Mediaboss Marketing

On May 25, 2020, unarmed, 46-year old Minneapolis resident George Floyd died after being restrained by officer Derek Chauvin whose knee was lodged into his neck as he lay handcuffed, face down in the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Considered a gentle giant by family members, friends and co-workers because of his height, George Floyd was an African American man who was arrested by Chauvin, a white police officer, for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a local grocery store. Before his death at a local hospital about an hour later, bystanders watched as Chauvin maintained pressure on George Floyds neck as three other officers did absolutely nothing to stop what clearly was an intrusive use of force. All of these actions were captured on the camera phones of nearby onlookers attempting to help yet another Black man immobilized by the police.

In the last eleven years, mobile technology has become a communications staple for vulnerable populations, particularly smartphones. Twenty-five percent of African Americans and 23 percent of Latinos are smartphone-dependent, carrying the medium as their primary mode of communication. In recent years, individuals, who have witnessed physical encounters between citizens and the police, recorded them, sometimes revealing the depth of the institutional terror waged on Black people by law enforcement.

With the long history in America of violence against Black people, the ubiquity of video recordings has recast the narrative surrounding police violence and heightened public concerns about law enforcement. In todays world, virtually anyone can be a videographer and filmmaker. The combination of smart phones, video recording apps, and social media platforms have generated a revolution in public empowerment. Rather than having to take the word of African Americans over the police, people can see the violence for themselves and demand justice.

These factors should explain why recorded observations of police brutality against African Americans trigger protests, even during a global pandemic. Technology is becoming part of the story regarding how marginalized populations in the U.S. and across the world are recording injustice and thereby, gaining personal empowerment. Leveraging the internet, civilian-generated video content can move public opinion toward more critical views of law enforcement and mass incarceration.

The troubling pattern

In the Floyd case, videos taken by onlookers camera phones showed his final moments as he screamed out three words, I cant breathe! followed by cry for help to his deceased mother. The recordings reminded people of the same phrase previously heard from another unarmed Black male named Eric Garner, who was placed in a tight chokehold by officer Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island, New York. After being arrested on July 17, 2014 for allegedly selling single cigarettes from a carton without a tax stamp, Garners physical exchange with law enforcement ended with him on the ground, turned on his side to stabilize his breathing until his death an hour later at a local hospital. After seeing Eric Garner overpowered by police, more than 50 national demonstrations rejecting Pantaleos actions erupted. One month later these would be followed by the protests and riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after Officer Darren Wilson failed to be charged for killing unarmed 18-year old Michael Brown after he was accused of stealing cheap cigars and shoving a convenience store clerk. Three years after Browns death, surveillance footage revealed a non-violent African American male in a convenience store, countering Officer Wilsons story.

George Floyds fate is shockingly similar to those of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and the countless others whose lives were shortened by police brutality. The recordings of his encounter sparked protests among thousands of Minnesotans and out-of-state protestors, demanding that all four officers be immediately fired and charged. Five days later, Chauvin would be charged with third-degree murder and within days of transferring his case to the states attorney general, Keith Ellison, the charges were upgraded. Ten days into the national protests, the remaining three officers were charged with aiding and abetting in the crime that caused Mr. Floyds death.

Why are police shootings more visible?

Not since the painful images of the open casket for Black teenager Emmett Till in 1955 has all of America seen what racial violence looks like in the U.S. Emmetts mother, Mamie Till Bradley, decided to televise his funeral with an open casket, allowing mourners in person and on television to see his mangled stature, swollen face, and body after being brutally attacked in the South.

Despite Trayvon Martins fatal encounter with White vigilante George Zimmerman not being videotaped, the 17-year olds death in 2012 was probably the next most powerful image of an unarmed, Black man in a hoodie, that invoked suspicion of this young student who was walking in his mothers neighborhood.

But before Martin, the murder of 22-year old, Oakland native, Oscar Grant, was the first police brutality incident to be recorded and shared via an early generation smartphone. Grant, whose story was later told in the 2013 movie Fruitvale Station, was fatally shot after being handcuffed and restrained by two Bay Area Rapid Transit Officers working for Oaklands public transit system. Bystanders used their camera phones to capture the moments when unarmed Grant stood up only to be pushed back to the ground and shot by one of the police officers within seconds. But this video did not reach the scale of online audience of others, mainly because social media companies like Twitter and Facebook, as well as other online platforms, were not as quite mature. Compared to its 2.6 billion subscribers in the first quarter of 2020, Facebook only reported 150 million users at that time, which contained the images of activism around Oscar Grants death to the Oakland area, where several days of protesting occurred.

