Angry: Why I Won't Watch the Videos

I have not watched the George Floyd video.  I did not watch the Ahmaud Arbery shooting or the Rayshard Brooks shooting. Same for Philando Castille.  Everything I know about these incidents I've gathered from reading or looking at the still photos.  And those are bad enough.

Normally, I like to see things for myself.  Let me see the raw footage and draw my own conclusions, rather than the edited clip the media is running with.  But when it comes to these kinds of videos, I just won't do it.  I don't need that trauma in my life. I know what happened. I don't need to see it. In general our culture has historically taken a rather careless attitude toward black and brown bodies at their the most vulnerable. Whether it's a black man in his last moments of life paraded before the world, or the nude bodies of brown people from other cultures plastered across the pages of a magazine (images that would be considered inappropriate if the bodies were white) the message is sent that black people are somehow less worthy or needful of privacy and protection.

That said, it's good that footage is out there. But it's not for black people.  We know our own suffering well enough.  We do not need to see a video loop of bodies that look like ours being desecrated. It's not good for our mental health (something that lynching parties have always known).  But the proof of the evil should be out there. And there are people who should watch these videos, in the hope that the sight will jolt sleepy consciences into an awakened state. When Emmett Till's mother elected for an open casket, she wasn't doing that for her friends and family.  She was doing it so the world would see what they had done to her son.

For those of us whose identities don't allow us the luxury of ever looking away from the destruction of black lives in this country, I think it's okay not to look. For everyone else, a good hard look is necessary.