ARTIST’S STATEMENT:

In my painting, I chose to illustrate the contrasting way Ta-Nehisi Coates depicts the
white and black worlds in "A Letter to My Son." The bright colors used in the top of the
watercolor relate to the privilege and carefree nature of the white world. In contrast, the grey
world on the bottom of the image contains a gun, conveying Coates’ idea that the violence of that
world consumes the lives of black people. This black world is the foundation for the privilege
that the white people feel so entitled to, which is why it seems as if the colorful world is
emerging from the dark one. This idea relates to Coates’ quote that “there was someone down in
the valley because a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below,” meaning that for the
white world, it is tradition to demoralize an inferior group; that without a people to discriminate
against, the white people, white culture, and white world could not exist.