1 in 1,000 African American men have a higher chance of being killed by the police over their lifetime, according to 2019 research. The deaths of Black women follow, despite the lack of national visibility on their cases. The 2015 police body cam footage of Sandra Bland showed a violent slamming of her body to the ground after being stopped during a routine traffic stop in Waller, Texas. Three days later, she would be found dead in her jail cell, which the chief medical examiner ruled a suicide. The recent police shooting of EMT Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, has gained greater profile during the protests, especially as its been shared that she was shot at least 8 times during a police search warrant executed at the wrong home. To raise the profile of Black women and girls shot by police in the national debate, legal advocate, Kimberlee Crenshaw, launched an online campaign, #SayHerName to tell their stories.

Even when theres video, indictments of police are not easy

One of the few cases where a video recording led to an indictment of an officer was the death of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott, an unarmed Black man was shot in his back as he ran from a routine traffic stop in 2015. After his death, the arresting Officer Michael Slager tried to lie about what happened, but an onlooker, Feiden Santana, recorded the entire incident on his cell phone. The recording and Santanas testimony were presented in court, resulting in a 20-year sentence in jail for this rogue cop.

But incriminating footage from camera phones may not always result in charges being filed against a given police officer(s). Even with a video, it took five years in the Eric Garner case to fire Pantaleo, due to a lengthy federal investigation and a strong New York City police union who decried any punitive actions against him. In 2019, Attorney General William Barr ordered the case to be closed. In Baltimore, the very public arrest of African American Freddie Gray in 2015, followed by the immediate indictments of all six police officers by States Attorney Marilyn Mosby, still resulted in no convictions.

Immediately after George Floyds death, President Donald J. Trump asked the Department of Justice and FBI to expedite the investigation into the details. But that all shifted within one week when the White House leaned into the protests and started focusing on far-left groups, progressive anarchists, and bona fide criminals, all of whom they suggested were infiltrating legitimate protests. Attorney General Barr would soon announce an investigation into far-left groups, like Antifa, despite the presence of known white supremacist disrupters driving some of the looting and violence in various cities.

And now, President Trumps new focus on law and order, rather than the restoration of democracy and racial healing, is increasing the proliferation of surveillance by the police and military to censure these ongoing mass protests around the country. The images and videos of military de-escalation tactics that include tear gas drops and batons from protestors camera phones are as equally disturbing as the recording of Floyds murder. In various cities, some police are also deploying facial-recognition-technologies to scan the crowds of protestors and gathering location data to improve upon protest surveillance and restraint.

Technology brings pain to life

Police brutality has emerged from a history of the states invasive surveillance and persistent assaults on African Americans and their lifestyles. These recordings bring visibility to the historical terror and fear African Americans feel in the presence of police. Sometimes, these occurrences result in deadly consequences for Black people who cannot easily escape the realities of being racially profiled or targeted within and outside of their communities.

But unfortunately, despite how tragic and mentally traumatic the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the countless others have been, there will be more Black men and women dying while in police custody without the structural, behavioral and policy changes to policing in America. And before these changes are even instituted, we need a national acknowledgement that racism and discrimination have normalized violence against people of color.

Go here to read the rest:
Where would racial progress in policing be without camera phones? - Brookings Institution

Mothers of Black sons carry those fears with them always. The crushing weight of them can never be prayed away though God knows, Smith gives it her best shot. She has done everything she could to protect her son, tried to warn him that the color of his skin makes him a target, but also to urge him to understand those who hate him, to keep him from the justified anger that would make white people see him as even more of a threat.

None of it will save her son if his car is stopped by the wrong police officer. And none of it saves him from the corrosive indignities of his days, offenses in stores and office cubicles that go far deeper than bad policing.

After Trayvon Martin was shot to death by George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012, I talked with Smith about how she tries to protect her son who, like Martin, was 17 at the time.

