Yohuru Williams, PhD, distinguished university chair and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, recently spoke with the Star Tribune about the power of cellphone videos as modern tools for civil rights, showing how they help expose racial injustice and empower young people to document the truth.
From the story:
A cellphone video taken by an alert but horrified Minnesota high school student proved that a sworn, licensed police officer knelt on the neck of a prone subject to restrain him. ...
The lens can’t lie.
“Cellphones have literally leveled the playing field. Video validates what our grandmothers and our grandmothers’ mothers said and what we knew intimately. We weren’t believed because we didn’t have evidence. Now we do,” said Yohuru Williams, distinguished university chair, professor of history and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas. ...
But doubters can’t deny what recording devices show in sharp detail.
“When our kids have these tools they can record bad behavior to confirm what we have been saying. Cellphone video negates the narrative that there are two sides. Now we can see patterns of behavior,” he said.
“We feel this intimately in ways that white folks can never appreciate because they don’t deal with the same trauma or fear.”
