Senate Confirmed Amy Coney Barret

Amy Coney Barret was sworn into the senate as the 115th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court on October 27, 2020. After the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the President’s top pick to fill the vacancy was Amy Barret. She was confirmed shortly after, and this sparked a lot of controversial conversation. As a federal judge, she had compiled almost an entirely conservative voting record on cases regarding abortion, gun control and rights, discrimination, immigration and more. One of the biggest risks of her obtaining this position is her power to shift the rest of the court and compromise Roe v. Wade (right to an abortion). 

Her political views and actions mirror those of Antonin Scalia whom she worked for in the past, as a law clerk. President Trump’s goal was to appoint justices who are ready to overrule Roe v. Wade and Amy Coney Barrett’s views align with that goal. Amy Barret is from Indiana and while there, she had considered three different cases on abortion and expressed her disagreements on the court rulings on them. While the court had ruled in favor of the right to these abortion cases, she was on the losing side and continued to vote against abortions on future cases. 

I think this confirmation can possibly be detrimental to women’s rights in the future; not only regarding Roe v. Wade, but also other court rulings that give women the rights and freedoms that we currently have. Amy Coney Barret will be a very influential member of the Supreme Court and will most likely vote for the suppression of these rights. Despite her being a woman, she clearly doesn’t believe that all women deserve the rights and choices to decide what’s best for themselves and their health. Her confirmation may not really affect me right now, but it will certainly have an effect on other women and could affect my rights in the future. I am very disappointed in this nomination as I feel like she is not the best pick to fill RBG’s seat, she doesn’t even come close, in my opinion; I don’t believe that she has the best intentions for ALL Americans based on her political history. It is still early stages regarding this confirmation, and despite her political views and past voting records, I am still hopeful that she will not shift the court too much to the right which could potentially affect the lives of millions. 

Sources:

https://filmdaily.co/news/amy-coney-barrett-scotus/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/senate-confirms-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/

Creative Project

For the creative project, I painted an image of a princess that I imagined would be an interesting addition to the current cast of Disney Princesses. Her name is Princess Kiara. There are several components of my painting that represent more diverse characteristics that are lacking in our current Disney princesses. I created this figure because as I was growing up I never got to experience any of the Disney princess characters that weren’t mostly white with very similar and unrealistic body types. When the Princess and the Frog came out it was an amazing accomplishment for the black community and myself, as no other princess remotely represented me. Despite this, Princess Tianna has been the only representation for black girls since her debut in 2009. I created an additional black princess and made her more realistic to our diverse society and population. The traditional Disney princesses were all the same, with similar Eurocentric features and hair, which doesn’t really encompass the image that every little girl would want to look up to or relate to. Princess Kiana was a more realistic representation of women and of our population. She is a black character and I wanted to draw on black features that are often looked down upon in society but are common amongst a majority of the black community. I attempted to highlight beautiful kinky curls and made her hair a focal point in my painting. I also created her to have a more realistic body type that didn’t fit today’s unrealistic expectations and also the body types that most Disney princesses have. I designed Princess Kiara because I wanted her to represent a more diverse population of people and if added to the cast of Disney princesses, I feel like a lot more people would be able to relate to her, strictly based on appearance, as she is more realistic to today’s society. I chose to use acrylic paint for this project. I was debating between paints and colored pencils but I chose acrylic paints for a variety of reasons. The first one is because paints are the medium I am most comfortable with, I have used them quite often and they are my go-to for creating pieces. The second reason is because of the variety of colors I had and could create as well as the ease of conveying the different characteristics that I wanted my figure to have. Overall this project was to create a character of figure that I would have liked to have when growing up that I feel represents me and would be something I could relate to. As you can see below, my character somewhat represents an already created Disney princess. Ariel was my favorite princess growing up so I wanted to do a twist on her character and while creating my own, incorporate her mermaid identity and costume.