a girl (no exposing over here) was reading off of a card in a game. She was reading slowly and none of us had a problem with this, just reading, we were in no rush, until a boy at the table said “Just shut up and give me the card. Your stuttering and its taking to long. Nobody wants to hear you read this card.” My mouth fell open. I knew this boy, he was my friend, and I was so infuriated. I told him it was wrong, and that he had been incredibly rude, and so did another girl at the table, but the girl that he was rude too just looked like she had been stabbed. He answered with the line older then time itself, “it was a joke. I was only kidding, cant you take a joke.” If my mouth wasn’t already falling to the floor, then it had just hit the core of the earth. The other girl who had spoken up made him apologize, though he laughed through the whole thing, and said “I’m sorry”. I had expected the girl who was targeted to not say anything, or tell him how he had wronged her, and tell him how an apology doesn’t fix the fact she may be self conscious about reading out loud now.

But she said “its ok.”

“its ok.”

its ok. I almost can’t even type this because it aggravates me so much. She just stomached everything she was feeling, keep in mind she looked like she as going to cry, and made sure that the boy didn’t hurt. AGHHHHHH, its the same thing as, “Jane you ignorant slut.” Boys don’t think these things hurt, but they do hurt, and woman need to stop telling them don’t. I obviously realize that there is a lot of difference between what I saw and the notorious line, and how minimal this seems as well. I also realize that as a white woman I have it easy compared to many other people, but it hurt me to watch this, and I can’t stand the girl thinking that it was her bad for reacting. This sort of stuff has happened to me in the past before and I know how to react now. I know how to stand up for myself, which often makes men feel inferior, or attacked. I am sick of letting their opinion rule me. I am a loud, outspoken, and opinionated person for a reason. I am also sick of when girls come back and respond in an appropriate manner, boys almost always get threatened and attack physical looks, and personal attributes. But anyways I need to get back to my week, I could talk about this stuff for years.

The “Jane you ignorant slut,” quote also relates to a reading we had to do in english. The reading was about the role of a woman in marriage. Since I handed mine in I don’t have access to the actual reading, but I remember the just of it. Quotes from the reading read like “the woman has no-one other then her man,” even though earlier in the paragraph the reading had said that the man has friends and events and sports and an unlimited list of things to keep his company. It also mentioned how woman were the inferior species, and men were merely taking their god given right by being the more powerful person, and getting to make all decisions. (vomit). The sickening thing about that reading was that the author thought they were writing the truth. That that was sold or given to woman to religiously follow. Which boggles me. Anyway I need to get on with my day, and probably do some sort of exercise to get all this pent up anger out.

So I’ll see you guy next week.   

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