I Can't Unsee This....

 By Marilyn Moore

Full disclosure:  I sometimes write to figure out what I’m thinking.  This is one of those times.  This is my brain in process…not anywhere near a finished piece of work.  

I can’t unsee this….the video of five Memphis police officers, beating Tyre Nichols, a beating that would result in his death three days later.  The video was released by the Memphis Police Department Friday night, with warnings of its graphic content.  Graphic it is…all the horror of night time, bright street lights and police lights, and the sinking feeling that comes when you know something awful is about to happen, and you can’t stop it. 

The facts are not in dispute.  Tyre Nichols, a young Black man, was on his way to his parents’ home, 8:30 at night, just a few blocks from home.  He was stopped for reckless driving, though there is no evidence that he was driving recklessly.  He was pulled from his car, attacked, he managed to escape, he was tracked down, and in his mother’s words, they beat him like a piñata.  He was kicked, he was hit, he was beaten with a baton, he was sprayed with pepper spray…and when he was totally unable to respond, he was propped against a police car, and it took more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.  Three days later he died.  The police officers, who are also Black, have been fired and charged with second degree murder, and the special unit of which they were a part has been disbanded.  

The actions of the police officers have been universally condemned.  The Memphis police chief described them as acts that defy humanity, a disregard for life.  The Memphis Police Union, the national police association, the Memphis Mayor and City Council members, President Biden, the NFL, and most anyone else who could claim a little airtime has joined in the statements of horror and dismay.  And how can we not….

Anticipating protest marches and gatherings, civic and political leaders asked people to protest without violence.  Mr. Nichols’ mother and stepfather asked for that, showing much more grace and restraint than one might expect, given that their son had been savagely and viciously beaten. Remarkably, most protests have been just that…peaceful, without violence.  And Mrs. Wells, Tyre’s mother, in another moment of grace, expressed sympathy for the families of the five officers, who, as she described it, have been shamed by the actions of their sons.  

There will, of course, be much more to this story, for months to come.  There will be reviews, investigations, trials, and most likely sentences.  There will be revisions in hiring, supervision, plans, and training in the Memphis Police Department.  The Memphis City Council will consider whether changes in city ordinances are needed, and the Tennessee legislature will do the same at the state level.  Across the country, similar reviews and possible revisions will be considered.  

I’m not an expert on any of this, and I have no informed opinion as to what systems changes need to be made.  I just keep seeing that video in my mind’s eye, and wondering how it is that human beings can inflict this much pain and damage on another human being.  The psychologists and criminologists will have expertise to bring to this question, and I’m sure we’ll hear from them as this case and its aftermath plays out in the coming months.  What I’m quite sure of is that this brutality is part of a larger culture, the one in which we all live, and to which we all contribute in some way…and which we can all impact so that it’s a little more gentle, a little more kind, a little more humane.

I’m reminded of the work of Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer prize-winner and author of Caste, in which she writes about the caste system in India, the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany, and the system of enslavement of Black people in the American south for more than 250 years…and that those systems, formally or informally, are still in place today.  It’s far more than I can summarize with any degree of academic integrity in this blog, but I commend it to you…it won’t make you feel better, but it will give you solid history and scholarship for thought.

For tonight, though, this endless month of January is drawing to a close. In Memphis, there’s a mom whose son will never again come to her home for dinner, and who will never be able to unsee that video of her son as his life is literally beaten out of his body.   We’ve learned that Tyre Nichols was a father, a skateboarder, a photographer, and a guy who loved to take photos of sunsets. The photograph at the top of this blog is one of his; see more at his website, thiscaliforniakid2.wixsite.com.  I hope his mother can see in his photographs her son, the vibrant young man and how he lived, not just the video of how he died.  I hope we all can….