Denver Student’s Art Work, withdrawn
A 10th grade Denver student withdrew her work after receiving criticism from police. There’s insistence that this was done voluntarily, and it most likely was, but it both pains and infuriates me that the artist felt the need to do so. It’s not as if police killings, especially those where the victims are non-white people are some sort of rare event here in the States. The work seems self evident to me, but according to the meeting with the mayor and chief of police:
“I wanted to know from that perspective exactly what are you saying and what can you share with me that I can share with the men and women of the police department to kind of correct what that artwork portrayed,” Chief Robert White said after Friday’s meeting.
So, the work wasn’t clear, and he expresses a desire to “kind of correct” cops killing black people. I think that alone expresses very clearly the need for this type of artwork, whether the police like it or not. If they don’t wish to be portrayed as bigoted killers, perhaps they should stop being bigoted killers. (Yes, fine, qualifier: not all cops, just way too fucking many.)
Politicians advocating killings that have not yet happened = “good”.
Art students depicting killings that have already happened = “bad”.
Interestingly, the shooters and the victims are the same, regardless of who’s talking.
Left0ver1under:
Yeah, always works out that way, but no worries, someone wants to kind of correct it!
That would be reasonable, wouldn’t it.
You’d think they’d get the bloody connection. But no…
…and way too institutionally protected from the consequences of their actions.
--
*image of a man in a police uniform, relaxing; he looks into the camera*
“I don’t always shoot minorities with little or no provocation…but when I do, The System has got my back!”
*smiles and turns away*
--
Cicely:
Exactly. The ones who aren’t bigoted killers are sheltering the ones who are, along with too many citizens, who seem to think cops can do no wrong, as long as the dead person isn’t white.
Cicely @ 6:
In a nutshell. I can see that scene in my head, and it would make a great photo shoot, done up like a full page ad. Pretty sure cops wouldn’t like that either.
You know those cases where cops shoot unarmed black citizens and all the other cops on the scene back up the shooter’s story and a year later the video is released and the original story is found to be wrong in every detail -- do the lying cops ever get charged for hindering justice, or as accessory after the fact, or anything? My guess is “No.”
In a country that has multiple court systems and a huge number of law enforcement agencies (local, state and federal), one would think that it wouldn’t be impossible or even difficult to organize investigation, prosecution, trials and sentencing of crimes committed by policemen and -women in such a way that the investigators, prosecutors and judges wouldn’t be the same people the suspect works with normally but would be from different organizations and hierarchies, if there was a genuine political will to do so.
Of course there would be less “states’ rights”, “counties’ rights” or “municipalities’ rights” then. I hope that art work is a step on the way to make the political will to get cops that are accountable for not only things they do to wealthy whites but also to all other citizens.
Cops: you missed a public relations “teaching moment”
it would make a great photo shoot, done up like a full page ad
It would. It’s _really_ hard to source cop uniforms, though, for some reason.
Here’s one I did during Ferguson. I guess it’s 2 self-portraits. It is _scary_ how easy it is to source riot gear. That set was on Ebay, from some municipality that had upgraded theirs. I had trouble putting on a “suit to wear while hitting people”
http://www.ranum.com/linkedimages/civil%20unrest.jpg
Oops, that’s the uncaptioned version. The captioned version reads “You can tell who plans to cause trouble by how they dress.”
Marcus:
It’s not difficult to get a high quality knock off from any costume company. Failing that, if you know someone who has a home stripper business, a cop uniform is standard gear.
That’s great! Fuck, that gear is scary as hell.