The political cartoon depicts Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. The Richardson police do not have that man in their ranks. No honorable police officer anywhere should take offense at a cartoon condemning the actions of that man. You know where I'm going with this. Richardson Police Officers' Association FOP Lodge 105 takes offense.
To say that we are disappointed in this material provided to students in Wylie ISD would be a massive understatement. Many of our members children attend school in Wylie ISD. How shocking it must have been for them to see their parent compared to a slave owner or KKK member! Thank you to National FOP VP Joe Gamaldi for getting involved in this matter.
I don't know the context of the use of this political cartoon in Wylie ISD. The Richardson Police Officers' Association FOP Lodge 105 doesn't tell us. It seems the context is not the crux of what set off the Richardson FOP. It's the cartoon itself. I'll limit my comments to that. This cartoon doesn't compare anyone's parent to a slave owner or a KKK member, unless Derek Chauvin has children himself. Again, the figure in the cartoon is one man, Derek Chauvin. The pose is straight out of a news photo.
Wikipedia
Derek Chauvin's method of arrest led to a suspect's death. This cartoon's criticism of Derek Chauvin is tough, but fair. Derek Chauvin is not representative of all police officers. They should be protecting the public from bad people like Derek Chauvin, not shielding him from cartoon criticism. Attacking a cartoonist instead of the bad cop is not a good look. It suggests that FOP Lodge 105 is incapable of standing apart from a bad cop. Instead, they should condemn Derek Chauvin's actions (again) and impress on the community that similar behavior won't tolerated by Richardson police officers.
Update 8/22/2020: Apparently, the class assignment included this slide:
7 comments:
for context - https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/08/20/wylie-isd-removes-assignment-political-cartoon-police-slave-owners-kkk/
"The assignment involved political cartoons that compared law enforcement to slave owners and the KKK, showing different images of men with their knee on the neck of a black man.
It was in an 8th grade social studies class at Cooper Junior High."
There wasn't any information on what the assignment was, although one story suggestedit was intended as a demonstration of satire. That seems unlikely though.
Marcia Grau
"The district said the lesson was intended to be about the Bill of Rights, specifically the right to protest."
Those students were taught a lesson alright, but not about how the Bill of Rights protects the right to protest. More like the opposite in Wylie.
“It’s not as if they put the image out and said, ‘We’re going to have a police officer come in and tell you how that’s not true.’ That was just the image they put out,” Gamaldi, who is a Houston PD officer, said.
What's "not true?" Did Derek Chauvin not kneel on the neck of a detained suspect resulting in his death? Have there not been brutalities against Black men similar to Derek Chauvin's all through American history?
Maybe I'm obtuse but I don't see any connection between the cartoon and anyone's right to protest. Is there something I'm missing that shows people protesting? I only see people being mistreated. Blacks by pirates/slavers,overseers/owners, Ku Klux Klan, deputies/troopers, police. Is there something in this cartoon that would indicate to an eighth grader only Derek Chauvin rather then generally indicting police in general as one of the groups shown mistreating others?
I wish we had information on exactly what the assignment was to help put this in context. That might help clarify whether the students are meant to discuss whether Derek Chauvin or police officers as a group are evil.
Marcia Grau
Marcia Grau
The cartoon wasn't *about* protest. The cartoon was itself a protest. Some people marched. Some people blogged. Some people drew cartoons. The cartoon as protest was suppressed in Wylie, even as an example in a lesson about how people protest, despite freedom of speech and all that.
Apparently, the class assignment was about the First Amendment's right to assemble and protest. I've included a slide from the assignment (reportedly) as a postscript to my original blog post. Part of it says,
"In light of the protests that took place this summer around the United States and around the world, answer the following questions using prior knowledge and/or online research:
...
4. What is cartoon #1 saying about U.S. history and the death of George Floyd?"
This seems not only innocuous, it seems like how we should be teaching our children, asking them to think for themselves, to research controversial topics, to try to understand what an author or artist is saying instead of jumping to conclusions, which too many adults seem to have done in this case. Also, that question #4 should put to rest any doubt about whether the students were informed that the cartoon wasn't depicting a general police officer, but was depicting the specific police officer involved in the death of George Floyd.
Thanks, adding the context about the planned lesson does clarify the intent. Just looking at the cartoon without that information is probably why I and the Police Officers Association saw the pictures as five groups of people rather than 4 groups and one individual.
It's time to re-up this post. Good cops need to call out bad cops. When a police officer shoots a man seven times in the back at close range, good cops need to call him out. When police officers encourage white vigilantes openly carrying AR-15 style rifles during a protest against police brutality, good cops need to call them out. When police officers see themselves depicted in a cartoon of Derek Chauvin instead of seeing a cartoon of a bad cop, it's a bad look. Until good cops call out bad cops, loudly and consistently, we still have a problem. A policing problem.
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