“WHY SHARING THE MCKINNEY VIDEO IS “EXPOSING” RACISM AT THE EXPENSE OF BLACK WOMEN”
“what is less obvious is the problem with our entitlement to videos of abuse and trauma. What is also fucked up is our inability to fully believe in the existence of such violence — to only be “convinced” of the “details” of what happened — until after we have watched, shared, and made viral another video of another Black women being abused.
In the last year, we’ve watched Ranay Rice being beaten and dragged, Marlene Pinnock pummeled on a highway by a California Highway Patrol officer, and now an officer digging his body into Dajerria Becton’s bare back. We share Black women’s assaults online, and they become commodified as news items, and are broadcasted globally on major networks. As Hannah Giorgis wrote for The Guardian last fall after the Rice video came out: “We viciously ingest every vivid detail of women’s victimization, line our stomachs with their blood and tell ourselves we’re watching because we want people to be ‘educated’. If only people could see enough black eyes, bloodied faces and broken ribs, the theory goes. Then they would know the truth, we tell ourselves. Only then would they care.””
Mmmmm.
All of this — not ready to comment yet but it strikes a chord with one of my innumerable little uncomfortabilities.
I hate watching those videos.