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

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Hello 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.

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

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.

There’s Nothing New to Learn

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.

No More Trauma

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.