In America, Black people know they’re seen as a threat just because of the color of their skin. It’s not just a feeling; the statistics back it up. Especially when it comes to police brutality. Black people are three times more likely than white people to be killed by police when they’re unarmed and not threatening. But compared to white people, Black people are 50% less likely to have a gun. The challenge was to change the narrative and spark change while not demonizing the police. To shine a light on the issue, we created a fact-based campaign that attached to the root of the problem—implicit bias. With the support of police officers, we created this campaign, which led to a police-specific implicit-bias program developed by racial-sensitivity-training organization Courageous Conversation Global Foundation.

Many times when officers kill an unarmed Black person they use the excuse, “I thought they had a gun,” when in reality, the victims were unarmed and not threatening. We wanted to raise awareness around this issue to spark change within the justice system in America, by shining a light on how perception can turn deadly.

The campaign shows the sad absurdity of a candy bar turning into a gun when in a Black person’s hand. We launched with a film that shows a man being confronted by police after purchasing candy, because what is innocuous in the hands of a white persona is seen as dangerous when in the hands of a Black person. We also created outdoor boards with twisted visuals that showcased products that have been mistaken as a gun, like a cell phone, or candy, and labeled them as “Not a Gun.”

We were aware of the issue of police brutality in America. Some of us actually live it. But the stats put into perspective how deep the issue is. A year prior to the murder of George Floyd, we internally gathered data for this campaign, which included focus groups. A number of stats stood out. We concluded that we couldn’t just make people aware of the issue; we needed to help change the system. We focused on implicit bias and de-escalation training for police officers—the implicit bias being what makes officers see a gun when there isn’t one, and de-escalation training being what would help in a hostile situation. Fixing those two issues has been statistically proven to not only help save Black lives but also help save police officers’ lives.

You can see the stats and quotes from police officers at NotaGun.org.

Released in February 2020, the campaign shows the absurdity of how a candy bar in a white person’s hand can turn into a gun when in a Black person’s hand. It was initially focused on Austin, Texas.

Sadly, as the campaign was launching, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were murdered. So we continued, responding in real time to what was happening in culture. We addressed Ahmaud’s murder with a film that asks for racially charged murders to end. When Trump held a rally after not addressing the murders, we created newspaper ads that were used as protest signs. And leading up to the election, we made political yard signs showing the names of police-brutality victims to remind people that their vote affects Black lives.

So what started as a local campaign in Austin met the moment and turned into a national campaign in the fight against racial injustice.