{"id":21345,"date":"2020-07-15T22:11:44","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T22:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21345"},"modified":"2020-07-19T14:01:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T14:01:41","slug":"smartphone-witnessing-becomes-synonymous-with-black-patriotism-after-george-floyds-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/smartphone-witnessing-becomes-synonymous-with-black-patriotism-after-george-floyds-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Smartphone witnessing becomes synonymous with Black patriotism after George Floyd&#8217;s death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/allissa-v-richardson-1068279\">Allissa V. Richardson<\/a>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-southern-california-annenberg-school-for-communication-and-journalism-2771\">University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A flashbulb emits a high-pitched hum. A photograph of the legendary 19th-century abolitionist and newspaperman Frederick Douglass fades in on-screen.<\/p>\n<p>We hear the \u201cHamilton\u201d alumnus actor Daveed Diggs before we see him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat, to my people, is the Fourth of July?\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE\">Diggs asks<\/a> in a plaintive voiceover, as a police siren and the opening chords of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s rendition of \u201cThe Star Spangled Banner\u201d clash aurally.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WuCeUyItpzE?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">\u2018What, to my people, is the Fourth of July?\u2019<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In just two minutes and 19 seconds, the new <a href=\"https:\/\/m4bl.org\/\">Movement for Black Lives<\/a> short film provides a highlight reel of African American oppression that spans 400 years.<\/p>\n<p>The juxtapositions are jarring in the Independence Day-themed video. A historic <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=23\">image of a Black toddler picking cotton<\/a> slams into a modern picture of a <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=24\">masked Black boy marching in protest<\/a>. Imagery of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=15\">fireworks at the Lincoln Memorial<\/a> follows footage of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=12\">flash grenades<\/a> being lobbed at protesters. Regal shots of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=20\">Black soldiers standing in formation<\/a> dissolve into a forlorn image of a <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=28\">homeless Black veteran<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=84\">Hurricane Katrina<\/a> footage. <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=40\">Amy Cooper in Central Park<\/a> footage. Photos of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=41\">slaves at work<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/WuCeUyItpzE?t=43\">Emmett Till<\/a>\u2019s remains. Police in riot gear. And so much more.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps what is most remarkable about this short film, however, is not the sheer volume of source material with which the producers had to work. It\u2019s that this film is rooted in a concept I call \u201cBlack witnessing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This patriotic form of looking, which documents human rights injustices against Black people, dates back to the days of Frederick Douglass \u2013 and it may just be the crowning achievement of the Movement for Black Lives.<\/p>\n<h2>What is Black witnessing?<\/h2>\n<p>In my book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/global.oup.com\/academic\/product\/bearing-witness-while-black-9780190935535\">Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism<\/a>,\u201d I defined Black witnessing as a defiant, investigative gaze that has three qualities.<\/p>\n<p>First, Black witnessing glares back at authorities in times of crisis or protest, using any available medium that it can to track violence against Black people. In the days of Frederick Douglass, the medium was the <a href=\"https:\/\/docsouth.unc.edu\/neh\/douglass\/douglass.html\">slave narrative<\/a> or the Black <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/americanexperience\/features\/abolitionists-douglass-published-north-star\/\">newspaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>[<em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/us\/newsletters\/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&amp;utm_medium=inline-link&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter-text&amp;utm_content=experts\">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter and get expert takes on today\u2019s news, every day.<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n<p>During the civil rights movement, Black activists aimed to appear on the 15-minute evening news broadcasts on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/08821127.2020.1715328?journalCode=uamj20\">television<\/a> to highlight sit-ins or marches. Now, freedom fighters have smartphones to <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-cellphone-videos-of-black-peoples-deaths-should-be-considered-sacred-like-lynching-photographs-139252\">capture fatal police encounters<\/a> or die-in demonstrations.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pll_5s10ils?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A CBS News report looks at how the civil rights movement used the media to deliver its message across America.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>With these media-making tools, Black witnessing achieves its second characteristic. It forges a historic narrative that links new atrocities against African Americans, such as police brutality, with the original corporeal sins against Black people: slavery and lynching.<\/p>\n<p>Many Americans now may connect the killings of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin together, for example, even though the boys died more than 50 years apart, since <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/4228372\/trayvon-martin-emmett-till-video\/\">Black witnesses talk about their deaths<\/a> as part of an ongoing racialized saga, rather than a mere isolated incident.<\/p>\n<p>This spirit carries through the July 4 Movement for Black Lives video too, as it jumps back and forth through time to reimagine Frederick Douglass\u2019 July 5, 1852 speech, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/aia\/part4\/4h2927t.html\">The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro<\/a>,\u201d through Daveed Diggs\u2019 poetic voice.<\/p>\n<p>The third quality of modern Black witnessing is that all of these historic narratives \u2013 and the viral messaging for which the Movement for Black Lives is so well known \u2013 rely on Twitter as its key distribution platform. The social network is like an ad-hoc Black news wire service that bypasses the gatekeeping role of the news media.