Videography and Historiography

or why more is actually less in court

Finally, some justice.

Such was the sentiment within the African-American community after all three of the participants in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of murder. A sentiment shared by everyone but white supremacists, racists, and gun nuts. Somehow, if an event involving a gun can be interpreted as limiting anyone from doing anything they want with a gun, the NRA and its rabid followers always chime in.

And like the George Floyd murder, a sole videographer made the case against them.

When one considers the efforts Greg McMichael went to to ensure that what was little more than a Glynn County rumor as to his involvement in the death of Ahmaud Arbery was “more accurately” understood, the mind boggles. Greg McMichael, through his attorney, delivered his videographer’s record of the killing of Arbery to a local radio station. The thinking was that the cell phone video would prove that McMichael, his son, Travis, and William “Roddie” Bryan (the videographer) were making a valid citizen’s arrest and killed Arbery in self-defense.

The video, which was dropped off on May 5, 2020, went viral 2 days later. Without it, the trio had a decent chance of walking out of a Georgia courtroom and being named Men of the Year by the KKK, Richard Spencer, and associated white supremacist ilk.

Less than three weeks after the video went viral, another videographer filmed the last 9 minutes and 29 seconds of George Floyd’s life. Darnella Frazier, then 17, caught the brazen and sadistic Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Frazier force George Floyd to die under his uniformed knee on her cellphone. Three other police officers were caught on the same video as they stood by while the handcuffed Floyd gasped his last breaths.

Those frustrated by the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case should take some realist pause from this.

Police misconduct and vigilante justice send political messages, often so nuanced and subtle, that but for criminal convictions are rarely understood. Derek Chauvin’s demeanor and body language said “I am the law, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.” Greg McMichael, his son Travis, and Roddie Bryan wanted the 20,000 or so African-Americans in Glynn County, Georgia to understand that “The color of law was going to let them do what they wanted with impunity.”

The shooting of Jacob Blake and the protests and chaos that ensued in Kenosha was as much a battle of political viewpoints as it was about police overreach. On one side, most of Kenosha’s citizenry were shocked and appalled that the police from the top down were okay with a police officer shooting someone in the back 4 times. On the other, supporters of the police, authoritarians, reactionaries, and assorted “militias” (notably unaffiliated with any state which kind of doxes Second Amendment arguments) took the side of Kenosha’s nearly lily-white thin blue line.

The videos of the shooting of Jacob Blake and the violence that occurred two days later have the misfortune of having been taken from the cheap seats with videographers on the move. Having one’s choice of videos, angles, and frames to focus upon allows for differing interpretations and historiographical debates. Kyle Rittenhouse is lucky he did not bring a friend to film his exploits that warm August night and even more fortunate that no one could slice together a video record of what was clearly a decision to take the law into his own hands.

In both the Floyd case and the Arbery case, the videography was the historiography and the political messaging was rejected. In the Rittenhouse case, the historiography was already being bent by the Right’s politically messaging (and affected by the Arbery and Floyd cases) and the videography was rejected.