When I first heard the news of George Floyd’s death I was stuck in a state of shock. Almost two years later, standing in the Minneapolis street where George Floyd’s life was taken,
now decorated with murals and mementos, I was overcome with sadness and empathy, but also a sense of hope. This place that previously had been the site of a terrible act had been
transformed into a center of power and resistance. This injustice plaguing our nation needs to end; George Floyd’s death is the wake-up call our country needed. The events of
injustice that have transpired over the recent years have opened my eyes to the fact that our country is in desperate need of people to speak up and out against racism and the
inequalities that are as prevalent as ever. By creating this piece and sharing it with my community, I hope to make a step in the right direction in this constant uphill battle of
fighting for racial justice in America.
My piece serves as a combination of my passions for technology and ending racial injustice. I created a digital mosaic comprised of more than one hundred images depicting our country’s
struggle with race. When the viewer steps back, these images transform into a picture I took of the sculpture
“Shattering Silence” by James Ellwanger in downtown
Des Moines on a moon-lit night. This sculpture represents the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a formerly enslaved person, Ralph Montgomery, that granted him freedom from his
former Virginian owner after Ralph had legally traveled to Iowa. The sculpture was a commemoration of “those moments when Iowa has been at the forefront of breaking the silence of
inequality [...].” To me, this sculpture on a hill near our Capitol symbolizes Iowa’s public denouncing of racial injustice and inequality and serves as a striking image and reminder
of the need to continue the fight for justice.
A mosaic seemed to be a great way to visualize a transformation. I believe that being able to see all these images come together to form a symbol of a rise against injustice is very
powerful. The interactive nature of a digital mosaic also adds another level of complexity to the piece as it allows a viewer to zoom in on specific pictures to see an enlarged
version of the image alongside a brief description of the event or figure depicted.
A mosaic, traditionally, is comprised of broken pieces of ceramic or glass that, when placed together, create something new and beautiful. The images in my mosaic all have a story:
a story that uniquely leads back to the brokenness in our society. Some images depict hate and violence. Examples include events ranging from early pre-colonial slavery in the United
States to race riots during the Civil Rights era. An image of Japanese Americans being wrongfully held in internment camps during World War II represents ignorance and stereotypes.
Discomforting images such as the infamous segregationist George Wallace standing in front of the University of Alabama in an effort to keep African Americans out represent individuals
and groups who worked to keep oppressed people down. These groups hated the idea of integration of different races and the granting of equal rights. Other photos portray groups and
individuals who worked to resist these injustices and transform them into instances of freedom and justice such as the famous Selma Marches, the Civil Rights Movement, and, more
recently, the Black Lives Matter protests and George Floyd marches. The mosaic images represent a range of oppressed groups, locations, and time periods which help create complex
layers to the piece as the images convey a complicated cycle of victories and setbacks throughout history. One example is the abolishment of slavery in 1865 followed by sharecropping
in the South to circumvent the anti-slavery laws. When all of these powerful images are put together, they reveal a beautiful symbol of the fight against injustice, and the mosaic
reminds the viewer that although progress has been made, the work is not done.
This year, in AP Lit & Comp, we dove into books with themes of injustice and racial opression. Some of the driving forces that influenced me to create this mosaic were the themes
derived from the books we read this year in class. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi illuminated the hardships of African Americans growing up in America and characters such as H and Willie
show how even in a post-Civil War world, many African Americans found themselves victims of both de jure and de facto racism and oppression, similar to the hardships endured by many
in the images of the mosaic. Another book, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, dives deeper into the interactions between indigenous Africans and white, western culture. The book
explores the conforming of many indigenous Africans to western religions such as Christianity over their native religions. A theme that stood out to me over the course of the book
was an idea of white/western saviorism or the idea that the Europeans believed they could and should travel to indigenous regions in Africa and try and convert the natives to a
“better way” of life. These books and the themes drawn from them connect to my AP US History class where ideas of Social Darwinism were proven to be very prevalent in early American
history where we learned about many destructive and violent events all rooted in racial injustice.
To me, “Making Sense of the Pieces” acknowledges our country’s checkered past but radiates hope for the future. The injustices and hate-filled events in American history are
intertwined with instances of resistance and reform. Our nation needs to recognize our past mistakes, reflect on the injustices that our country has already endured, and refocus
on equality to better society’s future. Every day, we need to embody the ideas behind “Shattering Silence” and use our knowledge of injustices and our country’s past wrongdoings
to help propel us forward into a country with a brighter and more just future by breaking silences surrounding injustice and speaking out against it. With all the hate still prevalent
in our society today, whether it be police brutality, supremacist-fueled shootings, or microaggressions in day-to-day life, a transformation is necessary now more than ever.
Individually, we all must exemplify the values and morals that so many civil rights activists shared and those must be used to truly shatter the silence and make sense of the
pieces to work towards a state of justice and equality within our unstable country.