Between Martins death and Floyds, her son has gone to college, launched a career in finance, and bought a home in Mattapan. In that time, many, many Black men and women have died at the hands of police officers and others to whom their lives are worthless, some of those deaths caught on video, too.

I talked with Smith, who leads an anti-violence group called Mothers for Justice and Equality, about how little has changed between then and now, and whether she sees any hope of progress. Today, Im going to get out of the way and let her tell you herself.

"When Trayvon Martin happened, there was that whole fear of knowing that as a Black mother you did everything you could do, and you still have to live with fear every single day every single day that his life may be taken for no other reason than because he is a Black man. And then you have to deal with the anguish of having to explain to your Black child that because of who you are you will be hated by certain people. Then youve got to balance that with protecting his heart from becoming bitter and resentful towards everyone who doesnt look like him, because its important for our children to hold onto hope, and love.

"We always raised him to really embrace people from all different races, but I remember him coming home when he was in high school, saying he had been followed around in stores [as if he was going to steal something]. And I would say, You have to know who you are, and I would try to ease that burden and acknowledge that he would always be targeted, and say to him, Maybe wave at the police or something. I couldnt show I was angry or hurt, which I was. If Id told my son the truth, then he might not be able to deal with what is in front of him every day.

"He has been pulled over by police, and he has been scared. When he finished at Babson and started his first job at an investment firm, he was in an elevator and a white woman got on, and he felt like this person feared him, or that he was suspicious because he was a young Black man. One time he was leaving work for the weekend and a white colleague said to him, Dont get shot. When a white co-workers desk was moved near him [the co-worker] said, Im moving to the ghetto. Those things dont leave you.

"I raised my son and sacrificed and paid for him to go to college, I did everything I was supposed to do. He got accepted, he did his work, he got a job, and he still has to deal with racism. Its not fair. Its a deep wound we cover up.

"We have to be silent in moments when we want to raise our voices. Weve got to keep the peace in order for our children to survive in a society that only sees our skin first. We have to teach our children to survive racism.

"I dont get up a day, or go to bed at night, without praying God will protect my son from dangers, seen and unseen. I do not live a moment without that prayer. I have fear for my son all the time, that his life will be prematurely taken from him. He has a nice car, he worked hard for it, and Im afraid he will be pulled over and meet up with the wrong person.

"So Black mothers, we are bearing a lot, raising Black sons. And then watching our sisters lose their children, that fear and anguish is so real.

"But I think we are looking at something different now. You know when a person reaches a point where they just cant take it anymore? I think we are looking at that moment. There are so many we can name, from Trayvon Martin to DJ Henry to Ahmaud Arbery, and we had a wound from each one [of their deaths]. And what we are seeing now is that wound is just open, and we are not going to Band-aid it anymore. My son is angry. He is going to the rallies. He knows something is very wrong here.

"We had to watch that video [of Floyds death] for eight minutes, but it wasnt anything that mothers who are raising Black boys didnt live every single day. But now people are coming together, and realizing something we have been struggling with for years. Im hearing from white mothers who want to join us and say, What can I do?

"There is a call for change, and we will not accept anything other than that, and I think no longer will people just bite their tongues or be silent. You are going to see young people like my son go into these spaces and say, No more. I deserve to be here, just like you.

We have a lot of work to do to see that vision come to pass.

Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yvonne.abraham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeAbraham.

See original here:
For mothers of Black sons, George Floyds death is their worst fear made real again - The Boston Globe

I am a black man in America. I use my art to speak outJoshua Rashaad McFadden, Minneapolis

The first time I experienced racism I was about ten. Someone called me the N-word in gym class, but I was the one who was reprimanded: they called my parents as if I had provoked him to call me that. My parents were upset and made sure I knew that I was not that word. That should not have been the way teachers adults handled that situation.

In adulthood I began to notice racism more and more. I was a senior in college in 2012 when Trayvon Martin was killed. He was walking through a gated community when he was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood-watch volunteer. When Zimmerman was acquitted it was the first time I really saw my generation protest and that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.

Many of the young people protesting now were only ten years old then. They grew up within the Black Lives Matter movement and they see it very differently from how I do. I think they feel more empowered, theyre less afraid to participate.

I live in Rochester, New York, but when I saw what was happening in Minneapolis I decided to drive there straight away. I essentially drove overnight.