<\/p>\n<p>At the height of the George Floyd protests, for example, people tweeted the hashtag <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23BlackLivesMatter\">#BlackLivesMatter<\/a> roughly 47.8 million times on Twitter from May 26 to June 7, which represents record level use since the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2020\/06\/10\/blacklivesmatter-surges-on-twitter-after-george-floyds-death\/\">Pew Research Center<\/a> started tracking the hashtag in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>These data mirror <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/07\/03\/us\/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html\">recent polls<\/a> that indicate 15 million to 26 million people have demonstrated in more than 550 U.S. cities since George Floyd\u2019s death, making Black Lives Matter the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/07\/03\/us\/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html\">largest social movement in U.S. history<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2020\/06\/10\/blacklivesmatter-surges-on-twitter-after-george-floyds-death\/ft_2020-06-10_blm_01_new\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/ft_2020.06.10_BLM_01_new.png?w=640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Black witnessing as the responsibility of patriots<\/h2>\n<p>In my book I argue that we are living in an era of heightened Black witnessing, the likes of which we have never seen before, thanks to the perfect storm of smartphones, social media and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2017\/08\/29\/views-of-racism-as-a-major-problem-increase-sharply-especially-among-democrats\/\">America\u2019s changing attitudes<\/a> toward racial justice.<\/p>\n<p>During Frederick Douglass\u2019 lifetime, for example, Black slaves could not gaze upon one another as they were being beaten or otherwise punished, lest they incur the wrath of the master themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, in the days of lynching, there were no Black people on the fringes of the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-cellphone-videos-of-black-peoples-deaths-should-be-considered-sacred-like-lynching-photographs-139252\">murderous mob photographs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But now, for the first time, African Americans can use their smartphones to be there, physically, in a moment of shared trauma. Though it is excruciatingly painful to hit \u201crecord\u201d during a violent police encounter, the Black witness is saying to the victim: \u201cI will not leave you alone in your final moments. I will tell your family what happened. I will hold police accountable. I will say your name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Independence Day 2020 was the perfect time to reevaluate what all of the Black witnesses of centuries past have tried to tell America. From slave narratives to smartphones, they have highlighted the cruel hypocrisy that exists when the country celebrates freedom for some in the U.S., and bondage for others.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-left zoomable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip\"><img src=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=756&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=756&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=756&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=950&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=950&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/346140\/original\/file-20200707-194423-l0wno9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=950&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Frederick Douglass, a powerful abolitionist orator and writer.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/news-photo\/portrait-of-frederick-douglass-american-abolitionist-and-news-photo\/515448848\">Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Movement for Black Lives video is a true exercise in Black witnessing. It glares back at the July 4 national holiday. It\u2019s gone viral on Twitter and YouTube. And it connects our nation\u2019s current moment to Frederick Douglass\u2019 1852 speech. He delivered it to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordreference.com\/view\/10.1093\/oi\/authority.20110803100425400\">Ladies\u2019 Anti-Slavery Society<\/a> in Rochester, New York, amid a <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.nytimes.com\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2013\/07\/28\/nyregion\/heat-struck-july-1852.html\">record-breaking, statewide heat wave<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As Douglass gazed around the room at his audience on that day, I like to imagine that he dabbed sweat from his brow before he exhorted: \u201cWhat, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? \u2026 This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By the time Douglass finished his fiery oration, he used the word \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/aia\/part4\/4h2927t.html\">witness<\/a>\u201d himself, pledging never to leave the work of abolishing slavery in his lifetime. He added: \u201cAllow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Black witnessing, therefore, is not a denouncement of one\u2019s patriotism; it is an exercise of it. When African Americans press \u201crecord\u201d to film police brutality, they are calling for accountability. They are standing in the gap for the dead, who can no longer speak. And they are, perhaps most importantly, challenging a nation not to look away.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/142153\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/allissa-v-richardson-1068279\">Allissa V. Richardson<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Journalism, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-southern-california-annenberg-school-for-communication-and-journalism-2771\">University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is republished from <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/smartphone-witnessing-becomes-synonymous-with-black-patriotism-after-george-floyds-death-142153\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allissa V. Richardson, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism A flashbulb emits a high-pitched hum. A photograph of the legendary 19th-century abolitionist and newspaperman Frederick Douglass fades in on-screen. We hear the \u201cHamilton\u201d alumnus actor Daveed Diggs before we see him. \u201cWhat, to my people, is the Fourth of July?\u201d Diggs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[2763,3846,6609,1919,8131,8225,8272,6252,8273,8352],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21373,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345\/revisions\/21373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}