Philadelphia law enforcement explain challenges of living black and blue
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw s first year on the job has been filled with challenges.
There was a budget crisis made worse by the pandemic and then a summer filled with protests about social justice and police reform.
As the city s first Black woman to hold the position, she also finds herself weighing the issues of race and law enforcement as it pertains to the high profile deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks among others.
Living black and blue as it has been called has raised questions in her mind but has also incentivized her to be a stronger leader for change amongst her peers.
How many different t-shirts have you worn over the past four years? Forty-seven? Two hundred? Maybe even…a thousand?
West Philly artist Lori Waselchuk put on more than 1,420 distinct t-shirts between Jan. 21, 2017 and Jan. 20, 2021, one for almost every day of Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency. She only missed a few weeks, during pre-COVID travel.
Every shirt bore a sociopolitical statement, and the effort became Waselchuk’s personal form of resistance to the administration. Now that he’s out of office, she’s using the project to give back.
“I came up with the project to insert a daily set of rules where I would be both learning and then communicating what I learned every day of Trump’s presidency,” said the photographer, 56. “So I couldn’t let it go in the background.”