“As an artist, I’ve met so many incredible young people who have shared their stories of resilience and resistance with me.  I’ve absorbed these stories into my creative practice and taken them with me into advocacy spaces and policy rooms. In many ways, they have reflected back to me some of my early experiences being a court involved young person. One of the things I recognize is that girls and queer youth of color have always used their agency to practice healthy resistance to structures that are meant to harm them, whether or not we characterize their behaviors as such. It is our responsibility as a community to shift our lenses from problematizing and criminalizing them, to supporting their efforts at liberation in all the ways we can. It is my hope that Grrrl Justice serves as a catalyst for these efforts.”

—Shontina Vernon, Artist & Director