3/7/21
I don't have too much to say about this week in all honesty. Nothing too exciting has happened. I've been working on my photo project which has been tons of fun. I'm taking photos of people and removing color to make them black and white and then stamping them with the phrase "My Name Isn't _______". I ask each participant a word that they hate or disagree with as a label. It could be something someone else has been labeled as or something they hold personal to themselves, but the idea is that this photo is speaking that label into existence and destroying its power. I'm even considering photographing animals and including them in this project because we assign them names when we get them. Which is a form of labeling. An even stonger message to this is that pitbulls, as a breed, are always labeled as viscious or dangerous. But our pitbull is literally the sweetest. Labels hold the power to hurt and spread false messages about people and animals and it's up to me to open people's eyes and speak it into existence.
I'd like to continue talking about this because it actually means a lot to me and my mind is running. Throughout middle school and highschool, I was always bullied. And sometimes I was bullied and the kids themselves didn't even realize they were hurting me by saying the things that they said. For one, I went to a very diverse school in which out of the entire population I was one of probably thirty white kids. So it comes as no surprise that they thought it was HILARIOUS to call me whitebread or white boy. Those were direct labels that chipped at me day by day. An indirect AND direct label that people assigned me was gay/homo. The LGBTQ community was not as big during my time though middle and highschool and kids who were "different" were always picked on. The reason I say indirectly is because no homo and ha gayyyyyyy were two running "jokes" that meant no harm, but they did internal damage to me and no one knew because I wasn't out at that time. So day by day, month by month, year by year a piece of me was chipped away and I was losing my identity to these labels that people were assigning me. The reason I created my "My Name Isn't" series is to prove that I will no longer let these labels define who I am or hold me back on who I want to be. I also want to encourage people to delve into this art series, look at it, think about it, and truly question how they define themselves. Only you know who YOU are. Don't let society pin a label on you because once you do, you are giving that label power. Take a stance. Fight for who YOU are and LOVE YOURSELF.