Ahmaud Arbery's shooting video highlights the historic brutality and power of lynching imagery
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Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Summary
And yet, none were documented so thoroughly as the lynched bodies of black men.Photography was a relatively new technology at the time, and white people put it to use documenting their crimes, taking photos of themselves smiling next to brutalized black bodies, often beaten beyond recognition. An argument can be made that the videos of black death in this century serve the same purpose and function as the publication of the lynching photos of Jesse Washington in 1919.The NAACP’s publication and use of the photos complicates and subverts the narrative of lynching photos as tools of white supremacy. Instead of a call to action, these videos of lynchings help further the white supremacist agenda of terror.So can these videos — and their power — be reclaimed?Yes, but we as white people cannot do that — we must follow the lead of our black brothers and sisters, and understand their terror as the price they pay for simply existing.
As said here by Dianna Anderson