Look Away, Look Away | Black Writers Week

Like most artists, McQueen was inexorably drawn to the taboo. He dared to revisit The Troubles, he earned a dreaded NC-17 rating for his sophomore effort (“Shame”) making a film about sex addiction just as sex was being ushered off American theatrical screens altogether, and now he was making a film about the subject most of us in this country would rather not deal with or think about. 

McQueen’s 2013 film was a box office and critical success and it led to a renewed interest in exploring this tragic history. Perhaps the film’s success had the unforeseen consequence of emboldening the stance that we had finally seen enough of slavery. It was around this time that I began to see this position be spoken in public and on social media. For an African American of my generation, this took me aback. I was brought up with the ethos that as ugly as aspects of our history were, we had a duty to face it. Like many of my generation I watched all six episodes of “Eyes on the Prize” (first volume) and made sure my own son saw it as well. But something was changing. And this ethos was being displaced by something else. People were no longer even paying lip service to bearing witness to history, now they were flat out saying “no more.” What changed?

Just months after “12 Years A Slave” made Oscar history (the ceremony took place on March 2, 2014), we began to see the killings. Less than six months after that film won the big prize, Eric Garner’s murder (July 17, 2014) in Staten Island was recorded and went viral. Michael Brown was murdered one month later in Ferguson, Missouri. No tape of that murder, but Ferguson became the national nexus for the fight against police acting with impunity and treating Black lives as cheap and expendable. 

In short, McQueen’s beautifully crafted but emotionally excoriating triumph coincided with a wave of images of Black Death. These images are nearly inescapable: they visit us as we have a drink or a quick bite through televised news, they snake across our social media timelines, and they play in our minds whether we want them too or not. And once this wave begins, it doesn’t really stop. Philando Castile’s murder (July 6, 2016) was even live streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend. 

These videos have taken a psychic toll. And many have begun to wonder if perhaps the perpetual “toughening up” that Black people have experienced in America may be more deleterious than we want to admit. Perhaps that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And perhaps that which doesn’t kill you depletes you before the next inevitable assault. 

These videos are horrific, but it is indisputable that they have been a major factor in forcing this country to have a conversation about law enforcement and race that is long overdue. I find it hard to believe the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd (May 25, 2020) would have happened without this terrible montage to which we have been forced to bear witness. It is incredibly upsetting for many to accept this. Words should be enough. But they are not. Images have a power all their own. That’s why in 1955 a grieving mother named Mamie Till insisted on an open casket funeral to show what the world had done to her beautiful son. This simple but painful act helped galvanize change in America.