Rachel Lee Annotations

My eye first focuses on the “One in four” title. It moves down to the children walking across the screen and I perceive that one of them is red. At this point, I perceive the police force that I have noticed above the “One in 4” image as protective of the children. My eye moves up to focus in on the “protecting the children” image. My brain automatically assumes that these police officers are the protective force of the children below. However, I then perceive what the ‘one in four’ caption refers to. This is an incredible effective and disturbing juxtaposition because of the way I perceive hierarchy in images. With the fisheye perspective on the police force and the way they are positioned higher than the LAPD school children below them, I am apt to see the police force, again, as protective and (paternalistic) caregivers to the children below. However, the impact of the statistics (1 in 4 children arrested by LASPD are middle school aged youth) is incredibly disturbing. This is a powerful juxtaposition.

The image communicates a great deal about how the LASPD is constructing force and policing as a paternalistic type of care of children. It suggests that, it is for the own good of the ethnic minority school children population that arrests are made. However, the shocking statistic in the image below the LASPD is a counterargument to underlying argument of the LASPD visual rhetoric. The statistical image below counters the rhetoric of LASPD’s force for the sake of ‘protection.'