When I got there, everywhere I went the atmosphere was one of sadness. Everybody seemed traumatised. There were pockets of the city that were burned down, particularly around Lake Street. It was gassy, smoky. There was debris and people were running. It looked like a war zone. Things were sparking, exploding, crumbling right in front of your eyes. And there were huge military trucks coming down the street.

I am a black male in America. I deal with the same issues being perceived as a threat, or who knows what. In these situations, trying to document the protests, it always comes down to one question: how do the police see me? A white photographer offered for me to join her, saying, if you come with me, theyre less likely to shoot. So I stuck with her for the night. Do I see myself as a photographer, an activist or a participant? Im all of those things. Its who I am. But Im also an artist, and my art is what I use to speak out.

On Sunday the police and national guard started to push back more. I saw protesters being shot with rubber bullets. The police were aiming guns and throwing tear-gas bombs. Some people tried to extinguish the tear-gas canisters using traffic cones. The gas goes into your mouth and your nose and your eyes. It burned my face, it was stinging, I couldnt breathe. All my skin, my whole body was burning. It pretty much took me out for the night.

If I had fear, I wouldnt be here. It is emotionally taxing. I saw a kid who was about 16, who was out at a protest by himself at two in the morning. People were wondering, why are you here, where are your parents? He said his mother passed away, he doesnt have any parents and he felt like he needed to be there. Because, of course, he identified. Just seeing the pain, it sticks with you. Theres not really much I could do about it. I just keep moving forward, I just know that the work has to be done.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden is from Rochester, New York, where he teaches photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Excerpt from:
Portraits of protest in America | 1843 - The Economist 1843

On March 27 2020, rising hip hop artist Joyner Lucas released ADHD, his debut studio album. Track 7 is entitled Devils Work and is the fourth most popular song off the 13-song work, amassing nearly 30 million plays on Spotify since its release as a single on May 2, 2019.

The song is best described as a tribute song, with Lucas dropping many names of fellow rappers and other members of the black community who died young. Throughout the whole song Joyner is talking to God, asking questions.

Drownin in my tears, tryna pray for something / Wonder why you give us life for you to take it from us / Wonder why you give us family then erase them from us / Maybe hopefully you can have a conversation with us.

Those characteristics make it strangely similar yet also vastly different to an older song with a different tone: Don McLeans 1971 hit American Pie.

Lets start with the similarities. Both songs are meant to be tributes to musicians who have passed before their time. Devils Work does this fairly explicitly, shouting out many different names.

Give us Tupac backGive us Biggie, give us Pun, give us Triple XBut how you take Selena and then you take Aaliyah

Lucas goes on to mention various non-musicians who famously died young, including Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black boy who was killed by later-acquitted George Zimmerman in 2012.

American Pie on the other hand is a song that doesnt have a meaning that can be discerned through just listening to the lyrics, so without some research, its pretty difficult to know what the song is actually about.

Though McLean has never explicitly confirmed this, the generally accepted meaning of American Pie is a tribute to three legends of early rock and roll: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. The Big Bopper Richardson.

The oldest of the three men was 28 years old. Their plane went down in 1959, an event immortalized in this song as the day the music died.

American Pie is seen as an ode to the loss of these musical titans as well as the loss of the post-war idyllic optimism that is so evocative of the 50s.

Another connection is that both songs make heavy use of religious references.

Lucas formats Devils Work as a letter to God and McLean uses lyrics such as Do you have faith in God above? / Well if the Bible tells you so and No angel born in hell / Could break that Satans spell.

However, the second similarity of both songs being tributes to deceased musicians is less overt.

All of that having been said, its hard to ignore the fact that Devils Work and American Pie are more different than similar.

Devils Work is very open and forthcoming with its subject matter. There arent really any hidden meanings or covert symbolism or tricky wordplay. Lucas avoids these songwriting devices in favor of a rock-solid narrative.

This is in contrast to American Pie where there are no names mentioned directly, with plenty of symbols within the lyrics representing different musical figures at the time, including Bob Dylan, Elvis and The Beatles.

There are also differing tones within the two works, with Devils Work taking on a more angry tone, while American Pie takes on a more sorrowful tone.

At their core, both songs are snapshots of the American cultural landscape of their time. Because of that, though its never explicitly mentioned, both songs are, in a way, an answer to the question what does it mean to be American?

