i am only an expert of my own experience.
artist wearing the artist toolbox canvas dress from @fashionbrandcompany
samantha/sam/sammie/sambo/betty
nikki/candy/cam/cammie/kam
transracially adopted tomboy raised in the appalachian mountains recovering from the trauma of systemic racism, anti-blackness, yt supremacy and the attempted colonization of my body by yt ppl. a disabled sober harm reductionist attempting to learn daily about how to be in healthy and right relation with the world while decolonizing my mind.
connecting with the earth guided me toward telling my experience through fabric art. these are just some of my experiences of the world and stitches.
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Name given to me by my adoptive parents
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Catalyst for my name. A neighbor boy of my mom was ashamed to tell his parents he was playing with a girl so he said he was playing with a boy named Sam.
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From Grandma and Grandpa L
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A name my Grandpa would call me while doing a jig and singing a song. I forgot about this until I saw the racist characature of “lil black sambo” at the NAACHM.
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Self appointed nickname modeled after Black Betty by Ram Jam. A few days after being raped, the rapist sang the song to me and I changed it and my myspace name to Bad Betty. Also if you were drunk in Fraziers in late 2012/2013… my names not bettty.
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Name of my highschool obsessions girlfriend… that I called myself to people he didn’t know.
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The name my bio parents would have given me had they kept me/my dad knew I existed.
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A combo of the old and the new.
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Name of a girl on the Disney camp reality TV show named Bug Juice that I had a crush on/wanted to be.
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New spelling of Kam that I kind of want in order to call myself KK in the future or Skam. Stay Tuned.