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"We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race", Kofi Annan once said. Welcome to my exhibition. I am Sandra and I’ve created this exhibition for one to realize the struggles of being a colored woman in the Western countries. I included a different variety of artifacts to represent these aspects of my identity. Not only that but I’ve created this exhibition to frame a sense of unity no matter the identities that we hold to our names. Everyone has different sorts of identities but at the end of the day, we are all human and should be equal. I possess multiple identities: middle-class, female, heterosexual, Arab, migrant, and young. Having multiple identities is possible and could be a positive and a negative thing. Certain aspects of my identity can be considered as inferior, for example being a woman also means being oppressed throughout many times of my life, like at work, within my daily surroundings, etc. Whereas being heterosexual can be seen as a positive identity in today's world. I have come to understand that I am the best version of myself, which has helped me get through my struggles with my intersectional identities. Throughout my young adolescent years, I've learned to accept and love myself even when the world makes me feel like I shouldn't. I've also learned the importance of accepting and loving everyone around me, despite their identities. To explain my choice of the blue rose background, I decided to put this image because I feel that a blue rose describes me as a person: unique, mysterious, and peaceful. I believe these are also huge parts of my identity.

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The song by J. Cole is a summary of my identity and who I have become over the years. Cole talks about how far he's come in his life after realizing that money and fame isn't everything, and that love, happiness, and family are the more important things. The song aligns with me as a person because I, like Cole, am fond of this idea that happiness comes from within. Although he is a black man who lives in the U.S., he still has other aspects of him that may be seen as positive; for example the fame and platform he has could be seen as advantageous in this nation. This is a great benefit for him, even as a black man, to spread awareness about societal issues that rise, for example.
I used to think that being successful is the most important thing, but over the years, I’ve learned that that is not the key; the key is exploring who I am and learning more and more about myself everyday. This is exactly how my identity has been shaped. I learned to not only focus on the negative aspects of my identity, as they can intersect with positive ones that I am taking for granted.

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Artist statement for my artwork "Now, Fly"

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Artist statement for my artwork "Now, Fly"

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"Some years there exists a wanting to escape - you, floating above your certain ache- still the ache coexists" (page 139). This quote  entails a deep meaning in many ways. I believe Rankine was talking about the ache that African Americans feel and have felt in the past during times of suffering and slavery. To put this quotation in perspective, I have had a want to escape- as did other colored women- from this world because of all the hate we face because of our intersectional identities. And even when trying to avoid all the pain and aches of dehumanization, the pain still remains within us. Being a girl and having to face men that treat me like I am less because of my gender, makes me feel unworthy. Females are overlooked even though they have amazing talents and they're smart, but society never fails to put them down, through unequal pay and treatment, for starters.

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"Every child living in the U.S. territory has this right [of education]. But not all children know this, nor do their parents necessarily know it" (page 92). This quotation from the book is significant because, unfortunately, many immigrants that come into America are unaware of the many things they have available to them, and this might be because the government makes it clear to them that they are worthless. I, myself, am an immigrant to Canada (from 12 years ago), so I understand the various problems and feelings that come with immigrating to a new country, especially in the Western countries. The book Tell Me How It Ends focuses on exactly that: the struggles that migrants experience when they cross into the U.S.; my family and I also went through a lot to immigrate and then faced even more struggles after the fact.

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"That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us" (page 252). This quote stood out to me as it relates to my identity as a woman in this world. Women, like me, usually let men say what they want to them even if it's hurtful and dehumanizing. The problem with today's society (and how it's been decades ago), is that men think they can do or say anything because they believe they are the superior gender, and a woman can't do anything about it because she'll be bashed by people. Not standing up for our rights enables men to think that their inhumane comments about females are okay. That's exactly what this quote is saying--that not standing up for what you believe in may cause permanent damage.

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Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today.

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Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today.

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This article caught my eye after reading it during the course because it talks about the beliefs that doctors have nowadays that are linked to dark skin and high pain endurance. Honestly never heard of this before but it shocks me that people actually use this Miss to justify racism or racial acts against African Americans (i.e. slavery). Nothing and no one can justify slavery or give it any reason to be okay. I strongly agree with this article because the author was saying that this is obviously a myth, and as a dark-skinned person, it greatly saddens me to know that other dark-skinned people are used as lab rats because of their skin color. The following quote struck me most: "Over the centuries, the two most persistent physiological myths — that black people were impervious to pain and had weak lungs that could be strengthened through hard work — wormed their way into scientific consensus, and they remain rooted in modern-day medical education and practice". It's horrible how they are implementing this "science" into today's medical practise, showing that racism might never end.

