Aida Wright
Visual Art by Aida Wright
Back in 2010, I designed a peace park mural for Sherdavia Jenkins. She was a black, innocent 9-year-old girl when she was shot and killed by a stray bullet outside her home, in Liberty City. Liberty City is a part of Miami, Florida, predominantly housing black, low-income families. Two young teens were shot, two blocks away within the 11 days it took us to complete the building. I didn’t grasp what that meant at the time. See, I grew up in Palmetto Bay, a predominantly white affluent area, went to a private school, and never saw a gun in my life. I didn’t hear about the shootings in Goulds, Perrine, Liberty City, and Overtown. I only saw what the news reported. And even then, it was robberies and gang violence. So, when I look back at this project and the shootings, I didn’t see this cancerous virus that is GUN VIOLENCE. I saw what I had been fed my whole life, ‘black people killing each other’. I didn’t bat an eyelash, went on to complete other projects and live my life in ignorant bliss.
June 12, 2016, I was sitting on my balcony in Atlanta, Georgia on the phone with my mom. It was 11am, and we were worried because we hadn’t heard from my brother Jerry all morning. While this was wildly unlike him, I dismissed the idea that the shooting had anything to do with him because it was a gay nightclub, there were plenty of straight clubs he could have gone to that night and gotten blackout drunk. However, after several hours and not a word from Jerry on any of his many social media platforms, and no sign of him at home or with friends, anxiety struck me like a bat to the chest. The dark and suffocating thought of Jerry being shot down in a gay night club became very real. Was he dead? Was he wounded? Was he paralyzed? That following morning, I flew to Orlando.
I don’t think I have to explain to you the absolute horror that took place that early morning on June 12th. How 49 lives taken, damaged families and friends like ripples in water. I don’t think I need to detail the failure in our government to keep weapons from a completely “on the radar” villain. But, I will explain how that day changed me. I was unsuspectingly 6 weeks pregnant when Jerry was murdered. I packed whatever I could fit in a suitcase and moved back home to Miami with my parents and oldest brother Joseph. And in the coming months, I learned how deep-rooted gun violence is. I got the stats from Everytown. I did the research. I learned about the mass media misinformation being spread, the archaic and careless gun laws, the mental health issues, and the absolute darkness and helplessness of losing my brother. Jerry would never get to meet his nephew, who would be named after him.
I am a visual artist, everything I see stays like a photograph on my brain. The smell, the textures. The temperature. The stillness in the air as I walked into the room surrounded by police officers and FBI, as the names of the dead were read aloud ringing through the air like bullets striking the families once they recognized the name. Watching my parents and brother break into pieces on the floor as I froze like a statue knowing I needed to be strong for them. Seeing Jerry’s deflated and mutilated body in the funeral home that smelled like old dust and decay. These memories are as vivid as the smell of my morning coffee. I can’t heal. WE can’t heal. The endless sea of faces of people who have lost sometimes 1 or 2 or 3 people to gun violence. Whether it be suicide, murder or misfire, everything seems to just take me back to the Sherdavia Jenkins Peace Park. Stray bullets, robberies, disputes. It keeps escalating. Mass shootings have become normalized.
This visual is symbolic of how gun violence feels to me. One hand reaching to the sky in hopes to make it, floating in an endless sea of bullet casings and dirty money. In light of the current climate of the world, I feel this visual has bigger meaning now. I would like to note I drew inspiration from the Holocaust Museum here in Miami and artistic influence from Russian Propaganda posters from the Soviet Era. Because in 2020, it might be a different time, but the subject matter feels the same.