In 1971, McLean helped to answer that question by reminding the American people that it was time to move on. We won the war, the economy boomed for a few years, but now we must return to the real world.

In todays America, Joyners answer to that question is one of remembrance. He wants the American people to never forget these names, that these unjust deaths happened, and to improve the nation to one where these deaths dont happen.

Both songs are important pieces of Americana and by looking at them side by side, we can see how the definition of America and its culture has changed over the years.

The rest is here:
Joyner Lucas and the new Americana The Vermont Cynic - Vermont Cynic

Building a protest movement during a pandemic requires creative and virtual work. For illustrators and artists with social platforms, their output has an attentive audience and an influential role to play, in parallel to the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the country. Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis during an arrest on May 25 after Floyd gasped for air as an officer weighed down on him with a knee on his neck. The officer involved, Derek Chauvin, was since been fired and initially charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. (Derek Chauvin now faces an upgraded second-degree murder charge.) As artists are aware, their responses can help build narratives of empathy and focus action on what matters.

The movement has seen large-scale marches and clashes with police in cities across the U.S. and abroad as late May turned to June, and has also grown online as support for anti-racism actions and systemic change against police brutality has become a dominant virtual conversation. While the act of re-sharing a portrait or re-tweeting a slogan has drawn criticism as potentially empty, the process of building solidarity through symbolism has played a core role in the history of protest, especially amid a pandemic that may rule out in-person activism for some. In the wake of Floyds death, social media sharing has helped to dissolve the distances between local pain and global outrage.

Creators have taken different approaches as they engage. For some, its a continuation of their activist spirit. For others, Floyds death marked a shift into newfound political involvement and more serious subjects. Millions of reposts later, however, one thing is certain: the conversation is still in its nascent stages. With that in mind, we asked artists about the creative process behind some of the most resonant original imagery of the moment. Much of the most popular works reimagine the subjects at hand, giving us new ways to grasp whats going on.

For Nikkolas Smith, an L.A.-based artist and activist who calls himself an artivist, there has never been a divide between the work he publishes and the justice-oriented goals of his creative endeavors. On May 29, he shared a digital painting commemorating George Floyd.

Like most of Smiths portraits many of which focus on other victims of police violence, like Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor the style evokes a traditional oil painting, but is rendered almost as an abstraction. (He makes them in PhotoShop, and gives himself under three hours to complete them.) And the unfinished quality is intentional. Smith says its meant to echo the unfinished business of these lives, cut short. I dont like clean lines, he tells TIME. Thats a parallel to all these lives. They did not have a chance to see their end. They should still be living.

Soon after posting his Floyd portrait, it was shared by Michelle Obama, among other celebrity fans. It was spread further by the official Black Lives Matter Instagram account, with whom he collaborated from the start. In fact, it soon became one of the widespread original images of the latest protest movement.

Smith coupled his image with a caption that calls for justice for Floyd, but recognizes that just the act of viewing and sharing is a powerful first step. Even if there isnt an action item, people are still seeing an image of a human being. The narrative is building up more and more that these are people who should be on this earth who are not here anymore, and their life is important, Smith says. To share it, even if its just that, is important. Im hoping that all of this leads to a bigger, more substantial change, especially with accountability of law enforcement.

Smith is no stranger to protest art. He was working as a Disney theme park designer in 2013 when he first captured attention for his illustration of Martin Luther King, Jr. dressed in a hoodie, meant to cast doubt on preconceptions of the differences between the civil rights leader and the young Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. Smith has been creating works with political and anti-racist themes ever since.

On the other hand, Illustrator Tori Presss latest Instagram post was a departure for her. In 2016, Press checked out of her own freelance nine-to-five gig to focus on illustrating full-time, as an emotional response to the election that year. But she has always shared lightly humorous personal anecdotes with bits of advice about self-care and managing mental health in a signature style of pastel watercolors and black ink text until now. Im not very political, Press told TIME. Its not really something I wander into all that often. But in the wake of this murder, Ive been sick all week. I couldnt stay silent.

