How much impact on can one piece of art have? Primarily through news clips, this video explores several controversies across the country in response to Michael D’Antuono’s provocative painting depicting the rampant racism that’s deeply embedded in our criminal justice system, “A Tale of Two Hoodies.” The video covers eBay’s banning of the piece when the artist attempted to auction it to benefit the Trayvon Martin Foundation in response to eBay allowing George Zimmerman’s to auction his painting for $100,000. The video also covers the firing of an Arizona high school social studies teacher over her including the piece in a final exam. Then the video takes us to Kentucky and Colorado where students were bullied to remove their homages to D’Antuono’s piece from public exhibition.
Michael D’Antuono poses with Susan Sarandon beside his painting at Rock the Vote.
“There’s so many injustices, there’s so many things that are terrible, wrongs that you want to right.”
So said artist Michael D’Antuono, who displayed his racially charged work at Rock the Vote’s exhibit hall on Spring Garden this week. He was in good company: Banksy had a piece there, and Shepard Fairey’s posters covered two walls in the DNC-related gallery. With his space, D’Antuono decided to address racism in the criminal justice system.
In one painting, The Talk, two African American parents sit on a couch, cautioning their child about racial profiling. Behind them, a message flashes on the screen: “No indictment in police shooting of unarmed youth.” A white face in a uniform looks on officially, contrasting with the sweet smile of a young black boy in an orange hoodie. According to D’Antuono, The Talk is meant to represent a conversation that almost all African American families must have about safety, and how the police force is inherently prejudiced against black kids.
Another shows a slave eyeing the mirror, with an incarcerated man staring back as his reflection.
“The prison system has replaced the plantations as the exploitation of the [black] man,” D’Antuono said. “And orange is indeed the new black, I’m sorry to say.”
D’Antuono speaks with prominent figures who offer arguments and counter-arguments about racial inequality in the United States. One of his subjects is former Philadelphia captain Ray Lewis, a vocal proponent for police reform who protested in Ferguson in 2014. D’Antuono said that Lewis provided the officer’s point of view on police brutality (he didn’t note that it might be a skewed one), giving an alternative perspective from victims of racially driven abuse. Based on Lewis’ history, it’s hard to imagine that he defended shootings of innocent lives, but D’Antuono still didn’t seem satisfied by his answers.
“He doesn’t condone the police violence obviously, but he explains why it’s so systemic, and the blue wall of silence,” D’Antuono said of Lewis’ responses. “They’re not good, but they’re real. They’re accurate.”
Apparently Lewis had explained that most officers just want to keep their jobs and stay safe. Instead of delving into the real mortal threat policemen face on the daily while in the field, D’Antuono refocused to announce that he wanted to create a system where cops felt they could be “whistleblowers” against their corrupt co-workers without consequences.
“They say that most cops are good, but I’m saying that good cops don’t allow bad cops to get away with murder,” he continued. “It’s very similar to the Catholic church, where they just move the pedophile priest to another church instead of [holding] him responsible for his crimes.”
He got into political art with The Truth, a portrait of Barack Obama. D’Antuono likes his portraits to capture more about their sitters than their likenesses, and he painted Obama as a Christ figure, his head encircled by a crown of thorns and his arms outstretched. The piece is a metaphor about how the conservative media crucify the president, whereas liberals tend to glorify him into martyrdom.
D’Antuono also has some problems with freedom of speech, namely, he feels his is being constricted. When the California Endowment wanted to feature The Talk on a billboard, Clear Channel forbade it. He tried to exhibit some of his work in a New York park; when conservatives planned to bus in protesters, he cancelled the event. At two high schools, students replicated his art for public viewing, only to be pressured not to show it (surprisingly not for copyright infringement).
“It’s the police that were fighting these kids, literally bullying these high school kids (about) taking down their art,” D’Antuono said.
The Bill of Rights is a document that protects citizens from the government, not from private interests – but D’Antuono doesn’t see a distinction between big business and the public sector.
“The problem is corporations now have taken over the sovereignty of the government,” he explained. “It’s the tail wagging the dog. So Clear Channel is a private company, but they’re not allowing my free speech.”
For his social commentary, “I’ve been called the Norman Rockwell of the revolution,” D’Antuono said, though which revolution he could not name.
“My paintings have an edge,” he said. “These are more divisive times. There’s a lot more going on now.”
Despite everything that’s “going on now,” D’Antuono’s not trying to light a fire just for fun.
“I’m not controversial for the sake of being controversial,” he said. “I do the painting, and then the media uses and interprets the piece to fit their agenda.”
Michael took his “It Stops With Cops” campaign to Chicago on December 10th to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 14 month delay in getting an indictment and releasing the video of the police murder of Laquan McDonald.
Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray … the list of unarmed black citizens being killed by police, often without even an indictment continues to grow. Yet if you live in the bizarro world known as FOX NEWS, the police are the victims and Black Lives Matter are waging “The War On Cops.” On the other hand, if you happen to be interested in facts, I’ll give you one. Police deaths are down this year from the year before and are less than a third of just the first six months of 1973. Police/black community relations are also at a low. So what can be done to remedy the situation?
Considering everything, I’d have to say the ball is firmly in the police’s court, and so are the local prosecutors. The decline started with the police when people started videotaping cops gone wild, so the repair needs to start with the police. And it’s pretty safe to say, they aren’t going to earn the trust of the black community with coverups and denials.
After the choking and killing of unarmed Eric Garner by several NYC police officers, Mayor De Blasio mentioned at a press conference that he and his wife have had to have painful conversations with their teenage son, who is half black, about how to take special care with any encounter he may have with police officers. The head of New York City’s police union said officers felt “thrown under the bus” by the mayor so in solidarity, they all turned their backs on the mayor as a sign of disrespect when he would enter their presence. Like old Bobby Shakespeare once said, ” Methinks thoust protest to much.”
My point is that the police will not earn the trust of the community by feigning false indignation or to protecting the few bad apples abusing the power of their position and killing unarmed citizens. Those few “bad cops’ who go all Judge Dredd on people tarnish the badge of the whole force and institution. They say that most cops are good, but good cops don’t let bad cops kill defenseless citizens. The police are sworn (and paid) to protect their community and uphold the law even if it’s one of their brothers in blue breaking it.
I understand that it’s a dangerous job and that they sometimes depend on their fellow officers to survive dangerous situations. But if they are afraid to break the blue wall of silence for fear that their fellow officers will not have their back in a shoot out should they report or arrest a fellow officer for murdering an unarmed person, then there is something terribly wrong with that department. It’s kind of hypocritical of the police to complain they can’t solve crimes because the community is afraid to “rat” on gangs for fear of retribution when the cops are as guilty of the same cowardliness and misplaced loyalty. And let me be clear to all the good cops out there, let me clear, I am not anti-police, I am anti police brutality. Reporting a crime committed by a fellow officer is not an act of a snitch, it’s an act of a hero… and it’s your job.
That is why, as an activist and and artist, I painted the image at the top of this post. It’s called “It Stops With Cops.” I will unveil the original oil painting at Politicon at the Los Angeles Convention Center on October 9-10. When it happens, I will be at the Freddie Gray trial in Baltimore, handing out free posters and hoping to embolden good cops to be brave enough to break down that blue wall of silence. And when you do, may the force be with you.
