Executive Director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association Jim Palmer released a joint statement Friday with Madison Professional Police Officers Association President Dan Frei saying... "While we appreciate that the anti-law enforcement sentiment expressed in this piece represents the feelings of some, this 'stormtrooper' portrayal of police officers who appear to threaten a small child only serves to advance patently negative law enforcement stereotypes at the expense of the important and selfless jobs that our dedicated officers perform."...
The organizations said they are not demanding the display be taken down, "as we do not view that as an appropriate response to this expression of speech." They stay instead that they are "voicing the collective reaction of Madison's officers who find this publicly-sponsored art display as offensive and indicative of terribly poor judgement."
May 2, 2015
"Police 'deeply troubled' by artwork in Madison Central Library."
"The piece entitled 'Don't Shoot' by artist Mike L'Roy aims to 'startle, shock, and interrupt your reality.'...[and] to "empower black individuals who are feeling angry, forgotten and demonized by the mainstream narrative.'"
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That's funny. The Police say they don't want anyone afraid of them. That is very, very funny.
Part of the problem is the mealymouthed police spokesman can't bring himself to simply say, "It's an evil lie."
"empower black individuals who are feeling angry, forgotten and demonized by the mainstream narrative.'"
I'm gonna need more spray-on tan!!
The impression I got was somebody called the cops (how else would they arrive in full tactical gear) about a kid with what appears to be a squirt gun.
The police don't seem to be pointing their guns at the kid but the kid continues to point his as them.
Contrary to the artist's description, it seems to me to be a piece about nanny-state overkill and poor parenting, not police brutality.
When a liberal does it, it's "trying to start a conversation"; when a non-liberal does it, it's a "micro-agression".
I might like a painting of a cop pointing a gun at "piss christ."
"empower black individuals who are feeling angry, forgotten and demonized by the mainstream narrative.'"
Now THAT'S funny! The creators of the "mainstream narrative" support the "black individuals" as much as they can get away with.
The "Don't Shoot" painting now displayed at the Madison Public Library very much needs a companion painting. I am attempting to have an artist friend execute such a work as would have the title, "PANTS UP, DON'T LOOT".
I am unsure, at this time, as to the exact content. However, it might show a drop-drawers thug, clutching some stolen property, bleeding out in a gutter with a armed home/business owner viewing the scene with a look of "duty performed satisfaction" on his/her face.
I wonder if the Madison Public Library would display such a work-of-art.
Something very like that happened in Cleveland not long ago when the police were called to a park where young Tamir Rice was playing with a BB gun. They didn't ask him to put it down, they didn't call on him to surrender, they just shot him and let him bleed out.
If the Madison police don't wish to be tarred with the Cleveland brush, maybe they need to talk to their colleagues in Cleveland and Baltimore? And maybe even take the lead nationwide in de-escalating the violence directed against their respective civilian populations? Perhaps a good start would be to get rid of their mine-resistant armored vehicle (MRAP)? How big a victory party does the Madison department think that fraternity row would throw if the Badgers win the Rose Bowl?
I'm more concerned about this national police force idea. Read Insty.
Hope and change!
From the video, the problem in Cleveland was that the cops drove-up so close to the kid with the pistol that it impelled an immediate response, rather than a slow approach on foot from a distance.
L'Roy said: 'When viewing my piece, I challenge you to reflect on your identity and engage in meaningful, critical, and genuine dialogue with others about the social and political causes that have led to actions like the one depicted in 'Don’t Shoot.''
Don't teach your children to point guns or pretend guns at the police. That just shitty parenting.
@EDH, the problem in Cleveland is that a child is dead for playing in a park with a toy.
The artist's "mainstream narrative" is indeed unintentionally funny.
The union's statement is completely appropriate. The artist must be disappointed that the police did not rise to the bait.
The Art itself is puerile. The faux collage is so art school and the child appears modeled on the children from the "boondocks" comic strip.
It's art.
Derbyshire this week (free first of the month podcast) suggests that the news doesn't really happen, it's just written. This is more serious than the usual JFK assassination or moon landing thought. It's just a Hollywood writer and news readers and sets for TV.
The evidence is the white cop shoots black perp story, which is always the same.
Gentle giant, who is turning his life around, is shot by a black-hating white cop. The circumstances are confused but the riots begin instantly. Who needs to wait to figure it out.
Later the narrative collapses but the legend continues unchanged.
This can only be fiction writers somewhere.
The art project just recognizes it.
But police (though maybe not these particular police) taking target practice using depictions of pregnant women, children, and elderly people so as to desensitize themselves at the same time as they hone their aim is just prudent preparation. Got it.
Tamir Rice was killed by a "he," not "they."
In Albuquerque we have had two incidents recently where someone was walking by a school with an air rifle, and 911 was immediately swamped with calls, the school was locked down, and the whole neighborhood saturated with cops and SWAT teams.
Both "culprits" had their air guns confiscated and were charged with half a dozen serious violations.
Now, these people were thoughtless - the air rifles were quite realistic looking - but these over-reactions still are ridiculous.
Thoughtlessness not resulting in injury to anyone should not result in felony charges.
Even the newscasters in Wisconson are kind of chunky. What kind of lesson are we teaching our kids when we allow overweight people to deliver the news on television.
"I might like a painting of a cop pointing a gun at "piss christ."
How about an effigy of a Madison police officer encased in a giant jar of piss. If the library won't show it, they could ship it to the Brooklyn Museum.
It's important that young black children learn that the drug dealer on the corner with a knife in his pocket is his friend and protector and that the cop is a racist bully who will kill him at a moment's notice. If children learn these important lessons, the black community will thrive and prosper.
Lucky timing for the display, which was not about current Bawlmer riots.
Guernica it is not.
Its not very good art, not a very effective simple protest, not nuanced enough to inspire a complex conversation about the roles of the police and the community. Tough order to fill, but he didn't fill it.
Props to the cops for not asking for the painting to be taken down, but if you are going to arm yourself like an occupying army, you'd better expect pushback.
"The piece aims to startle, shock, and interrupt - "
Fuck you.
So sick of these "artists" justifying the crap they put out as edgy.
Too many labels in the wake of "no labels" intrusion. Recycling violations is a pro-choice doctrine of progressive liberalism that is a cause of perpetual human and civil rights violations.
""Police 'deeply troubled' by artwork in Madison Central Library.""
Tough shit.
Mike L'Roy's next project will be a mural depicting white privilege causing black on black crime.
"Big Mike" should ask why the parents/guardians/keepers of the Cleveland child allowed hit to go out with a gun appearing "toy".
He should also "go back to school" and refresh his memory as to the thinking error of "False Equivalency".
1. needs art providing an alternative political view
2. re "It's important that young black children learn that the drug dealer on the corner with a knife in his pocket is his friend and protector and that the cop is a racist bully who will kill him at a moment's notice. If children learn these important lessons, the black community will thrive and prosper," Obama said in a CNN interview that the economy of black people is based on illegal drugs, hence the natural antipathy that builds up as police actively try to destroy their economy. {Honest. I had trouble believing he said that, but unless CNN is issuing blatantly mad up quotes, he said that.}
"Big Mike" should ask why the parents/guardians/keepers of the Cleveland child allowed hit to go out with a gun appearing "toy".
I went out with gun-appearing toys all the time as a child, in my neighborhood and at my grandmothers. I was never gunned down by police.
The police procedure shown in that video has to be the worst possible way to approach a situation I could imagine.
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