
The shooting of the unarmed Michael Brown by Darren Wilson (a Missouri police officer) sparked a series of riots in Ferguson, Missouri, which further drove the stake of divisiveness between the African American community and Law Enforcement. The events that transpired in the quiet town of Ferguson spearheaded the campaign against police brutality, and proved to be a catalyst for the black lives matter movement. In order to make an unbiased analysis of the image, it is important to not focus on the context of the picture but purely the picture itself. This picture was taken during the riots in Ferguson, and epitomizes a perspective of the police from an African American in Ferguson’s perspective.  This photo can be seen as highly controversial, and can be put through in-depth analysis to understand the greater meaning behind the prominent subjects of the picture (the lone African American man and the police force), the powerful visual elements (not including the natural subject matter), and the unavoidable bias this image presents.

On the surface, this is an image of an African American man standing in front of a police force clearly showing that he is unarmed, to subdue any chance of being seen as a threat to the heavily armed officers in front of him.  The African American man appears to be alone, without making the assumption that the police are observing something far more threatening behind him. It is difficult, when observing this picture, to not feel empathy for the lone man because ten armed officers are facing him down, while he is alone and unarmed. If put through a deeper analysis one can could postulate that this lone man embodies the entire African American communities’ perspective of the police force and represents the African American community as a whole. Much like this lone man, the African American community feels helpless to the unjustified police brutality.

The police force poses as aggressor in this image, seemingly reluctant to yield their combative stance. The police in this image are militarized and heavily armed, which seems unwarranted for the situation at hand (referring to the unarmed African American man, not the events going on in Ferguson). This photo seems biased against the police, making it difficult to see the situation from their perspective. In reality, the police are trying to protect themselves and alleviate some of the rioting. This picture lacks the ability to show the police force as anything other than unjustified aggressors on an unarmed African American man, making the police appear to be the “bad guys” in the scenario. This picture is quintessential to the extent to which the police force acted as a militant power in Ferguson.

Aside from the predominant subjects of the photo, there are visual elements that play a crucial role in understanding this image. The profaned mailbox reads “Fuck The Police”, which typifies the feelings of most of the local African American community. The presence of the mailbox brings visual irony into play, because the police are unaware of the malicious writing on the mailbox, even though they are juxtaposed. The tactical gear that the police are using, such as the gas masks, dehumanizes them making them appear like emotionless, robotic soldiers. Seeing police officers loaded with tactical/military gear in urban, civilian setting changes the viewer’s feelings immediately, because throughout history it has been thought of as dishonorable to use military force on a civilian population. Another element that plays a crucial role in setting the framework for interpretation is the contrasted color scheme. The lone man wears bright colors, portraying him as a peaceful and vulnerable figure. The police have uniformity in color scheme that consists of dark camouflage, making them appear more ominous and intrusive. Color scheme can often be overlooked when interpreting images, but colors play a vital role in setting the feeling/mood in a picture.

This image propagates the ideals of racial injustice and police violence, and in and of itself cannot be seen as unbiased because of it’s framing. The framing of the picture puts the viewer in the point of view of the lone man or African American Society. This completely changes the feeling of the image, as now the viewer is faced with the militant police force, as opposed to viewing the situation from a removed perspective, which leads to unavoidable bias. This way of framing the picture (without context about the situation) evokes immediate sympathy from the viewer for the lone man, and was not done on accident. The photographer of this image wanted to ensure he conveyed his point of view and only his point of view to the public. 

This photo was taken during the Missouri riots and can be seen as controversial because it propagates certain ideals through framing the natural subject matter and other visual elements in a biased manner. The natural subject matter is presented in one way (One lone, defenseless, African American man in the cross hairs of ten heavily armed police officers viewed as aggressors) without any context to support or oppose this way of thinking. With a picture like this, the viewer is forced to make a choice. If the viewer were to interpret this picture with a clear understanding of the context surrounding the situation, he/she would be able to come to a more informed conclusion with regards to how they want to interpret this image. This is a serious issue because the picture only presents a singular biased way of thinking. Overall, this image is representative of only one interpretation of the events that happened in Ferguson and of police brutality and racial inequality as a whole.