Figure 1
How dare you? Submitted by Pam N.
So, this is right there in front of city hall and the mayor’s office and you know that little government complex area, the jail, the court, police station, all that stuff is right there. And I actually stood in the dirt where the flowers were, like I walked into someplace I wasn’t supposed to walk to take this picture cause I wanted to get the Jefferson County historical marker and Jefferson in the same picture. Our county is Jefferson County and Thomas Jefferson did some horrible things…horrible things to like, all sorts of brown people like, that was kinda like his legacy. His legacy was…he was like a slaveholder and he had that weird relationship with one of his slaves, a teenager, and that’s the PROUD legacy of Jefferson County, and it’s just disgusting to me that he is standing there in front of everything, and we’re supposed to celebrate… let’s celebrate these white men who abused millions of human beings…Celebrate Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson County cause he came here and made it great for all the white people you know. Fuck you! How dare you, how dare you make me feel like I need to celebrate you and all the poison that you have put into the lives of the people I care about. Like, no, how dare you!
Figure 2
Powerless. Submitted by Renée E.
This photo represents hopelessness. Hopelessness deals with the breaking of the mind, the body, and the spirit. It doesn’t just deal with one aspect; we are working with all three aspects of youth and environment. The environment is tearing down their mind, body, and spirit, therefore we can’t focus on just one area; we must work on all areas to be successful, especially with the youth today. The bars symbolize total hopelessness because it breaks the mind, the body, and the spirit of the individual, which emphasizes the need to invest in our youth. It is common for those who are oppressed to engage in personalization and self-blame…Individuals of every age need to believe that they can be shapers of the story of their life. When that need is thwarted, when one feels incapable of navigating one’s way toward desired goals, a feeling of powerlessness can set in.
Figure 3
Boards. Submitted by Abdul S.
When you see a structure that was once a beautiful home, but is now a shell of its former self, one cannot help but to feel a sense of hopelessness. I remember seeing this building…daily when I was growing up in West Louisville. It was lively, full of life and a staple in the neighborhood. Now it looks as though a bomb has been dropped on it. You have to ask, “Would this be allowed to happen to a home in the Highlands, Crestwood, or Indian Hills?” The likely answer is no. Now ask yourself “why is that?”
Figure 4
For the Love of the Movement. Submitted by Brina J.
So this was…after the shooting, and yeah, this basically was people in the community coming out and kind of making him sort of like a memorial type of thing after the police took his life and I put this under injustice because I feel like no matter what the situation is, nobody deserves to lose their life, period. You know what I’m saying, so if you maybe had someone and you felt like he was out of hand or something was going on, I feel like there are a lot of measures that you can take before pulling out a gun and ending someone’s life…you know what I’m saying? You have the police there to protect and serve, but how are you affecting your community when you kill somebody? You know what I’m saying, these people have families, these people have friends…these people work in places with other people, you know, so it’s like you really have to stop and think about what you’re doing before you take that kind of action or you take a life.
Figure 5
Bending Backwards…. Submitted by D. Dawson.
This picture was taken at the Shawnee Cultural Arts Center in West Louisville, a Global Inspiration worksite where we established another community garden. The theme of this picture is safety and hope. We hope that our kids can grow in a great environment (soil) so that they may sprout into incredible human beings (flowers) safely and securely so that they may pass it on to their offspring. We strive hard and feel like we bend over backwards to get things the way we know our community needs them, all in the effort of a “budding future.”
Figure 6
Young Dreams, High Stakes. Submitted by S. Shabazz.
This is where my heart was at one time, because I was one of those children that was taught that if “you run that football, you are going to make it out of here (the ghetto).” This is what I was taught all the way up to my freshman year at Murray State when I realized you have four running backs just like me, and you do not care about me as far as being the feature back. So then when my grades get bad, nobody is here to help me. All of the guys that I looked up to in high school, their either gone off to the military or their going off to college themselves. So nobody is here to grab me and let me know what I need to do. I think that we are the only race of people that teach our kids that this is the way out. It seems that little Forrest that lives in Prospect, knows he’s going to college when he’s born. These little Ray Rays and Pookies (such as myself), this is how they get to college. I would have never earned a college experience if I did not play football because I would have never earned a scholarship to experience college.