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How False Beliefs in Physical Racial Difference Still Live in Medicine Today (Published 2019)

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Biological fallacies were used to justify slavery. Why can’t doctors let them go?

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This song was released in 2002 but it holds a very strong message for the world to hear. It talks about the struggles that us, women have to face in today's world, being unheard and just "seen". Christina thought it was about time she brings attention to this issue, as men continue to mistreat us and associate us with unworthiness. The lyrics of this song were impactful. Many negative remarks are made towards females but never towards a man, even if he's at fault. This is exactly why men feel the urge to be in control in society and act as if women are of no value compared to them. The song  impacted me particularly because it made me remember my worth and it pushed me to encourage other women around me when they feel degraded.
I believe this is a great song for women to embrace their femininity and become more empowered to take on the world. As a woman, I sometimes need the empowerment or the reminder that I am worthy and valued even when society gives me a reason to forget this.

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Repressed Brits, evil Mexicans, Arab villains: why are Hollywood's animated movies full of racist stereotypes?

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Repressed Brits, evil Mexicans, Arab villains: why are Hollywood's animated movies full of racist stereotypes?

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This article published by The Guardian completely opened up my eyes about the racism that Disney has embedded in its films. I've watched all the movies mentioned in this article, but i never really though about the racial impurities within. For example, a part that stood out to me was: " Disney's long history of racism has been well documented: the lazy, African American crows and illiterate, dark-skinned labourers in Dumbo; Sebastian, the workshy Jamaican crab in The Little Mermaid; the darker-skinned "evil" Arabs in Aladdin; the hyenas in The Lion King..." This quote by itself shows the many stereotypes found in today's cartoons and kids' movies. This articles focuses on pointing all these stereotypes out as well as sending out a message to be careful with the kids that watch these movies, as they may be influenced by the racism they see.

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hese are supposed to be progressive times for movies and people of colour. Django Unchained was a hit action movie about slavery. A black director just won the best picture Oscar for another one ( Steve McQueen for 12 Years A Slave), and a Mexican won best director ( Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity). Hollywood is finally starting to reflect the ethnic makeup and sensitivities of its national and global audiences.

But all those dodgy racial politics that have been swept out of live-action movies seem to have quietly found a home. Modern animation is the success story of our movie era. It pushes at the technical frontiers of film-making and gives us visual spectacles previously unimaginable, along with substantial, accessible themes. So why are its racial politics stuck in the 1970s? Maybe parents have been too busy dozing at the multiplex, or doing the washing-up while their kids are anaesthetised in front of the TV. Maybe we've dropped our guards because talking animals are the lingua franca of innocuous cuteness, but we seem to have got to a point where these movies are teaching children the finer points of racial prejudice before they've even learned to read.

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Take this week's new release, Rio 2. In terms of diversity, it's about as good as current animation gets - though that isn't saying much. It is set in an authentic foreign country (director Carlos Saldanha is Brazilian), there's a conservation-minded theme and a mixed cast of white, Latin American and African-American voice actors. In case you missed the first Rio, the story hinges around the last surviving pair of talking blue macaws: Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg as a sort of avian Woody Allen) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway), an independent-minded Brazilian bird. This time round, they discover that there is a lost flock of blue macaws in the Amazon rainforest and fly there to meet them.

Rio 2 is a colourful, tuneful carnival of multiculturalism, but certain prejudices prevail. For a start, the lead characters are voiced by white Americans. Justifiable in the case of Blu, who was raised in Minnesota (having been "Americanised", he can't sing or dance like the other Brazilian birds), but more mystifying in the case of Hathaway's Jewel, supposedly born and raised in Rio. As for the couple's long-lost jungle relatives, Rio 2 uses non-white voice actors (just as James Cameron did for his blue-skinned indigenous people in Avatar). Jewel's father is Cuban-born Andy Garcia, her aunt is Puerto Rico-born Rita Moreno, her former beau is mixed-race Hawaiian Bruno Mars (there's singing involved, you see). The singing, dancing, comic-relief sidekicks are primarily voiced by African-American actors: Jamie Foxx and will.i.am as a pair of hip-hop fluent "urban" birds, and Tracy Morgan as a slobbering, dim-witted bulldog. And in time-honoured fashion, the cockatoo arch-villain of the piece ( Jemaine Clement) has a British accent. Added to which, the humans we see in Rio 2 range in skin tone from pinkish to, at best, taupe, maybe coffee. Brazil's darker-skinned, African-descended contingent seem to be largely absent - this, despite a flypast of the city, sanitised favelas and all.

