Kara Walker’s artworks were jarring in how she portrayed scenes of discrimination towards black people and the audacity and egoism of white people that makes it that you can’t look away. They illustrated the intense feelings of the subjects and of those who lived in that time period which conveys the hard reality of racism where white people consistently dominated. There is even the illustration of  the lady of justice battered and wounded as a connection to the treatment of black people.

 

What I wanted to convey is how the written word is a symbol of authority. In this case as shown in the image, I chose to talk about same-sex marriage in the written word. I drew it because I couldn’t find an image that portrayed same-sex marriage as such in rules and regulations. I used to live in the Philippines whose major religion  was Roman Catholicism and studied in an all-girls catholic school. My friend wrote an essay about the experience in catholic school how conservative the school was. A whole auditorium of freshmen to seniors dedicated to talks of sexuality and how same-sex was a sin which many found the talk horrible. Christian Living class you take every year had lessons in the later HS years which talked of homosexuality being a sin, where there was a test that evaluated your values as they ask your response as a Catholic to other people who identified as gay or bisexual (and many students refusing to fill in those answers). Or how there are either teachers who don’t support it or those who do but can’t do anything about the administration. And all in all students are used to tolerating it and its terrible. And the fact that Marriage in the Philippines is only valid if its between a man and a wife. LGBTQ are being exposed to the idea that they aren’t valid and have to deal with it all around the world. Laws that discriminate on your identity or sexuality and prevent one from many rights in their workplace, public space, or being with your partner. And because they are law, others will see it as so and act as is dictated. Authoritative figures dictate what is right or bad which is exposed to the public and as a result creates insecurity, prejudice, and inequality.