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Baton Rouge claims to want to be this great progressive city often, but rarely lives up to anything close to the anything but regressive. Yesterday there was a big stink in Baton Rouge on social media about a yard sign done by a middle schooler at Woodlawn Middle. The sign was painted in black and white and said, “Police Brutality, Stop It.” The visual of a police officer pointing a gun at what appeared to be a kid was clearly visible and mostly white residents of Baton Rouge lost it.

Complaints on social media ranged from saying the library shouldn’t have let the sign be placed in front of the Jones Creek Branch, to hoping the kid failed art class. Others said that their tax dollars were being wasted in local public schools if this is what children are producing in art class.

The yard signs were a part of an art display produced by The Walls Project, a non-profit group designed to help Baton Rouge become more innovative in how we display art in public spaces.

Stephanie Rayborn Hicks the spokesperson of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Department told The Advocate she was, “glad the sign was taken down.” Which is a statement that is troubling to me, because Hicks still has yet to respond to an email I sent concerning the EBRSO getting body cameras or dash cameras on its deputies and in their vehicles. Last month Travis Stevenson was shot and killed by EBRSO and new media has left that story alone. Although officers fired 20 rounds at Stevenson, and he had no gun on his person. There were no questions about if the outcome could have been handled differently, we simply just trusted the word of law enforcement, although we have been shown over and over nationwide that what officers say happen isn’t always what happens. Hicks being glad the sign was taken down shows she isn’t concerned with changing the reality of what the child sees more of the message that the sign sends about policing in Baton Rouge.

Just this week the Baton Rouge Police Department lost a police brutality lawsuit, where officers knocked a citizens teeth out and illegally strip searched him and checked his anal cavities. The police department counted it as a win for the citizens of East Baton Rouge because the case only cost tax payers $25,000 instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet the officer in question was previously fired and eventually hired back after appealing his termination.

You see the real truth is art reflects reality. This young person at Woodlawn Middle in showing the reality of the world as he or she sees it and the citizens of this often bigoted community can’t see that. We should be more concerned about what realities we need to change, rather than attacking the art form that depicted the reality.

Are all police officers bad people? Certainly not. I have several friends in law enforcement that are great people. Those same people also admit and understand the culture of police work needs to be addressed and changed to address the social disconnect that often exist in policing.

I don’t expect straight laced residents of a community to understand the reality of every citizen. Many say, if you don’t break the law you won’t encounter the police. Well 12 year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland Ohio, was just sitting outside playing with a toy gun. Police pull up within 20 feet of him, shoot and kill him within 1.8 seconds of arriving on the scene. Tamir Rice was 12, probably about the same age as the kid who made this painting. That is a reality. It’s not something the kid dreamed up, it happened. The police officers involved didn’t spend a single day in jail.

How do you reason that with a young kid? Some will say the kid shouldn’t have had a toy gun. Well I know 12 year old white kids in Baton Rouge who have riffles. They hunt, they actually know how to shoot. If they were walked up on by a police officer I’d bet my bank account they wouldn’t be shot dead. Why? Because of the cultural disconnect in our society, that black kids don’t have the same freedom as white kids in reality. Oh sure, on paper we are all equal, but in reality it isn’t young unarmed white kids being killed by the cops.

The media and society does everything it can to point the blame at the victim when blacks encounter unjust policing, unless there is video evidence and even then, cops are often let off with murder. The sad part about this situation is, a kid in middle school can clearly see the reality of the America we live in, but the adults who should have the common sense and will to see and fix these issues would rather just complain.

Baton Rouge is often a disappointing city to live in when it comes to matters of race and equity. No one has to tell me the color of the kid who painted this art work, because children of all colors see the truth of the world before we adults taint them. I told my daughter about Tamir Rice one day, not to scare her, but to present the reality of the world we live in to her. Her response was simple but truthful, “Daddy that police officer was wrong, they should be punished for that.” My six year old daughter has more sense than many of the residents of our “GREAT” city.

When we get serious about transparent policing, we will see more respect for law enforcement. Instead of trying to change the mind of the children about what they see, how about we change the reality of the policing they see?

I’ll give one simple test, ask how many people were ticketed north of Florida Blvd. and how many were ticketed south of Florida Blvd. find out if our police treat all communities the same…

March 16, 2016 5:25