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Is it a coincidence that Rio 2's tacit racial hierarchy pretty much corresponds to one so often promulgated throughout movie history? It doesn't matter if they're animated jungle animals, sea creatures, fairies, cars, whatever ... this same racial pyramid persists through the animated realm: white-voiced characters at the top (British just below mainstream American); other ethnicities below; darkest-skinned at the bottom. Even if the differences aren't spelt out visually, they usually are in terms of accent, which means the spectre of stereotyping is never far away. Disney's long history of racism has been well documented: the lazy, African American crows and illiterate, dark-skinned labourers in Dumbo; Sebastian, the workshy Jamaican crab in The Little Mermaid; the darker-skinned "evil" Arabs in Aladdin; the hyenas in The Lion King; the Native Americans in Peter Pan; the list goes on. Not forgetting the notorious Song of The South, Disney's 1946 musical depicting happy black slaves singing with cartoon birds on a southern plantation. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) called for a boycott of Song Of The South and issued a statement condemning the film's "dangerously glorified picture of slavery". It would be another half-century before Disney atoned with a black heroine, in 2009's The Princess And The Frog.

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But Uncle Walt's torch of bigotry still burns bright in the 21st century. Staying with good old African-American stereotypes, recent cinema has brought us such egregious examples as Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, in which comic-relief robots Skids and Mudflap talk about popping caps in asses, bump fists, bicker among themselves and, it turns out, can't actually read. One of them has a gold tooth. Even Jar Jar Binks would roll his eyes at that. Eddie Murphy's Donkey in the Shrek movies isn't exactly miles away from this jive-talking sidekick either. Or Chris Rock's wise-ass zebra and Jada Pinkett Smith's big-bootied hippo in the Madagascar franchise. In Madagascar 2, in a similar move to Rio 2, Rock's zebra meets other zebras for the first time, but unlike the individuated, caucasian-voiced lions they all look exactly the same.

Or how about Hispanic stereotypes? The world was furnished with one in last year's third-highest grossing movie worldwide: Despicable Me 2. Perhaps it was the hilarious Minions, but we all overlooked the fact that Despicable Me 2's villain is a grossly caricatured Mexican. Eduardo (voiced by Peruvian-American Benjamin Bratt) is fat, big-nosed, sentimental, and wears an open-necked shirt exposing a large medallion over his hairy-chest. His baddie persona is El Macho, a Mexican wrestler. And just to clear up any remaining ambiguity, Eduardo runs a Mexican restaurant. If someone was assigned to take a bunch of hackneyed tropes about Hispanic people and animate them, this is what you'd get. It's by no means the only Hispanic stereotyping out there. Try the Oscar-winning Happy Feet, for example, where the street-dancing, pleasure-seeking underclass penguins speak in Spanish accents and are voiced by ... Robin Williams.

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Dr Charles Da Costa, a British lecturer who has written on racial stereotyping in animation, frames these portrayals within the context of what he calls "PEPs": Problem Contexts, Entertainment Contexts and Performance Contexts. "Within PEPs, black people and other genotypes have to be associated with vexing circumstances," he says. "Strive to pacify, make others happy and be exceptional or extraordinary - far from 'normal'. Villainy, exoticism, jocularity and athleticism are common indicators of this malaise. Images of ethnicity do not need to be conveyed within the narrow scope of PEPs."

The slow, expensive, labour-intensive process of producing animation could also be a factor, suggests Da Costa. "Decisions on character and performance must be made quickly in order for design and production processes to commence and advance. So regarding representations of ethnicity and epidermal type, family animation often finds itself in a bind. It consciously and subconsciously weighs financial against moral obligations, then unconsciously opts for the 'safe' representational defaults - stereotypes."

