The American criminal justice system is as racist institution as there ever was yet the Americanized version of racism is systemic and procedural, which makes it cruel as well. Nowhere else can this cruelty be more evident than in our jails and prisons. The idea of locking up our people of color, our poor folks, our families isn’t new to the slave nation and the advance of technology. It has evolved into what you see depicted in my sketch. Our present doesn’t look too different from our past when you see things from the bottom up. The criminal justice system will lock up anyone for profit, regardless, if you’re a man, woman, or child.
This piece was a work up sketch that I did for my first published artwork “justice, money dance”. The painting created from this drawing won a bronze award in the Capitalizing of Justice exhibition, 2019.
This artwork is currently in Australia as part of the exhibition Paperchained International
