27/07/2018
“But kids don’t see colour”, is a refrain I have yet again heard several times this week in a couple of conversations. It’s simply not true. They do, and they are taught to do so and encouraged everyday, with crayons, paints etc. What they don’t, until they are taught to do so by adults, is assign negative connotations to particular hues and treat people in a “different“ way because of the colour of their skin. For that matter, we teach them to treat people differently because they have long hair or no hair, they are skinny, or fat, they have tattooes and earrings, love people that we don’t love, wear particular outfits that don’t suit our own particular taste, listen to music that we don’t like, admire people we don’t like etc.
Some people seem comfortable with using “other” as a means of drawing lines that separate communities, as opposed to learning from the rich diversity that we live in. I believe they miss out and live lives that are not fully enriched by the diversity and are left poorer for it. Whilst you can create art by painting in black and white only, opening up to using paint palettes with a range of colours and using different materials, textures and mediums, makes your artwork so much richer, fuller, intriguing and maybe even more accessible. Being different is something to indeed be embraced, celebrated and shared.
“Embrace everything that makes you different 🙌🏾 https://t.co/T6FVcfDtpr”
