CARTOON: “Liar, Liar”

From Clay Jones on his political cartoon “Liar, Liar,” the Milwaukee shooting, and how it sucks to be African American in Wisconsin

Milwaukee has been burning.

Protests turned to violence in the wake of the police shooting of a fleeing armed suspect in the city. The 23-year-old man shot was black. Police are reporting the officer who did the shooting is also black. Governor Scott Walker has reportedly activated the National Guard.

Police say there was a body camera on the officer that justifies the shooting as the suspect had turned toward the officer pointing his gun, but — surprise, surprise — the audio was off. Technical issues seem to be a common occurrence in these police shootings when they go back to examine police footage of the incidents.

Wisconsin has been rated as the worst state for African Americans. The report was conducted by opinion and financial news website 24/7 Wall St. (I’m not making these numbers up, people). The other states right behind are Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota, where it’s probably really swell to live if you’re white or the artist formerly living named Prince. Sixty-nine percent of the state’s black population lives in Milwaukee.

It probably doesn’t help the area That Milwaukee County Sheriff is David Clarke, also an African American, who loves to cite bogus statistics while denying the existence of racism and police brutality. Clarke has referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group and often calls them “sub-human creeps,” and “Black Lies Matter.” He loves Donald Trump and hates Beyonce (his panties are still in a bunch over her Super Bowl performance). He’s very popular with Republicans and spoke at their recent convention. No word yet on his opinion of Coldplay.

I had fun drawing pants on fire. A colleague of mine uses the publicity poster of the Jim Carrey movie “Liar, Liar,” about once every six months. Since the film came out in 1997, he must consider it a real classic and keep it between “Gone With The Wind” and “Casablanca” in his DVD collection — or in his case, VHS.

I almost gave the officer a Pinocchio nose, but I couldn’t stomach the concept. It seems every political cartoonist has drawn Pinocchio (some several times) over the past year. Was there a memo sent among my profession that we’re not supposed to be irreverent anymore that I missed?

claytoonz.com/2016/08/15/liar-liar

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