I chose to do a political cartoon because I felt it was easier to reach a different audience than one I would regularly target. It is also an easier way to inform others without having to involve academic words to support the stance that many people take when using a political cartoon.

Excerpt of Panel

Question: How has seeing an increase of diverse police led to changes in the community? Do you think it’s hurt or helped the community? 

Community Organizer: Thank you for hosting this panel and allowing for voices like mine to be amplified. I’d like to start off by saying that I don’t think having a diverse police department and having diverse police helps the situation. They don’t change the fact that police have targeted and continue to target communities of color. The fact that they think they could completely change that by diversifying the academy is a horrible thought, it doesn’t erase years of oppression and years that they’ve gotten away with targeting communities. It hasn’t helped the community; it only increases the policing that happens in the community.  

Community Leader: Thank you, I was just going to say that diversifying the police academy doesn’t erase the damage but having a diverse police academy I believe it could help put the people who’re impacted the most at the front. Having a diverse police academy could mean that there could be new ideas to coming and new conversation being started in the police academy. This could also help encourage youth to understand and explore different opportunities that could be life changing. I don’t have enough knowledge to understand if it’s hurting or helping the community, but my hopes are high, and I hope so see a future where it helps the community and the police department is able to achieve peace with the community.  

Police Officer: I think it helps the community, having diverse police helps break language barriers. It makes many people having issues more willing to come forward. It also helps the community by allowing for youth explorers to expand their horizons by discovering new paths. It could be life changing for many people in the communities we serve. 

Youth Organizer: Hello, thank you for providing a platform where I could express the emotions I have as well as other youth have around this issue. Though I do think helping diversify any space is important and a good step. There isn’t any way that it could completely erase the tension that many people have when it comes to the police in our community. Most recently, the police becoming more and more violent against our community, against young people. Viral videos of police officers dancing and playing basketball can’t make up, they can’t erase the images of many young people being the subject, being targeted by police. Cases like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin not being singular and not being served the justice they deserve. I don’t think this helps the community at all, it increases the ways in which policing communities have shifted from something strange to something so familiar it feels like it’s always been there. The only change that the community wants to see is seeing police leave our communities alone, to stop policing our bodies and stop getting away with injustice.  

I had chosen to do an excerpt of a panel because of the knowledge and experience I’ve had with previous panels. Each person on the panel being an expert on their own this allowing for many different perspectives to be able to speak on their own experience.

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