Diante Yarber, Stephon Clark, Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland, and Trayvon Martin

This was originally a post from my old blog site that I have since closed.  I decided to redo the post here because it was Trayvon Martin birthday on February 5^th and Sandra Bland’s on February 7^th.  If you read any of this blog in the past you know that most of the time I blog about my art, photography and inconsequential stuff.  Nothing too heavy.  But sometimes things just hurt too much and, though they were not killed by the police, Trayvon Martin’s and Sandra Bland’s birthdays made me think about how the police murder us – people of color – African Americans – black people.  And the sentencing hearing this past December of the police officer, Van Dyke, who murdered Laquan McDonald on Oct. 20, 2014 in Chicago, brought more things back to mind.  Van Dyke was sentenced a month or so ago to only six years and some months for the murder of Laquan McDonald.  His sentence only reinforces things we already know.

Diante Yarber was killed by the police on April 5, 2018, in Barstow, CA.  That’s just up the road from where I live in Victorville – a 30-minute ride at best.  You can read about it.  I did.  That young man was murdered.  Like Stephon Clark was murdered on March 18, 2018, in Sacramento, CA.  These stories get a day or two then are gone but the coverage on the orange guy never ends – the circus act is none stop.  These murders bring to mind that video by Childish Gambino, “This Is America”.  That video is so on point.  Much like Marvin Gaye’s album, “What’s Going On” was on point for the 70’s.  Well, Marvin Gaye’s album, “What’s Going On”, is still on point today too.  I know there are a lot of things that we need to be focused on – a dwindling supply of fresh water, climate change, reaching the point where our population growth will exceed our ability to feed everyone, etc.  But the orange guy or sports or entertainment dominates our lives.  We need our news feeds to be focused on the pressing issues that matter.  And we need to keep those names fresh in our thoughts – Diante Yarber, Stephon Clark, Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin.  With the exception of Trayvon Martin, they were murdered by the police.  With the exception of Sandra Bland, whom they said committed suicide while in jail in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015.  Sandra Bland was wrongfully arrested and would probably be alive today if that did not happen.  Law enforcement officers are those who are supposed to “protect and server” us.  But, as usual, the murders of these human beings only reinforce things we already know.  So, we need to say their names, every name, so that we do not forget what happened to them.  We need to say them all to help motivate us to change things for the better.  We need to do something to make our world a better place for us, for our children – because our lives, black lives, do matter just as much as any other lives.  I think I’ll listen to the Roots, “Rising Down”, as I list a small fraction of the names of those who were murdered by police officers:

Michael Brown Jr. (Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo.)

Terence Crutcher (Sept. 16, 2016, in Tulsa)

Philando Castile (July 6, 2016, in Falcon Heights, Minn.)

Tamir Rice (Nov. 22, 2014, in Cleveland)

Alton Sterling (July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge)

Walter Scott (April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, S.C.)

Aiyana Jones (May 16, 2010, Detroit, Michigan)

Eric Harris (April 2, 2015, in Tulsa)

Rekia Boyd (March 21, 2012, in Chicago)

Tony Robinson (March 6, 2015, in Madison, Wis.)

Rumain Brisbon (Dec. 2, 2014, in Phoenix)

Eric Garner (July 17, 2014, in New York City)

Jordan Edwards (April 29, 2017, in Balch Springs, TX)

Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, Baltimore, MA)

Oscar Grant III (Jan. 1, 2009, Oakland, CA)

John Crawford III (August 5, 2014, Beavercreek, Ohio)

Baltimore Museum of Art

Do you follow art news or the website artnet?  I have recently started to follow art news – it’s like a break from stories dominated by an orange dude who…  Like I said, a break from other kind of news.  I read this story about how the Baltimore Museum of Art sold some of their top dollar artwork by white guys (Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg, for example) so that they could acquire some top dollar artwork by people of color and women (Jack Whitten, Amy Sherald [the artist who painted Michelle Obama's official portrait], Wangechi Mutu, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and a bunch of others).  The personally sad thing about this was that I did not know who these, people of color and women, artist were – and I’m a studio art major.  Hell, I graduated with honors on top of that.  I felt like a dumbass and I know I’m not dumb.  I know it goes without saying but I did know of all the white guys they mentioned in the article.  So, I had to look up a few of these artists whom I did not know.  I was really flabbergasted by one artist in particular – Isaac Julien.  This dude…  Wow!  Well his website says that he is a “filmmaker and installation artist”.  But he makes photographic prints too.  And “Julien was awarded the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s birthday honors, 2017.”  So like yeah.  Well, you never stop learning.  I need to hurry up and get my stuff out there.

The images below are some early work from 2014.  I have a lot more newer images that I need to finish up the post production on but the preoccupied state of subjects in these two makes them still very relevant today.  And I like them.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Bishop, Boron, Bakersfield, and Barstow – where do we go from here?  Who knows.  What I do know is that we live in some daunting times and unscrupulous people are preying on the fears of the majority of the people.  You can’t live afraid though – that’s not living, that’s just existing.  Truth be told, we have lived through much worse – it just wasn’t up front and personal the way a TV and the Internet are now.  Any arm chair historian can point to many times where the taking of innocent lives was much worse than it is today – here in the USA too.  We have to make the change we want though and that requires involvement.  Being involved will require some effort in educating yourself about truths versus lies.  And it is not a difficult thing to do, just form some questions and go dig for answers.  Here’s a question: there are three things, an alcoholic beverage, a pack of cigarettes, and a box of ammo.  Which one of these things can you buy in California without a driver’s license?  See, you just have to form a question and go search for the answer.  You will start seeing the truth and what needs to be done and you can shut off the rhetoric.  The uninformed can be herded like sheep to go in whatever direction the one herding them wants them to go.  An ignorant populace is a tremendous source of power for those who do know the #truth but don’t want you to know.  Dumb people are easy to scare.  Don’t be afraid, be a source of #knowledge.

If you need help on how to do this, ask me.