Visualizing the unequal impacts of gun violence and the search for peace in America's cities
Over the past decade, gun violence has risen to the forefront of the American political and social agenda. Yet the story of American gun violence is focused on mass shootings that, despite being horrifyingly symbolic of the country’s gun crisis, represent less than 1% of firearm deaths every year. Weapons of Mass Injustice is a visual essay highlighting forms of gun violence that often go overlooked. The project examines the unequal impacts of this violence and its connection to the criminalization of Black and Brown youth in the US.
Using a scroll-based storytelling or “scrollytelling” approach, the project visually deconstructs federal firearm and criminal justice data that reveal not only the magnitude of the country’s gun crisis but the deep racial inequities of daily gun violence and policing in the US. Readers are asked to question their beliefs about people at the center of daily gun violence and the collective action taken by law enforcement, city governments, and communities to bring about peace.
The Weapons of Mass Injustice project stems from a longterm collaboration with the UC Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and Advance Peace, an organization dedicated to ending cyclical and retaliatory gun violence in American urban neighborhoods. Since 2018 I have supported UC Berkeley's research on the impacts of Advance Peace interventions. My work in this realm includes custom data visualizations, web application design, and dashboard development as part of the Advance Peace data ecosystem. It is an honor to support this work in raising awareness around gun violence prevention strategies and in making data accessible for life-saving work.
