To know someone is to love them

To know someone is to love them, it's why people are so afraid of true diverse representation in art, when you see yourself in art you might start to think things like, I matter, I'm not alone, it's ok to be like me, you feel seen, you feel wanted, you feel safer, that you have every right to live in this world taking up space in it and own that. You are no longer the side story, the friend, the twisted villain, the victim that needs to be saved, or live in a world that only has people like you in it, no you get to be the complicated, brilliant, funny, hero, with your own great love love story, that give you your own happy ending. I get that diverse in art don't always have things like this but more of it should have at least have some of them. Not all art has to be about you to understand it or feel moved by it, but some of it should be. Not just race but also LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities. And people can make art about all 3 at the same time without making it just about their labels. We have had so much art throughout history just cuts 90% of people out of the stories, and if we don't see people and know them, that becomes them getting hurt by people that don't see them as human, or even them hurting themselves.