Empathy For A Family

First off I want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me over the week. I ‘m doing well, I’ve been doing what I can to speak out on the matter through my artwork and peaceful protest. This topic is uncomfortable as it should be. And if you are concerned for my well being or are uncomfortable with the tone of artwork, then please take the time to educate yourself on the current issues and support the Black lives matter movement however you can. I will be sharing information between all my social media platforms as best I can. In the meantime, here is a master post link Black Lives Matter Movement

So today I want to talk about why this issue hits home for me. Really it’s because this issues hits my home literally.

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This is my family, aka the Ocaña Clan

My Mother (scrunched to the back of this photo lol) raised the six of us to treat everyone we meet with respect, and to strive for excellence. My siblings and I are a mix of intellectuals. A High school Honor Student, Engineer, Graphic Designer, Makeup Artist, Forensic Psychologist, and Navy Officer. We love to sing, play uno, and cook together the rare chances we all get to assemble. We all have a good reputations among our peers and are each notorious for our hard work ethics.

We are also a mix of skintones, but they do not define us. And yet it’s terrifying to think that at a moments notice My family and I can be labeled as Ghetto. Thugs. Uneducated. Those names are only a fraction of what we can be called sometimes. On top of that, my mom fears that her two sons will never come home and her daughters could end up in the the wrong at wrong time. All because of a pigment we have no control over.

I strive to do the best at anything and everything I put my mind to because I want to show that my family, or honestly that anyone, is more than their skintone and stereotypes. I’ve been criticized and judged from head to toe because of those very reasons and It never feels good. It’s something I have to deal with everyday and I will be forever on my guard because of it. My nieces and nephews don’t deserve that. No children of our future generations deserve to feel like that either. And now that there’s all this unrest on the matter it’s time for change.

However, In order to make that change happen we need to start by having more empathy. The fear of never seeing a loved one again are real feelings. The frustration of being labeled as something your not are real feelings. The determination to be more than skintones are real feelings. The strength to to deal with criticism day after day are real feelings. To anyone who feels this way you are not alone and If you feel the same as me then continue to demand change.

For those who are not quite convinced on these issues, I challenge you to have more empathy because these feelings are real and they’re not going away.

Thank you taking the time to meet my family. It’s because of their love and support that I’m the artist I am today. If you need love and support from the chaos of the current events don’t hesitate reach out. We need to stay strong together and keep fighting! Also My artwork will return to norm technicolor this week but as I said before I will continue to use my voice to hightlight that Black lives matter!

Also Also! I’ll be sharing some more art tips again! If there’s a particular topic you’d like me talk about then feel free to let me know!

Until next week stay tuned!

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