The requested URL /index.php?crn=233 was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. Bobby Brown arrested on suspicion of DUI Never Miss a Story Get The Post delivered directly to your inbox By clicking above you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Wading through the flood of imagery, I first noticed the powerful photographs and videos of people’s interactions with the police — images of protest that were being shared around the world. Like many others, I was especially moved by the balance of peace and impending violence in the photo below of a woman calmly standing as police officers in full SWAT protective gear rushed toward her. I also found myself drawn to the ways that artists honored Mr. Sterling, Mr. Castile and the five police officers (Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith, Brent Thompson and Patrick Zamarripa) with the kind of colorful murals and portraits that we’ve come to expect from these tragedies.

Their work showed how artists can react quickly to help communities and families grieve. But I kept coming back to that flag, and similar pieces of artwork that used simple typography and high contrast black and white — work that seemed to be saying, “If you still don’t get it, let me break it down for you in language and with a visual style that you (and I) cannot escape from.”hoody's survival trail mixI downloaded and took screenshots of the examples that stuck with me, like the home page of Wieden & Kennedy, an advertising agency, which posted a message explaining the emotions of black co-workers. sws hoodiesA spokeswoman for the company told me the text on the page (which reverted back to its previous form on Tuesday) came from an email that was sent out internally by a black employee the morning after the shooting of Mr. Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.adidas trefoil hoodie youth

I also spent some time with the work of Nikkolas Smith, a conceptual artist and Disney Imagineer who decided to make activist artwork a recurring part of his life after George Zimmerman was acquitted. One of his best-known pieces blurs past and present in a way that’s similar to the flag by depicting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wearing a hoodie. But after the deaths of Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile, he decided to riff off a popular culture reference that uses the Helvetica font and the “&” symbol to detail the restrictions placed on black people’s behavior after these tragedies over the years.“nsu hoodiesThere are so many rules now that we have to uphold when interacting with the police,” Mr. Smith said. “It’s like all of these things, which other cultures do by the way, are now punishable by death,” he added. The work of Mr. Smith and other artists seems to come from a place of empathy, and wanting to evoke it in others.

Their hope, and mine, is that when individuals really take the time to understand what others are going through then it will open their hearts and minds.“It’s been three years ago today that the Black Lives Matter movement started and I posted the hoodie image,” Mr. Smith said on Wednesday. “I’m happy that people are starting to wake up to the fact that this is a huge issue. I just want people to care. I think compassion is so important. If people can view my artwork and feel compassion, then I think that we can work through all these issues together.”I wondered if the flag was creating a similar response.Online, I discovered that it came from an African-American artist who goes by the name Dread Scott, and that it was an adaptation from history. In 1936, The New York Times published a brief article saying that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would be flying a flag with the inscription, “A Man was Lynched Yesterday” at 69 Fifth Avenue in response to the lynching of A. L. McCamy in Dalton, Ga.

Mr. Scott took that flag and updated it, adding the phrase, “by police.” When I tracked him down here in New York, he explained his motivation.“A lot of my work draws on history and shows how the past sets the stage for the present, but resides in the present in a new form,” he said. “This work does just that.”We met near the Jack Shainman Gallery in Manhattan, where the flag was flying outside as a part of the For Freedoms exhibit. (For Freedoms is an artist-run “super PAC” that uses art to inspire deeper political engagement for citizens.)Mr. Scott said his goal was to direct people toward the history of “lynch mob terror” and how the police have more recently played a similar role. “I think that saying a man was lynched by police actually brings up an important history in this country in a way that I think people get,” he said. “But that’s not spontaneously how they view it.”We talked about Sean Bell, who was killed in 2006 in Queens; the murder of Walter L. Scott last year, for which the artist originally revamped the flag;

and the video of Mr. Castile. It was easy to see the emotion in Mr. Scott’s eyes when we talked about all the cellphone videos that witnesses to police shootings have released over the years. “Having the videos enables all sorts of people who otherwise might not believe what black people are saying about how the police brutalize and murder us,” Mr. Scott said. “At this point, people can’t say they don’t know. At this point, people are making a choice to believe an illusion that the police are there to serve and protect anything other than this system.”“If you’re not touched by these videos, there is something wrong with you,” he said. I have a son. And I fear for him, but I feel for all the sons and daughters and people in general. But frankly I’m afraid of the police.” Terror was something we both found ourselves discussing at length — how it’s changed, and hasn’t.“By and large, it’s the police that are carrying out that role of terror and who are not being brought to justice,” Mr. Scott said.

“I want people to think about that.”He said that he, the gallery and the For Freedoms co-founders decided together, after the videos of Mr. Sterling’s and Mr. Castile’s deaths came out, to display the flag, which had been in his studio. Bringing it to Union Square was a bit of a spontaneous decision.“I emailed Hank Willis Thomas, one of the co-founders, and asked him if we could add another piece to the show. And with commercial galleries, this unusual request was something that is just not done. Their response was, ‘How quickly can you get down here with it, come now and let’s put it up.’ But as we were measuring it to put on the wall, we also knew this demonstration was happening and we said, ‘Look, let’s just go there.’”Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, the director of the Jack Shainman Gallery, said “everyone felt a sense of urgency — even the owner of the gallery, Jack. He was the first one to say it should go.”Mr. Scott said the “response has been overwhelmingly positive.”

But it’s also been complicated. Some visitors to the Jack Shainman Gallery whom I met this week expressed dismay at the flag’s provocative language, but accepted that it was a necessary evil. “Dread Scott doesn’t make it easy for you,” said Janet Henry, an artist who was visiting the gallery. Her friend Kathy Reiss, a psychologist, agreed.“Since my mom was a Holocaust survivor, I grew up learning that the world is an unsafe place and this is just a reminder of that,” Ms. Reiss said. “I just feel really sad and angry that we still have to use language like this.” After a story about the flag was published by Fox News, the artist and the gallery started receiving numerous threats from people arguing that the flag promoted anti-police sentiments and should be taken down. Some had even suggested that the artist himself should be lynched; in response, the police put the gallery under special alert.“A few times a day the police will drive by the gallery,” said Ms. Bellorado-Samuels.She added that during a two-hour conversation with police officers concerning the flag, “They said, ‘We will see you at the next protest.

Be sure to come over and say hello.’” Sign Up for the Race/Related Newsletter Join a deep and provocative exploration of race with a diverse group of New York Times journalists. Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Standing outside the gallery below the flag, I wondered how people who saw it were coping with the terror it reflected.“I don’t feel safe anymore. Just waking up every morning wondering if I’m next,” said Chris McCormick, an architect who is black and visited the gallery on his lunch break to see the flag. “I even asked my boss if I could work from home.”Watching Mr. McCormick struggle to articulate the flag’s meaning to him, I could relate to how overcome with emotion he was. I think the best that art can do is force us to face our problems — within ourselves and within our society. It’s incredibly difficult to face such deeply ingrained failures, but either you’re on the side of taking it in, or you’re not.“