{"id":14566,"date":"2020-05-09T11:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-09T18:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14566"},"modified":"2020-05-09T11:03:02","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T18:03:02","slug":"it-could-be-something-we-didnt-see-on-the-tape-ahmaud-arbery-and-the-eternal-guilt-of-black-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/09\/it-could-be-something-we-didnt-see-on-the-tape-ahmaud-arbery-and-the-eternal-guilt-of-black-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"“It Could Be Something We Didn\u2019t See On The Tape”\u2014Ahmaud Arbery and the Eternal Guilt of Black Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 08, 2020 by Medium<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presumption of normality (let alone decency) is a luxury of privilege.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Christian Christensen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 16 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"To<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To accept the alternative\u2014the killing was planned and unprovoked\u2014is to expose the murder to be a product of a racist society. (Photo: Ahmaud Arbery\/Family photo)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will say that looks like a really good young guy. It\u2019s a really disturbing situation to me (\u2026) it could be something we didn\u2019t see on tape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Donald Trump made this comment<\/a> about the murder of US jogger Ahmaud Arbery<\/a> by a group of white men who stalked and shot him, he tapped into a long, ugly history of responding to the use of deadly force against black citizens by questioning the victims, and not the accused. By suggesting that something\u2014anything\u2014could have happened to make the killing of an unarmed black man defensible<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"1*p4PmEs0xev_7gcPPkkt36g.png\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That “it could be something we didn\u2019t see on the tape.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we didn\u2019t see on tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The un-taped life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The things that happen when the cameras aren\u2019t rolling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work. Playing with your kids. Happiness. Shopping. Studying. Grief. Showers. Boredom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except, for African-Americans such as Ahmaud Arbery, these things are rarely assumed to be part of the un-taped life<\/a>. The presumption of normality (let alone decency) is a luxury of privilege. Arbery\u2019s un-taped life is framed as a potentially unlimited collection of invisible transgressions and provocations. He could be a thief. Why was he there? Why didn\u2019t he comply with three armed men threatening him? What was he hiding? Even when white men film themselves stalking and murdering an unarmed black man, the internal logic of systemic racism dictates that the violent act so carefully catalogued must not, and cannot, be the whole story. Something that happened in the un-taped black life somehow forced the hand of those in the taped white life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, to accept the alternative\u2014the killing was planned and unprovoked\u2014is to expose the murder to be a product of a racist society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about how often the \u201cwhat we didn\u2019t see on tape\u201d angle, and all of the variations on that angle, have been invoked: Michael Brown<\/a> in Missouri; Oscar Grant<\/a> in California; Eric Garner<\/a> in New York; Eric Harris<\/a> in Oklahoma; Walter Scott<\/a> in South Carolina; Philando Castile<\/a> in Minnesota; Tamir Rice<\/a> in Ohio. Even when police officers are filmed choking an unarmed man<\/a> to death as he begs for his life, or are videotaped shooting an unarmed man in the back<\/a> as he runs away from the police after a traffic stop, questions on their un-taped life become the primary focus. Had they committed crimes before? Why were they engaged in illegal activity to begin with? Why were they even in that part of town at that time of day? Did they do drugs? Did they have jobs? Where are the parents? Do they take care of their kids?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, we are supposed to believe that it\u2019s not what you see in these videos\u2014men murdering unarmed men\u2014that\u2019s the story. It\u2019s what the videos do not show that\u2019s the real story. And, what is that story? Well, we can never know, as the men and women who could actually tell that story\u2014the story of their un-taped lives\u2014are now dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Trump\u2019s \u201cwhat we didn\u2019t see on the tape\u201d line is a Catch-22 for African-Americans, an eternal Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for white privilege and a key element in the perverted, self-perpetuating mechanism of discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Christian<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Christian Christensen<\/strong><\/a>, American in Sweden, is Professor of Journalism at Stockholm University. Follow him on Twitter:\u00a0@ChrChristensen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2020 Medium<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 08, 2020 by Medium The presumption of normality (let alone decency) is a luxury of privilege. by Christian Christensen  16 Comments To accept the alternative\u2014the killing was planned and unprovoked\u2014is to expose the murder to be a product of a racist society. (Photo: Ahmaud Arbery\/Family photo) \u201cI will say that… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14567,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566\/revisions\/14567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}