Broken Barriers

Artist Statement

Broken Barriers

James

To create this piece I used paint and a canvas. It is a flag that includes eight colors of the rainbow. In the center of the canvas is a circle that is connected to two arrows representing males and two crosses representing females.

After we read The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I chose to research discrimination based on sexuality. Sexuality to me is your sexual preference in a mate. I don’t think anyone should be discriminated against because of their sexuality. The reason that I wanted to research discrimination was because I was bullied in 7th grade because people thought that I was gay. This made me wonder how many other people get bullied too, and I wanted to give them inspiration.

In my research I found out that many gay and lesbian people are treated like second class citizens. Discrimination based on sexuality happens all the time in the US, but it is actually worse in a lot of countries around the world. In one article I read, people in Indonesia were kicked out of their homes and villages for being gay. These people had nowhere to go, and they had to leave their families just because of their sexual preference. Homosexuality is still illegal in many muslim-majority countries. The world has a lot of progress to make in order for equality to be fully accomplished. When people look at my piece I hope they think to just be nice and accepting of others.