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Is it the Cops or the Cameras?
Putting Police Brutality in Historical Context
Author’s note: In light of today’s continuing “uprising” of black, brown and white people against police brutality and even the whole idea of “policing,” I offer this re-print of an earlier essay (September, 2019). The goal here is to contextualize what we are witnessing now on a daily basis.
Many argue that we have reached a “tipping point” or “watershed” moment and/or that an actual, new and effective “movement” has finally arrived, and that real change or real reform is upon us.
But given this history, I am not so sure or so sanguine. Oppressive cops have always been problematic for black people. Anti-blackness is built into the DNA of this nation-state. That is, the “problem,” therefore is not just bad cops but the whole idea of whiteness itself.
In the dim-to-dazzling light of now almost daily videos and images of black people being brutalized by America’s “finest,” the question arises: Are we really in the midst of a surge in police brutality against black folk? Or, has the widespread use of more and more sophisticated yet user-friendly video and audio technologies simply made capturing and documenting these “events” easier and more likely?
