Alexa Gallo ’25
Painting Change
I would describe myself as someone who stands up for others. I am always the first person to invite someone sitting by themselves to come sit with me and I always make sure everyone feels included. I believe that the days of people thinking, “That’s not my problem.” or, “That has nothing to do with me.” are long gone. Over the past year and a half, the world has been at a crossroads and the need for people who stand up for others has skyrocketed. We have faced many injustices and the fight to correct them has never been bigger.
During the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, I began to see a difference in my own life and in the things that motivate me to make a difference. The Chinese proverb, “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness” is exactly how we should feel when it comes to making a mark on the world. I remember scrolling through social media and my feed was covered in horrific news articles of police brutality, mistreatment of the Black community and confirmed cases of innocent people being murdered in the street, all because of the color of their skin. I also saw activists organizing protests, setting up GoFundMe sites and making petitions urging government officials to stop the violence and make a change.
When I saw everything that was going on, my sister Kristina and I immediately ran to our local drug store and bought poster boards and markers to make signs to bring to rallies around our city. Many protests we went to, like the one that took place in the St. Anne’s parking lot in Floral Park, had activists who told their stories and what the movement meant to them. Kristina and I were able to stand alongside other protestors and march with them down Tulip Avenue. We held up signs that read “All lives can’t matter until Black lives do.” and “No Justice No Peace.” We made protest bags filled with bandanas, sunscreen, Advil, water and bandages to leave at the protests for other activists to find. This was around the time the police were firing rubber bullets and pepper praying protestors. I never thought that in 2020 I would have to learn what to do in the event of being pepper-sprayed or shot at during a protest for equal rights. The movement made me take a step back and look at my life in a different way. As a white person in America, I never had to face the same injustices as people of color. I never had to worry about what I was doing or be nervous when passing a police officer. This led me to evaluate what white privilege meant and I took the necessary steps to change the way I conducted myself.
I began to donate to Black Lives Matter organizations, sign petitions and attend marches. I did research and boosted black creators’ content. I also based my twelfth-grade advanced placement art and design series on representation in media. I created a series of pieces where I reworked advertisements from the 1950s. In the 1950s, advertisements were dominated by cis straight white men. I took it upon myself to recreate them with women as the focal point, specifically, women of color. In many of the pieces created, I focused on the gaze and the posture of the subjects. I wanted to make sure each subject was shown as very prideful and stoical.
This was my attempt to normalize seeing women and BIPOC in advertising. Art can be incredibly moving, and I feel as though it is a personal duty of mine to use the art I create to speak up about injustices in this world. We are all human and deserve to be our true selves. By working together to create a peaceful and accepting world for each other.
My experience during the pandemic and the changes I made after educating myself on the struggle of the black community and BIPOC are just a small part of how everyone has room to grow and change and do their part to help correct injustices. In order to make a change, we must stand up for others and take the necessary steps to change the narrative.