Project 1- Racism as a Contagious Idea- Then and Now

Sketch based on Lao’s Article-

Sketch based on Equiano’s Narritive-

Project description and meanings:

In Lau’s article he describes racism as being contagious, disease-like, and easily transmissible. This provides us with a visual to something that doesn’t quite have a discernible image to some people. This is a powerful tool in getting his message across to a broader number of people. Seeing something displayed on paper in the form of images can sometimes be more accessible and readily understood than words on a page. Sure, there is still interpretation to be done, but there is something more persuasive, in my opinion, about taking a message off of a page and perceiving it as an image or sketch. Similarly to Lau’s message, Equiano’s narrative repeatedly expresses racism to be a “pestilence” that “taints what it touches”. Again, this supplies our minds with an easily comprehensible image. All I did was put it onto a sketch pad so that it’s a clear visual. One can determine that racism as a contagious idea is the message of both accounts. What’s interesting about this subject is that one narrative was written in the year 2020, and the other one over 200 years ago. When thinking about “how far we have come” in the process of arriving at the destination of racial justice, we often misunderstand racism to be a subject of the past. Something that has been dwindling down with each passing year. Something that may not be as bad as it was a couple hundred years ago. Unfortunately, we can’t be too far along if the same ideas that were being written about over 200 years ago are the same issues that were presented in Lau’s article just last year. Sure, we no longer have plantations or mass congregations of slavery, but if the same ideas are being bestowed upon us in cries for change, have we, as a society, really gotten anywhere substantially significant on the road to racial justice? 

I decided, since Lau and Equiano’s idea of racism being germy is easily understood in visual form, to draw some scenes from each of their accounts. In Lau’s case, I drew the elevator scene when he said “Racism is more contagious!” to the lady he was sharing the elevator with. I added some symbolism by placing the toxins and germs around the woman who was displaying racism through her actions. I figured it displayed “physical” evidence that racism is in fact more contagious than a simple cough coming from an Asian man’s mouth. It is a powerful move for Lau to have said something so meaningful on the spot. It must mean he’s been feeling this way for a long time in different circumstances. For Equiano’s account, I put white men and germs that seem like they are swarming Equiano to show how fast it can spread from person to person. It also shows how Equiano must feel with all this surrounding him. This exhibits racism as something that can spread as easily as a disease. It’s a similar idea in both sketches, but that’s the point. It shows that racism is an easily transmissible, and germy thing. I enjoyed reading both of their pieces and connecting them with each other. It takes a lot of deeper thought to be able to do this, and it isn’t possible with just any two works. I am glad that I formed this connection between the two because this is something that cannot be ignored any longer. We hear cries of injustice everyday, and over the span of 200 years nothing has changed in that sense. I do not want this pattern to continue so, for my project, I decided to bring awareness to the subject through the connection of these two wonderful pieces.