We warn you, this video you're about to see...
As a classically-trained journalist, the recent slate of videos showing police brutality directed toward Black men and boys gives me pause — so much violence and so much intrusion into the sacred last moments of people we’ve never met.
I feel guilty about that pause. If this is the reality for some people, shouldn’t we who don’t live in fear of this stand to witness? The Derek Chauvin’s trial (which is heading into closing arguments next week) has included multiple re-showings of video of George Floyd being slowly choked to death on the pavement. We have heard his cries and watched that knee press harder.
During breaks in the trial, we’ve watched 20-year old Daunte Wright being shot instead of tasered. The body cam video is choppy but disturbing. That shot killed him.
And then, on Thursday, a horrible body cam video of the March 29 shooting death of 13-year old Adam Toledo began circulating. Mr. Toledo was killed by a single shot to the chest after he was asked to stop by police, who were responding to shots having been fired in that neighborhood. Police have said Mr. Toledo had a gun. In a Thursday press conference, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, voice shaking:
"As a mom, this is not something you want children to see.”
Both Lightfoot and family called for Chicagoans to “express themselves peacefully,” but after so much blood, you can understand if they don’t.
Meanwhile, we listen to the televised warnings, we watch the videos on endless loop, and we wonder at the toll this takes on the family and loved ones. They’ve lost someone they loved already, under horrible conditions. Are we wrong to watch those final moments? Would it be better if we looked away? I honestly don’t know.
I feel so helpless. I vote, I share my opinions, I write to lawmakers, I protest and put signs on my front lawn. Still (being a spiritually-minded person) I have many conversations with the Mystery we have so many names for about the rampant violence and fear in our culture. I wonder what more I can do. I wonder whether anything I do makes any difference. Though I feel helpless, I stay with it and it stays with me. As the song by Jewell says, "We are tired, we are weary, but we aren't worn out." So it is with me.
I think that human beings in the US need to come to terms with the understanding that every tool has at least two ends. As you say, videos bear witness, but their power in rousing emotions can hurt the already-injured, and can numb the emotions as they accustom watchers to violence, and they are always from a source rather than from some divine perspective, and they are subject to editing. (I am not suggesting that there's anything fraudulent about the video showing the murder of Adam Toledo-- just talking about the medium.)
Similarly, if you don't count those killed by US armed forces you don't make the public aware of what they're paying for-- but people can shrug away human being as "mere numbers," and you can get a Lieutenant Calley trying to fill his quota.
Blame election results on candidates and you don't examine voting systems and who is or isn't enfranchised by them, and you place no expectation on voters to think about more than branding or team insignia.
More and more, I feel that human being in the United States busily turn so many things into trash in our efforts not to think or act like responsible producers of our economy and culture....