Throughout the summer of 2020, echoes of Till’s murder filled the news as journalists published and republished numerous videos of police murders of Black Americans. These videos ignited mass protests and raised awareness about police brutality. On rare occasions, they led to disciplinary action or criminal convictions of the violent officers.
But the endless stream of police brutality videos in 2020 revealed some of the pitfalls of publicly showcasing graphic acts of violence. News outlets rarely reported on the victims outside of those moments of pain and death. The public primarily remembered them as helpless and passive. Again and again, their vulnerable experiences became fodder for public consumption.
In a 2020 issue of the Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, Danielle Taylor argued that the public’s appetite for watching these deaths echoed the way lynchings of Black men drew crowds of white onlookers who treated these murders as a form of entertainment.7 It isn’t hard to imagine a white supremacist watching George Floyd’s last breaths with twisted satisfaction; in some police circles, an image of him dying has even become a meme to laugh at.8
Critics have voiced dual concerns about the cumulative psychological impact of so much footage of police brutality. First, the videos can cause second-hand trauma, especially for Black Americans who worry that they or their loved ones might be the next victim to go viral.9 Second, the videos may also desensitize viewers to violence, making police killings of Black people feel normal and even acceptable to much of the public.10
I don’t believe that the answer is to hide away the most gruesome consequences of violence. Neither does Danielle Taylor, who refrained from calling for body camera footage to be censored. Rather, she suggested instead that it’s possible to find a middle ground between the competing demands for sacred remembrance and honest truth-telling. “I make a plea,” she wrote, “that we offer these videos more reverence.”12
Witnessing the remains of Auschwitz victims has reminded me of the need for care and intention when considering whether to publish shocking material. When weighing the benefits and drawbacks of putting corpses on display, journalists should consult family members and fellow survivors when possible. We should also consider the cultural context of victims, factoring in widely held beliefs about death and nudity within their communities.
Additionally, we should evaluate the likelihood that viewing the corpses will actually inform a public conversation. While footage of a police killing can bring attention to tactics like chokeholds used widely by law-enforcement officials, I am not convinced that displaying a pile of ashes contributes much to the public’s understanding of the Holocaust.
Perhaps most importantly, we should make our best effort to depict people as more than just dead bodies. We can pay close attention to the details that made victims of terror and tragedy—who they were. After all, their humanity is a critical part of the truth we are obligated to tell. Emmett Till’s first word was “Jell-O” according to Till-Mobley’s memoir. He once tried and failed to teach his mom how to dance the Bunny Hop. He made a habit of steaming his freshly folded laundry on the radiator to get all the wrinkles out.13 Akiba Drumer, as Wiesel remembers him, clung to a belief in divine justice for much of his time in Auschwitz. Drumer, Wiesel wrote, would sing Hasidic melodies and “break our hearts with his deep, grave voice.”14
Had Drumer’s corpse been treated according to Jewish tradition, community members would have ritually cleansed and prepared his body for burial through a process called tahara. At the end of tahara, those involved ask the deceased for mechila, or forgiveness, in case they have unwittingly made a mistake during the ritual.15
Journalists too must acknowledge that harm is inevitable in our work, and that, when we tell sensitive and traumatic stories, we may be making the wrong choices. We can acknowledge our own fallibility by asking for feedback from the living—and forgiveness from the dead.
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Laura Glesby was a 2024 FASPE Journalism Fellow. She is a staff reporter for the New Haven Independent.
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7. Danielle Taylor, “From Lynching to Livestreams: Trauma Porn and the Historic Trivializing of Black Death,” Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, październik 2020, https://jolt.richmond.edu/2020/10/14/the-revolution-should-be-cautiously-televised/.
8. Emma Ockerman, “Cops Keep Getting Accused of Sharing Racist George Floyd Memes,” Vice, 25 lutego 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/cops-keep-getting-accused-of-sharing-racist-george-floyd-memes/.