“F— the Police they the biggest gang in Amerikkka” reads a sweatshirt featured in the “No Justice” clothing line created by UW-Madison junior.
Eneale Pickett, Chicago native and creator of Insert Apparel, teased his upcoming “No Justice” line, with a powerful promotion video that has successfully sparked conversation on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison and beyond.
Pickett, widely known for his earlier “All White People are Racist” shirt design, dropped his latest line yesterday. The “No Justice” collection includes designs that display quotes like “#NoHashtag can ever bring me justice. I have seen my death way too many times to imagine anything different.” The promotional video for the line is intended to bring awareness and create dialogue surrounding police brutality.
“I need people to understand that police brutality is very real.” said Pickett.
To set the tone, the video begins with a shot of six Black people dressed in all black as the sound of President Trump’s response to this summer’s White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville, Va. plays in the background. Trump’s address continues as two cops, hidden behind pig masks, and a blindfolded woman, portrayed as Lady Justice, laugh hysterically at an open fire.
“They’re laughing at a body being burned. The shirt says ‘I would ask for Justice, but she’s helping the cops burn my body,” said Pickett.
The chilling video then cuts to a cop forcing a Black man into a noose tied with the American flag. “A cop accompanies Justice, right before the young man gets lynched; meaning that the cop’s system is guiding her,” said Pickett, “When the young man was about to be lynched, the cop lifts her blindfold up–meaning that Justice is not truly blind, that Justice is often manipulated to their benefit.”
Later, two dangling feet appear as they slowly become lifeless. Still set to the voice of President Trump, the two cops begin fearfully running away from a man holding a sledge hammer and wearing a shirt that reads, “Destroy the city that caused you to bury me.”
The eerie final scene of the video concludes with Pickett holding a bloody pig mask and a machete as a host of comrades emerge from behind him.
Republican State Senator Steve Nass promptly responded to Pickett’s video, claiming is is a clear “vile and racist anti-police” threat. “UW-Madison must immediately hold these students accountable and that should include an investigation by the local police and the Wisconsin Department of Justice,” Nass wrote.
Caution: Violent images and mature language
“One thing that I also find interesting is that people racialize the cops in my video,” Pickett shared. “The cop was neither white or black, it was just a cop. So the fact that you associated a race with a cop has a bigger problem there and there’s a bigger dialogue there.”
Despite the Senator’s push for action, the university made it clear that Pickett “is engaging in a private business activity, unrelated to his status as a UW-Madison student. The clothing in question is not produced, nor endorsed by UW-Madison,” said John Lucas of UW-Madison Communications.
“[Nass] just wanted to release a statement to release a statement because he dated it wrong, that means it was rushed–which means [he] didn’t fully look over it,” Pickett responded. “Nass is the biggest supporter of free speech. But now the fact that I’m exercising my free speech–now it’s a problem?”
Lucas assured that “UW-Madison strives to provide a welcoming and inclusive campus environment, while allowing everyone to share ideas and political views in exercise of their free speech rights,” wrote Lucas in an email response to the video. “However, the university strongly condemns the glorification of violence such as that contained in the promotion of a student-produced clothing line.We support our police partners, reject violence and violent imagery as tactics to achieve political objectives.”
The UW-Madison student and artist hopes this video and his clothing will encourage people to analyze their privilege and research the history of police in America, “Police are a direct link to slave patrols. Police are made to profile and brutalize the Black and brown body from its conception,” said Pickett, “So, why would we ask the same people who brutalized and dehumanized us to protect us?”
“Get off of your fragility and do something,” said Pickett.