There's possibly another imperative here. In today's global cinema market, movies such as Rio and Despicable Me 2 can expect to make twice as much overseas as they do in the US. So there's the desire to be slightly more outward-looking, but not to the extent that domestic white audiences are turned off. In the same way African-Americans once cheered Mammy in Gone With The Wind - not because she wasn't a racist portrayal but because she was an actual black person with a speaking role in a Hollywood movie - so non-white audiences are assumed to be grateful for whatever representation they get.

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Put all this together and what you often get is an apparently globalised story peddling lowest-common-denominator racial shorthand. It could look like Disney's Planes - a spinoff of its equally shallow Cars movies - which follows a round-the-world race between anthropomorphised vehicles. The premise makes for kid-friendly, merchandise-shifting action, while the international scope affords the chance to visit key movie territories (India, China, Germany) and stuff the cast with international cliches. There are vehicles wearing straw hats toiling the paddy fields in Asia, for example. There's an emotionally repressed British plane (voiced by John Cleese), a seductive but mendacious Indian plane (Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra), a dainty pink French-Canadian female plane, and no surprises for guessing that the Mexican plane is rotund, sentimental, romantic and wears a wrestler's mask. They could have called it Around The World In 80 Cliches. As Variety reviewer Justin Chang put it: "Planes is so overrun with broad cultural stereotypes that it should come with free ethnic-sensitivity training for especially impressionable kids."

Like many animated stories, Planes hinges on the premise of an exceptional individual who dreams of transcending their allotted role in life - in this case, an ambitious crop duster (voiced by Dane Cook). The other planes ultimately help him by donating parts. It's the same story in Turbo. Ryan Reynolds' snail also harbours racing ambitions, and is aided by street-talking comic-relief sidekicks voiced by Samuel L Jackson, Snoop Dogg and Michelle Rodriguez, among others. And let's not forget Turbo's human accomplices: some Mexicans who run a taco stand and The Hangover's Ken Jeong as a Vietnamese woman. Social mobility is only available to white characters, the message seems to be, and it's the job of non-whites to facilitate it.

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As if it couldn't get worse, recent animations have hit upon a new way to circumvent this problem: get rid of people of colour altogether! Which brings us to Disney's latest smash-hit Oscar-winnig animation, Frozen. Frozen was applauded for its nuanced, active female characters (let's gloss over the Barbie-like approach to body image for now) in contrast to passive princesses past. On a diversity level, though, the film's vision of wintry unmitigated whiteness extended not only to the landscape but the movie's characters, too. "Aha!" its defenders could say. "This is a story set in 17th-century northern Europe, why should there be any people of colour?" To which the reply could be: "This is a work of fantasy concocted in ethnically diverse, 21st-century America, in which you have chosen not to cast or represent a single non-caucasian person."

For campaigners such as the NAACP, Frozen represents a step backwards, says Robin Harrison, of its Hollywood Bureau. "It was just a few short years ago that we were finally introduced to the first African-American Disney Princess, Tiana, portrayed by Anika Noni Rose," she says. "We had hoped this was a turning point for the industry. Unfortunately, what has now become the most successfully animated feature of all time, Frozen, is probably the least diverse. There is still much work to be done in all areas of film and television animation created for children and adults."

Look around and you'll find other animated stories set in these ethnically cleansed "historical" realms, such as Robert Zemeckis's weird, motion-capture rendition of Beowulf. Or the very likable How To Train Your Dragon, whose Viking-ish setting also justified an Anglo-Saxon voice cast (at least the movie's theme was insular people confronting their prejudices). Or prehistoric adventure The Croods - a white-voiced family in a time before race even existed. Then there was Pixar's Brave, set in an ancient Scotland chock-full of fair, flame-haired maidens and fiery ginger warriors. No need to stray beyond the stereotypes, no need for people of colour.

Talking of Pixar - and we need to - its record on ethnic representation during their vaunted "golden age" demands another look. Let's see, there was Samuel L Jackson's Frozone in The Incredibles, Jordan Nagai's Vietnamese kid in Up, Delroy Lindo voiced a dog in Up, and, er, that's right: the pioneers of 21st-century animation have taken us through worlds populated by toys, monsters, insects, sea creatures, superheroes, rats, French people and robots, and barely found a role for a non-white actor in any of them. The closest Pixar have come to representing ethnic diversity, in fact, was the spaceship towards the end of Wall-E: a post-apocalyptic world of obese, cosseted, unthinking, conformist consumers who were too busy looking at screens and slurping from cups to actually notice their dystopian reality. At last, a rainbow nation Pixar can get behind.