The result: If you want non-violent protests, listen to non-violent protestors, reads her latest post in large black letters, with a small kneeling figure of former NFL quarterback and social justice activist Colin Kaepernick in the corner; it has over three times the likes of the prior post. When something like this happens, and people are righteously angry, and justifiably so, but you hear folks being dismissive of the entire cause I just think thats a way to dismiss this fury, and the reason behind it, she said. Press added that she feels particularly responsible to share this message as a white, privileged woman with a platform.

I drew Colin Kaepernick because hes a perfect poster child for someone who tried to make a peaceful protest, and was absolutely vilified for it. Its just infuriating, she said. We need to have space to say, yeah, I recognize how furious you are.

As she says in her caption, she feels there is a role for white people to play. I can address my fellow white people and say look, this is a time we all need to stop and reflect. Really put yourself in the shoes of people who are angry right now, who are protesting. Have some empathy. She hopes her illustration will help at least a few people to have that moment of self-reflection.

Eric Yahnker, a California-based satirist who has displayed his absurdist works in fine art galleries, laid aside his typical tongue-in-cheek tone when he published his latest Instagram post: another George Floyd portrait, done in colored pencils on a sheet of kraft paper as a gut reaction to Floyds death.

I am absolutely unimportant in this story, he said to TIME. He chose to draw Floyd as the gentle giant he was described as by friends, reflecting his soft humanity. It absolutely guts me that if Mr. Floyd were a white gentle giant or anything other than black, hed still be alive today, Yahnker notes. As a Jew, indoctrinated since birth to the scores of my own ancestry massacred by the hands of evil forces, I know full well that silence itself can be a painfully violent and oppressive act. On its own, Yahnker knows a single piece of art cant create real change. But I am a firm believer in the power of the collective. If we all put a drop in the bucket, it can turn into a tidal wave, he says.

One of the most widely circulated images is an illustration from Shirien Damra. Its a pastel, color-blocked portrait of Floyd that sees him wreathed in flowers, one in a series of similar portraits Damra has done for people who have recently fallen victim to violence. Damra, a former community organizer in Chicago and a Palestinian-American, turned to this form of commemoration in order to spread awareness in a way that avoided sharing videos that she said can be traumatic and triggering, she told TIME. I think art can touch our emotional core in a way that the news cant. Damra adds that one thing artists can do is help illustrate what comes next.

We know what we dont want. We dont want any more black lives targeted by police and white supremacy. But one thing that I have found we struggle with is actually imagining what kind of things we do want to see in our world, she says. I feel like as artists, one role we could play is allowing ourselves and others to reimagine the possibilities. Our society will likely never turn back to how it used to be before the pandemic and everything happening right now. Art can be a powerful catalyst in bringing more people together to take action.

Damras Instagram account is only a year old. But especially in the pandemic era, people are turning to the digital sphere to consume art perhaps more than ever, by default. This has opened up a way to reach more marginalized communities who need art most during this heavy time, she says.

Another popular image is a gesture to the Black Lives Matter movement by the French artist duo Clia Amroune and Aline Kpade, who go by the name Sacre Frangine. Like a spin on an earth-toned Matisse cut-out, their trio of Black faces overwritten with the Black lives matter slogan is a universal statement that is just abstract enough to be repurposed in many ways; protesters have even drawn versions of it for signs at marches. Amroune and Kpade may not be U.S. citizens, but they told TIME they feel very close to the movement. This has, after all, had a wide reach. The comments to their art are a chorus of thank-yous and heart emojis, with the promise of sharing.

As social media was overtaken by blackout trends on June 2, these works momentarily disappeared from feeds. But they will resurface again.

Some people who never spoke out before when Mike Brown or anybody else was killed they saw this video, they see this art, and say, now Im going to say something, Smith said about whats different this time around. I dont even really know where things are gonna go from here, but its getting to a boiling point. People are done. Theyre going to make their voices heard.

As for Smith, his latest piece of art, called Reflect, isnt a portrait but a depiction of a single masked protester, kneeling at the foot of a line of riot-gear-clad policemen and raising a mirror to their hidden faces. Can we just hold up a mirror to what this looks like right now? Smith wants to know. Thats what contemporary art is for, after all: to refract back reality, and raise questions about what we are willing to accept.

Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Write to Raisa Bruner at raisa.bruner@time.com.

Follow this link:
'Art Can Touch Our Emotional Core.' Meet the Artists Behind Some of the Most Widespread Images Amid George Floyd Protests - TIME