CLAIMING THE VISUAL NARRATIVE
PUBLIC ARTS IN NEWARK, NJ
Iconic Dehumanizing Imagery and Messaging About the War on Drugs
For a very long time, print and televised media have portrayed “addicts” as ethnic minorities, and have specifically portrayed Blacks as more menacing and criminal than Whites in news stories involving drug use and drug arrests. For many people, these misrepresentations provide a one-sided narrative, one that is usually people’s only access to information about the human beings who live in urban communities and/or are more vulnerable to the criminal legal system. This is extremely problematic because these negative misperceptions of people–especially those struggling with drug abuse–do not tell the whole truth or provide the necessary context to initiate treatment or prevention. Iconic stereotypical messaging in popular media only encourages the public’s willingness to legitimize or ignore legal injustices. Reducing the lives of drug users to a false stereotype has concrete violent consequences for Black communities, who are disproportionately incarcerated for drug offenses.
For a very long time, print and televised media have portrayed “addicts” as ethnic minorities, and have specifically portrayed Blacks as more menacing and criminal than Whites in news stories involving drug use and drug arrests. For many people, these misrepresentations provide a one-sided narrative, one that is usually people’s only access to information about the human beings who live in urban communities and/or are more vulnerable to the criminal legal system. This is extremely problematic because these negative misperceptions of people–especially those struggling with drug abuse–do not tell the whole truth or provide the necessary context to initiate treatment or prevention. Iconic stereotypical messaging in popular media only encourages the public’s willingness to legitimize or ignore legal injustices. Reducing the lives of drug users to a false stereotype has concrete violent consequences for Black communities, who are disproportionately incarcerated for drug offenses.
Reclaiming the Narrative about Newark Through the Arts
In 1987, New Jersey passed the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act to “ensure the imposition of stern, consistent punishment for all drug offenders, and transferred all drug offenses into the Code of Criminal Justice.” These policies disproportionately criminalized Black behavior; enabling the rhetoric of crime, drug use and poverty as a solely “Black” issue, despite the fact that non-Hispanic white people accounted for 69% of the opioid deaths in New Jersey in 2017. This legacy of racism continues to shape the landscape of Newark today. Newark’s population remains largely Black, yet Black residents are still more likely to be the victims of pedestrian stops and underreported uses of force by police.
Drug abuse and violence in New Jersey is overrepresented in public narratives as an inherently Black issue, ignoring the structural and institutional conditions that have paved the way for the drug epidemic in Black communities like Newark today. Art can address these social and economic issues by empowering people to take ownership of their narratives. Art has the power to change how people think critically about and relate to spaces, engage with history, and build community. Although there is a precedent for city investment in public art projects, most of the projects have been focused in the Downtown area, the processes for creating the projects have not been well-recorded, and artists fear that blasts of development are narrowing the spaces in which artists can showcase their work. TCA hopes to draw on the insights of those who have navigated the process of creating public art in Newark before, and identify areas within the city that are lacking in public art to help address the gaps and challenges still existing in Newark’s public art landscape today.
In 1987, New Jersey passed the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act to “ensure the imposition of stern, consistent punishment for all drug offenders, and transferred all drug offenses into the Code of Criminal Justice.” These policies disproportionately criminalized Black behavior; enabling the rhetoric of crime, drug use and poverty as a solely “Black” issue, despite the fact that non-Hispanic white people accounted for 69% of the opioid deaths in New Jersey in 2017. This legacy of racism continues to shape the landscape of Newark today. Newark’s population remains largely Black, yet Black residents are still more likely to be the victims of pedestrian stops and underreported uses of force by police.
Drug abuse and violence in New Jersey is overrepresented in public narratives as an inherently Black issue, ignoring the structural and institutional conditions that have paved the way for the drug epidemic in Black communities like Newark today. Art can address these social and economic issues by empowering people to take ownership of their narratives. Art has the power to change how people think critically about and relate to spaces, engage with history, and build community. Although there is a precedent for city investment in public art projects, most of the projects have been focused in the Downtown area, the processes for creating the projects have not been well-recorded, and artists fear that blasts of development are narrowing the spaces in which artists can showcase their work. TCA hopes to draw on the insights of those who have navigated the process of creating public art in Newark before, and identify areas within the city that are lacking in public art to help address the gaps and challenges still existing in Newark’s public art landscape today.
