The cartoon in Monday morning’s Boston Globe was incendiary and seriously irresponsible, especially given the events in Milwaukee over the weekend. No system of justice can work when assumptions are made before facts are known. Most of us acknowledge there are serious problems with the police and the black community: We have been appalled at some recent events and insist always on police and judicial balance. Your cartoon, however, indicted all of the police, all of the justice system, anticipating injustice even where you do not know it exists. The police cannot function with those assumptions on the part of the public and neither can the courts. You inflamed with stereotype and assumption, exactly what you insist the courts and police not do.

In printing that cartoon, you confirmed to every black person dealing with the police that their interactions will be met with violence. You don’t know that. But you must be aware of the rage you feed and the danger it represents to not just the police, but to every state resident, especially black ones.

Jeffrey Churchill

Mansfield