I Have Lived with Injustice All My Life | Created by Ed Johnetta Miller from Hartford, CT.

I Have Lived with Injustice All My Life

Created by:

Ed Johnetta Miller from Hartford, CT

Exhibit:

Racism: In the Face of Hate We Resist

Artist Statement:

I have lived with racism all my life.

Millions like me face harsh social and systematic inequities in their everyday experiences. There is always something – the kink of hair or my “attitude” – which marks me as inferior, worthy of ignorance, humiliation, ridicule, or ostracism. Nowadays, even with factories closing across the country, one thing America never stops building is widespread racial injustice.

Looking back, I realize that I am lucky to be alive today. I’ve frequently been followed in stores, and the police have stopped me when I was driving my brand new Camry with old license plates, asking, “Is this your car?” A State Trooper pulled over my daughter and me for driving 5 miles above the speed limit while hundreds of other cars sped by.

How exactly do you go about ending police brutality and systemic racism in America? No one can understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end until they experience it first-hand themselves. Just imagine being stopped by the campus police asking, “What are you doing here? I need to see your ID,” on the campus where your husband works as a professor. These mind-bending and disheartening situations haunt you every moment you step outside your house, whether it is for a walk in the park or waiting to be seated at a restaurant. This is a sign of American disintegration, a dystopian spectacle.

America has always had an immune police force, rife with white supremacy, and a legal system that protects only those who can afford it. Institutional bias, wealth, and access to resources, are other ways that racism hurts people. We all know, intuitively, that experiencing the stress of being treated in a humiliating way can make all of us feel profoundly uneasy. The precise connection between psycho-social stress and illness is one that medical science hasn’t fully clarified, but there is undoubtedly a connection all the same.

2020
49" x 60"
Cotton fabric and batt; photo-transfer, machine pieced and quilted.