Why?
Why did I start posting names of black victims of police violence on Instagram?
It started with a post by NPR's Code Switch a few days after George Floyd was lynched, which contained “a (very non-comprehensive) list of names of black folks killed by the police since Eric Garner’s death in 2014”. (continued below)
The Code Switch podcast episode, A Decade of Watching Black People Die, examined, along with Jamil Smith, the proliferation of videoed police killings, the eerily familiar echoes of these stories, and the dangerous numbing effect of their coverage.
Rather than reposting I chose to post one name. I then decided to post another name each day until this became a routine. I began with Eric Garner’s name on June 4th, 2020. It’s been just over three months and I’m still not sure what I’m doing or why.
This practice has been a helpful daily reminder for me to pay attention, to give a shit. I’d like to think these are some poignant anti-racist actions, shining a light on racism and white supremacy, but the reverse is likely true. My own action feels like inaction. Looking back at over ninety posts makes me feel useless, like a farce, performative. Another blundering white voice in the void.
I’d like to think that once or twice, somebody swiped through one of these names and actually contemplated it for a few seconds. Maybe they considered how these names represent people who can no longer check their social media feed. People whose liberty and ultimately life was taken, stripped away by an officer acting as judge and executioner. Many without trial, under police custody, on the city pavement, behind bars, or in the “freedom” of their own bedroom.
I have come away with some observations, though:
• This list is beyond incomplete. What about the names of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries? Where are the names of the survivors, those brutally beaten, maimed, paralyzed, threatened, humiliated, discriminated, redlined and not killed? And of course, the list grows daily. Jacob Blake, Daniel Prude. The act of cataloguing is futile but just maybe, for me, it's begun to shape a sense of scale for this vast landscape of pain and suffering.
• Where the fuck was I in 2014, 2015, and 2016? I knew, vaguely, about Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Ferguson. Sure, Kaepernick was taking a knee, but did we really stop to ask why? The sheer number of black and brown bodies piling up on American streets during this period is beyond comprehension. Yet somehow our eyes were fixed on one orange body in a blue suit with pale yellow hair.
• I’ve googled many of these names, inadequately, and some anecdotal patterns emerge. Local news affiliate: Man shot at traffic stop. Small town paper: Woman killed in police custody. The follow up stories seldom get national attention. Additional details days later, another column. Months later a trial announced, family waiting. Months more the verdict. Families gutted, mourning, enraged. An attorney hired. An appeal. Innocence upheld. A final story with the weeping mother. Again, and again, and again.
I think I’m done posting names. I’ll pay attention beyond this news cycle, keep reading, occasionally screaming into the echo chamber. But more importantly, I need to stop and ask myself what else I could be doing. In the closing words of that Code Switch episode, Jamil Smith flips it back on the listener:
“It matters whether or not people who are not affected by this do something.”
The names keep coming, the posts and hashtags keep streaming, and though I'm trying to keep up and pay attention, I don't feel like I've done anything at all.
Noam Ron
September 6, 2020
Image c/o LA Johnson/NPR