Media Source:

Portland Tribune

Media URL:

https://www.portlandtribune.com/opinion/my-opinion-new-art-exhibition-raises-questions-about-policing-in-portland/article_1717dd8a-cb94-11ee-b84f-ff612e5a6d47.html

Date:

2024/02/20

Summary:

“Policing Justice,” an art show at PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Feb 23 to May 19, 15 N.E. Hancock St.), asks us to think about who the police are protecting and from whom. It might seem like an unusual question for an art exhibition to pose. But, as Lewis & Clark Professor Elliot Young demonstrates, it’s one worth asking in Portland, where for over 170 years, the police have disproportionately targeted people deemed undesirable by those in power, because of race (Indigenous and Black people), class (the poor, the unhoused, and labor activists), or people with mental illness.