Column: White people don’t understand the trauma of viral police-killing videos

[sheshe2]

BY Monnica Williams October 6, 2016 at 9:00 AM EDT



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According to Dr. Jonathan Kanter, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, white people underestimate the severity and impact of these videos on people of color:

“We see the videos and we are authentically horrified and saddened by what we see. But many of us have the ultimate privilege of changing the channel, clicking on another Facebook post. We can make it go away if we choose and the horror of the scene is quickly forgotten. We can leave it behind and go about our day. And most white people don’t attune to just how different an experience it is for black people.”
— Dr. Jonathan Kanter, University of Washington

Kanter notes that white people are so coded not to associate themselves with being black that it is easy to distance from it. “That person getting shot doesn’t look like me, sound like me or act like me.” It can be like watching a horror movie. “It’s not about me.” Most white people in the United States have no black friends to even talk to about any of this so there is no easy way to get their perspective (Ingram, 2014).

If you are a white person, try this simple empathy experiment: Imagine every one of those police killings you’ve seen in the last several years, but change the images. Make the man getting shot look like you, your brother or your son. Make the girlfriend or wife look like your wife, your sister, your daughter. Imagine that these videos unpredictably show up in your Facebook stream, or assault you on the evening news, without warning, week after week. There seems to be no end to them, and there seems to be no way to predict when it will happen. Imagine that you can’t hide them from your son or daughter if you have one, because you’re scared to not tell them about it. Imagine that you feel you have to expose your child to the videos, because they may not be safe if they don’t know what the world is really like.


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So should these videos be released? They have to be in order to show the public what’s going on and hold law enforcement accountable. I remind myself that there are good police officers, but these videos can help us see which ones aren’t doing their jobs. Despite the pain of viewing, many people of color want the videos to be shown for the same reason Emmett Till’s mother chose to have an open casket funeral – so the world could see what horrible torture had been done to her little boy for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/column-trauma-police-dont-post-videos/

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The empathy experiment. I think many of us should try just that.
The article also states that...

And it’s not just black people – these things are happening to Hispanic people, Native Americans and the mentally ill. The stigmatized and disenfranchised among us. I feel solidarity with all of them.

My heart hurts.

[yodermon]

1. The ending of "A Time to Kill" comes to mind