The Panopticons,​ 2017; The Examiners,​ 2017; The Enforcers,​ 2017 by Olalekan Jeyifous

The Panopticons,​ 2017

By Olalekan Jeyifous

I have created a series of “anti-banners” which present a few startling statistics on the testing, policing, and incarceration of Black and Latino students. The first banner, “The Examiners”, focuses on the illusion of choice given to Black and Latino students in under-performing neighborhood middle schools, here in New York City. As a result of socioeconomic status, school zoning, access and opportunity, the students who gain admittance to the city’s best high schools continue to be disproportionately middle class and white or Asian. The 96% and 51% displayed on the banner, refer to the graduation rates of the top-tier high schools and those of the most under-performing high schools in the city. The second banner titled, “The Enforcers” focuses, through iconography, on police presence in high schools, the criminalization of student misconduct, and disciplinary bias towards Black and Latino students. who are 3.5 times more likely to be suspended than White students for the same infractions. In the final banner, “The Panopticons”, the focus is on the effects of the practices and policies highlighted in the first two banners. The Panopticon, an institutional building designed in the late 18th century that enabled total surveillance of all inmates in a prison. The 70% displayed on the ribbon below, refers to the percentage of Black and Latino students placed under in-school arrest, as well as the percentage of high school dropouts that end up incarcerated. The back of each banner, when viewed in sequence with one another, present a storyboard of a seated student raising his/her hand, a police officer running towards him/her, and then holding him/her in a choke-hold. This is in reference to the school-to-prison pipeline and the video that surfaced of a police officer body-slamming a black, female high school students.

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