REBOOT: Why I’m Not Watching Any More Videos of Black Death

I’M GOING LIVE ON WEDNESDAY TO CELEBRATE 5 YEARS OF SARN!

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

This issue came up again recently, and I realised I still feel the same. I don’t need to see any more videoed violence and trauma. I’ve seen enough and it’s seared on my consciousness. Nothing much has changed since I first wrote this, except that more people racialised as Black have been brutalised and killed.

The other day I was scrolling through my Twitter feed [2025 update: remember when that was a pleasant experience instead of the cesspit it later became? I’m hanging out on Mastodon these days.] when I saw someone saying: “Oh my word, not another one.” I scrolled a little bit further, and I soon found the name of another young Black man who had been shot by the police. I did a little bit of googling, learned a little bit more about the incident and had a brief moment of mourning.

You know what I did NOT do?

I didn’t go and watch the video. And I may never watch another of those videos again. Here's why I feel that way.

First of all, watching the video is not going to tell me anything new. I have already seen too many of them, even though I never seek them out. I can never unsee the video of George Floyd being brutalised, or the video of Rodney King or any of the videos I've seen over the decades. And I have a healthy imagination. I honestly never need to see another one to understand what it feels like to see untrammeled violence being visited on the bodies of men and women racialised as Black.

The second reason is that it's traumatic. Every time you see another of those incidents, it adds to the decades and generations of trauma that people who share my identity have experienced. And it brings up my own personal experiences of racism, which were painful enough the first time round, thank you very much.

While I'm on the subject please don't make it part of your allyship and advocacy journey to send me videos of these incidents, just so I know you’re aware of what’s happening. I already know. Aside from videos of Black people being killed, I don't need to see videos of Black people are being treated badly, of Black people being called the N word.

I don’t need video evidence of any of those things. I have lived most of those myself. I have friends and family who have done the same. We have talked about it. [2025 update: I feel even more strongly about this now.]

So, if you find those videos fascinating, go ahead and watch them and keep them to yourself. But don't send them to me. If you want to bring something to my attention, it is enough to ask if I saw the news about whatever the name or incident is. I know how to use search engines. I will find the details in a form that I can easily consume while avoiding the graphic videos, such as a news story with still images, or no images at all. [2025 update: I’m not a big fan of reenactments of enslavement, either.]

There’s so much going on that I don't see every single news story of brutality against people racialised as Black. The scale of it is awful, but I’m glad I don’t see it all because I think the tide of negativity would overwhelm me. As Black people, it is important to protect our inner peace and emotional well being. In choosing not to watch any more of those videos, that's exactly what I'm doing. I already know and feel the brutality viscerally. I don’t need it seared into my eyeballs. There's only so much pain a person can cope with.

Global Majority people, what's your take on this? Are you still watching the videos of Black people dying? Or are you also choosing to avoid them to stay in balance?

[2025 update: Ask yourself, what’s your motivation for sending those videos to people racialised as Black. If it’s to show that you’re woke, no need. Your actions will speak for themselves.]

As always, this is my personal opinion. Others may disagree, because we are not a monolith. Thank you for reading.

Sharon

P.S. Here’s a small selection of the incidents that I’ve already written about in this newsletter:

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2022,2025. All Rights Reserved.

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I am an anti-racism educator and activist, the author of “I’m Tired of Racism”, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast.

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2025. All Rights Reserved. This newsletter is published on beehiiv (affiliate link).