Identity

When my mom was a kid, a white boy had a crush on her. So, the KKK set a cross on fire in her aunt’s front yard. A white boy couldn’t like a brown girl. And although this piece is more about me and my experiences, my mom sets everything up. I am her carbon copy. And I have spent my whole life walking right next to her, step-in-step, hearing, seeing, being right there when the racist questions are asked, when those looks are shot in her direction. And then, when I started going out on my own, or in school, the overt racism started to be hurtled at me.

I am a visual artist and work abstractly on paintings, sculptures and illustrations. My work is playful, and the self portrait I have submitted draws on themes of queerness and femininity.

1 out of 6

Okay, please gather around the tree; we’re just missing one person. One, two, three, four, five, six … nineteen.
Oh, were you here the whole time?

“Yes.”

Okay, well, let’s go ahead and introduce ourselves: name, major, and hometown.

“Hi, my name is Sadie Randall, I’m in the engineering school I plan to major in Mechanical Engineering, and I’m from Houston, Texas.”

What does the UVA student look like? This is hard to answer when we rarely look alike. What could connect us when we come from all different backgrounds?

Immigrants, legacies, first-gen students.
Students whose families owned slaves and those whose ancestors were slaves.
Out of state students, the NOVA kids, and those from just down the road.

When I was eleven years old, I came back from camp, and lo and behold, the white bedroom walls I had left behind were now pink. Not a soft pink you’d have for a newborn, but a bold, fierce pink that gave me just one thought: “I hate it.” When my mother told me there was a surprise waiting for me at home, I had not expected this. Those four pink walls turned into the new me, or, shall I say, created a new version of the real, ever-evolving me.

I tear the crinkly green wrapper open as I’m stepping out of the CVS. Hands searching the smooth, plastic exterior for the tiny ribbed circle wheel in the upper right corner. The black and lime disposable camera is so light in my hands, I wonder how it can capture anything at all. People stream past me as I stand in the middle of the sidewalk, some floating lazily by and others running late. The camera is a waiting room for new memories to saunter in unexpectedly. Unreliably. And though it’s a brisk and airy morning, there’s not something worth capturing yet.

2:36 AM: “Well, you figured out how to start your fireplace while I was sitting there, and one month prior I was wondering when I would ever see you again. And now, here I am, three months of being hidden later, thrown away and cut off after promises of ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m always here’ were burnt to ash. Panic attacks at 5AM only further pissed me off. I was asked how silly I was, and the answer, then, was just enough. But I think the real question is how faulted am I to stand in the middle of a thunderstorm, in the middle of a field, and not expect to get hit by lightning?

A note to readers: The following piece was written prior to the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. In the time between the closing of polls and the announcement of President-Elect Joe Biden's victory, these ponderings came to be.

I’m not sure if I need to sleep for 12 hours or go for a run or hug my mom or read a book or smoke a cigarette. I’m not sure if I need to write something empowering or something messy. I’m not sure if I can write at all. 

Relationships, whether platonic or romantic, are essential in life. As we spend more time with our thoughts during this pandemic, they start to consume us, making us question our mundane activities: “Why am I friends with these particular people? Did that come off too harsh or needy? How am I really doing?” When it comes to my relationship with myself and others, I’ve found myself taking a good look in the mirror these past eight months.