Clearly, none of this has been a barrier to success for the animation sector. Nor should it take away from these movies' many strengths. And it would be absurd to argue for tokenism, or quotas, or strict guidelines on what ethnicity of actor is entitled to play which species of animal. But surely it doesn't have to be like this? Plenty of movies manage to get it right, or at least less wrong. The biggest movie this year so far, The Lego Movie, felt no need to caricature along simplistic race lines. Last year's Epic included Beyoncé as a brown-skinned fairy queen (and, oddly, rapper Pitbull as a ghetto-pimp toad). Lilo and Stitch was a Disney high point. And even a movie such as Madagascar 3, which threw together a United Nations of funny-accented talking creatures, got away with it by making them more nuanced and eccentric than standard caricatures (and being hilarious).

Perhaps it's a matter for the film classification boards. They could put a warning on the certificate: "Contains mild fantasy violence, very mild language, a white-supremacist subtext, and grotesquely derogatory portrayals of ethnic minorities." Or: "Probably won't make your child into a racist, but sure as hell ain't gonna help." It's not as if children have demanded any of this, but they are the ones soaking it all in. It goes without saying that racism is learned, and how diversity is portrayed on screen is a big part of that learning process. One day, our children could look back on these movies in the same way that we see Song of the South, and wonder why their parents did so little about an iniquity that was staring them in the face.

This article was amended on 9 April 2014. The original incorrectly stated that Planes was a Disney/Pixar film. It is a Disney film, but not a Pixar production.

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Repressed Brits, evil Mexicans, Arab villains: why are Hollywood's animated movies full of racist stereotypes?

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hese are supposed to be progressive times for movies and people of colour. Django Unchained was a hit action movie about slavery. A black director just won the best picture Oscar for another one ( Steve McQueen for 12 Years A Slave), and a Mexican won best director ( Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity).

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This poster was created by artist J. Howard Miller for the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, as an encouragement for women to work back in the day. Though it was only shown for a short time in Westinghouse warehouses, the poster went on to become one of World War II's most recognizable symbols. Women became allowed and motivated to work in military units during World War II, which made them become a known icon of female nationalism and empowerment. I believe this was a great step taken for women to begin feeling like they are equal, even though this should've been the case from the start.

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J. Cole focuses on motivating females to recognize their value and let go of their insecurities. It's amazing how he used his platform as a successful MALE rapper to spread this message. Especially, with the media constantly telling women the way they should dress and act in public, J. Cole emphasizes that beauty is what's on the inside rather than outside appearance.
I highly appreciate this song in particular because it focuses on one of the aspects of my identity as a female. Sometimes I need a reminder that I am beautiful and worthy of living without having to abide by the standards of society, which is exactly what this song is to me. I loved that Cole is a man but he still stepped up to sing about the value and inner beauty of women.

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I came across is TED talk performed by Pratyusha Pilla and she titled it "Colorism", which technically isn't even an official word, but I think it should be. In the TED talk, she expands on her childhood in India where she was surrounded by people who would tell her that her dark skin tone is unattractive and it's not the "ideal beautiful woman". Colorism is a social issue that arose not long ago. This word is defined in today’s terms, as “prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.” Pilla felt very insecure after her own relatives would put her down because of her skin tone, and this pulled her back from feeling like she was enough and beautiful. This shouldn’t be something that anyone has to go through.
Personally, as a girl who has a darker skin complexion, I can relate to this because some people in my family and culture also see this as a negative thing; they give me the impression that lighter girls are considered more beautiful and appealing to men. This made me feel worse because on top of being a woman and having to live up to the beauty standards of society, I felt like I couldn’t even do that if I wanted to because of my skin color.  However, throughout my journey, just like Pilla, I began to grasp that none of this is true and I began to love myself more and more. Having darker skin is in fact part of my identity, but I’ve learned to embrace it and accept it no matter what society tells me.

