Confidence Within Kay

                                                            Confidence Within Kay

        Greetings, my name is Kay, and I am currently taking the course Who I am I. In this course we are learning about our identities and thinking about things in a complex way. Some of our focus topics can be classified as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, religion and more. during this term we have also looked at situations that are related to these topics and talked about them in a different perspective. We are also reading a book of our choice that is related to our identity for my book I choose Citizen by Claudia Rankine. For this action project I was assigned the job of making a comic book that demonstrates my struggles or joys that relates to my identity, while connecting my book and the focus topics I have learned about. 

        For my comic book I decided to tell true stories so that it could be the4 most authentic to my identity. These stories consist of the main character Kay (me) overcoming bullying and insecurities while also finding herself. Kay is bullied for her skin color, and hair because she is darkskin with 4C "nappy" hair. "Nappy" hair is a term that has been used to oppress black girls with different hair textures it also used in the black community, but I think it shouldn't be used because it makes young girls feel ashamed of their hair type. In middle school they stop focusing on Kay's outer appearance and start bullying her for how she carries herself. Kay is a proper girl she has nice things like designer while going to a school in poverty, this provokes kids' jealousy and causes them to bully her. The bullies call kay an "Oreo" which is a derogatory term for black girls who "act white." Kay's own friends turn on her, she tries to tell her mother about her experience, but her mom brushes it off. This causes Kay to feel very alone in her sorrows, she asks her mom to pull her out of this school and her mom agrees. During her 7th grade year, she discovers Nicki Minaj and Serena Williams. These women make her feel empowered and help her gain her confidence. This part is connected to my selective book because Serena Williams was a woman who went through racial oppression in the book. 

    In conclusion, this project has helped me to dissect my past and how it is connected to my identity. This was a very challenging action project for me given the lack of my artistic talent, and the time span I had to complete this.