America has huge issues of equality in education. This is especially true when it comes to race. When I was in college, I met and befriended students of color from Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. When they told the stories of their neighborhoods, I realized I am lucky to have received a stellar education, clothes on my back, and dinner at night, and a warm place to sleep.
I learned of another world: where just walking home is trespassing into a war zone, where gunshots are as common as hip hop, and where being confined to a jail cell is more common than attending college, or even completing high school.
This piece symbolizes the harsh reality of our rigged and unjust educational system, and that changing the narrative will require opposition!
pencil, pastel, ink on paper, 42 x 50, 2019