Is it about butchering black girls’ hair to keep white people comfortable? Is it about a woman visiting the same violence on her daughter as was done to her by her mother a generation prior? Is this girl just too… “different” to go into the world unaltered? Does she need to be toned down so she can succeed? Does she need to be defenseless before she is deemed safe by powerful people who would do her harm if given half a reason? Is one of those people holding those scissors?

[I.D. digital art of a young girl medusa sitting in a chair in a kitchen, crying as a woman cuts the heads off of medusa’s snakes. the woman’s head is out of frame, but her blonde hair is visible as she pulls three snakes taught, beginning to chop them with scissors as blood spurts. four snakes have been cut already, their remains lying dead on the floor as the rest of the snakes, all sporting pink bows around their necks, cower in fear. the majority of the illustration has been colored in black and deep saturated yellows and oranges, while medusa’s skin and hair are green. her pinafore has the same color palette as the background. her knees are also scuffed, bruised with orange and one of them bandaged. her cut strands of snake hair are not bandaged and continue to bleed. end I.D.]