Response to “Wrong Place at Wrong Time”

5 February 2024 AFR 370 Response to “Wrong Place at Wrong Time” Jean Charles de Menezes was a young man who was “mistaken” for a suicide bomber and was killed by the police on the train going to work. This case left profound consequences of “being in the wrong place at the wrong time”, as the innocent man was brutally murdered because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. In a similar way, Barbara Walker’s son was stopped multiple times in his neighborhood for no significant reason, implying that the police view him as deviant. The concept of ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time” was interesting to me because it made me question if it really is just being at the “wrong place” or if it's years of systematic racism and discrimination. Nonetheless, unjust treatment against the black community by the police has resulted in many innocent black deaths as they are wrongly perceived as deviant or criminals. Barbara Walker condemns this brutality by creating charcoal images of her son in a newspaper that expresses her personal concerns against this skewed perception. Racial stereotypes have detrimental effects which include senseless police killings based on perceptions of deviance and criminality. Barbara Walker uses portraits of her son to depict how the repeated “stop and search” interrogations within his own neighborhood are fueled by discrimination. Additionally, I noticed that the use of a neighborhood in her artwork is significant because a neighborhood is supposed to be a comforting place, somewhere associated with tranquility and an escape. However, Walker wants us to imagine what happens when our neighborhood becomes a sinister place, insinuating that this is the reality for many black people. Walker also creates another portrait of her son from a profile view, depicting a mugshot photograph, collaged over a headline in the newspaper that says “Met chief defends ‘shoot-to-kill’. I think this profile view is powerful because Walker is speaking on the unjust criminalization against Black people causing heartache on many families and many innocent deaths. Moreover, Walker uses her son as an example to reference her personal history along with thousands of other grieving Black families which is similar to the type of grief Menenzes family felt after he was unjustly killed. All of Barbara Walker’s work about police brutality and the stereotypes against black people are very powerful pieces that I believe speak a message about how our society is so quick to criminalize marginalized groups. I thought the discussion about the role of mainstream media creating the association between criminality and Black people was enlightening. The newspaper, to me, seemed like a relatively objective way to present information about events, situations, and people. However, the newspaper lies, exploits, and manipulates situations and presents new and skewed information. Thus, I learned that the flawed correlation between Black people having criminal intent could have been rooted from the newspaper. Furthermore, the current media plays a vital role in the depiction of black people. I have seen many movies in which black people, wearing hooded jackets, always playing the villain or simply just being the antagonist. With that being said, these perceptions have only caused grief and danger to the black community as many families and individuals fear they will be in “the wrong place at the wrong time” due to these stereotypes. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time can be a life or death situation, which is the reality for many black people. Police brutality haunts the black community, resulting in countless stop and searches, irrational arrests, and many killings. Moreover, racial stereotypes and discrimination, created by the media, is what leads to this danger. Barbara Walker’s works about criminalization of innocent black people helped me visualize and empathize with the reality of many people. Additionally, I realized that clothing can also be criminalized, making it even harder for Black people to not be racially profiled.