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Colorism | Pratyusha Pilla | TEDxSugarLand

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This short poem written by Langston Hughes allowed me some insight on racism and the mistreatment that he felt as a black man. His poem demonstrates that the white community would put him in the kitchen to hide when people come over. In less literal words, he is cast out and of society by the American white supremacists because of his skin color.
Even though it was a short poem, it still gave me goosebumps because it was so strong. I like how Hughes ends the poem off by saying that he will rise one day when the world wakes up to racism and when it comes to an end.
As a colored person, I can relate to this poem such that I have experienced times of discrimination because I'm not white. This part of my identity is hard to love sometimes because I feel like it holds me back from many opportunities; this poem, however, is a sign of hope for me.

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I, Too by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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This short film was made to give encouragement to woman all around the world; it focuses on the inequality that females, like me, experience, which dates back to the beginning of time. This video was very creative because it showed different obstacles that women have overcome by uniting with one another over the decades. After numerous women spoke up about all the issues that took place, like unequal pay and lack of education for women, all of these laws changed. This inspires me and should inspire other females around the globe to voice our opinions on this social issue. I felt that this short film had a positive impact on me because one of my identities are being a woman, and this can get difficult in this world. This video sends out a message to the world (including men) that change needs to be made in order for females to become equal to men and embrace their worth.

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Hurdles (featuring Emma Watson) | Global Goals

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Culture Appropriation Of The Egyptian Culture

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Culture Appropriation Of The Egyptian Culture

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In the below images, Beyonce modeled as she dressed up as an ancient Egyptian queen. Many people, including celebrities like her, have taken some cultures and wore them on their own skin. Culture appropriation is known to be "the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity". One of my biggest identities is being an Egyptian, although I immigrated to North America 12 years ago, I still hold true to my roots as an Egyptian.
After seeing these images on social media, my mind shifted towards this idea of culture appropriation. Beyonce is an African American woman, yes, but she is not Egyptian, which doesn't make it okay for her to use ancient and sacred as an accessory for a photoshoot. Unfortunately, Arabs and Egyptians (along with other groups of people) are minorities in the Western world, which gives me more of a reason to feel more marginalized when I see this.

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The poem "Ego-Tripping" by Nikki Giovanni dates back to the year 1972. In her poem, Nikki, who is also the speaker, focuses on her pride in being a strong woman. I loved this poem because one doesn't usually see a woman speak confidently about herself for the following reasons: she might be too afraid of being called "cocky" for it, she doesn't feel worthy enough to be seen as powerful, and because women have always been considered weak. I adored how Nikki Giovanni incorporates Ancient Egyptian allusions in her poem as she describes the strength she feels although she is a woman in today's world. This poem created a feeling of comfort and strength within me.
Although, my gender may be a negative aspect of my identity, I have so much more to offer which puts me in a decent place in society. For example, I am a Christian, which is seen as positive in American society.

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It's a journey . . . that I propose . . . I am not the guide . . . nor technical assistant . . . I will be your fellow passenger . . .

Though the rail has been ridden . . . winter clouds cover . . . autumn's exuberant quilt . . . we must provide our own guide-posts . . .

I have heard . . . from previous visitors . . . the road washes out sometimes . . . and passengers are compelled . . . to continue groping . . . or turn back . . . I am not afraid . . .

I am not afraid . . . of rough spots . . . or lonely times . . . I don't fear . . . the success of this endeavor . . . I am Ra . . . in a space . . . not to be discovered . . . but invented . . .

I promise you nothing . . . I accept your promise . . . of the same we are simply riding . . . a wave . . . that may carry . . . or crash . . .

It's a journey . . . and I want . . . to go . . .

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ego tripping (there may be a reason why)

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Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)

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It's a journey . . . that I propose . . . I am not the guide . . . nor technical assistant . . . I will be your fellow passenger . . . Though the rail has been ridden . . . winter clouds cover . . .

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This artwork by Charles White speaks very loudly to me, as it holds a lot of emotion. I adore this artwork because it dates back to an important time and it shows the pain that African American people felt during times of slavery, allowing the viewer to feel connected with them. Although White painted this to honor or portray the struggle of Black people in the past, I believe I can also connect with it because I am dark-skinned and have faced many racist and discriminatory encounters in the my life.
Overall, I love this painting because I feel as though African American artists, like Charles White, create beautiful work that also shows the struggles that black people have endured in the past. Their work speaks louder than just colors on a canvas.