On Not Watching

When it was announced a couple weeks ago that video of Tyre Nichols's beating death by Raleigh, North Carolina police would be made public, my first thought was, Will I watch it? When I read moments later that the beating was being compared to the 1991 Rodney King police beating, "but worse," I felt I had no choice but to watch it, comparisons being what they are (and are not).

When I heard a couple days later that the cops who killed Nichols were Black, I wasn't so sure anymore, because what I would be watching was not the beating death of a man by police but the beating death of a Black man by Black men -- a fact that best illustrates the power of white supremacy (in the same way women who act like dicks speaks to the power and persistence of patriarchy).

When influential America filmmaker Tyler Perry was quoted as saying, "I said I wouldn't watch that video," I went to his January 28, 5:32 AM Facebook post to read for myself his reasons, to see if his reasons for not watching were in any way similar to my own. Perry writes:

I said for my own peace of mind, for the sake of my own sanity, for my hope for what’s left of the human race, I would not watch the awful murder of another black man. This time I would refuse. I wanted to have the luxury of many people in the world who can just turn it off with ease. Many people can’t imagine it happening to them because honestly, it never will. I was determined to see what that space felt like for once, I would cover my ears and not let in the outside. I knew it wasn’t possible because when some people hate the outside it doesn’t matter what’s on the inside even if what’s in there looks like them.

So today I will cry, I will be depressed, I will curse, I will be outraged, I will want to burn some shit up, I will be in agony, I will let my heart break for his family, I will moan with his tenor harmony from my own experience that is every black man that’s ever called for the safety of the arms of mamma, I will inaudibly scream.

But somewhere in the wrestling between the moon and the sun for the right to deliver light as if one is good and the other is evil, in that hour, I will get quiet, then I will be still, I will weep, and then I will pray.. and with the morning light, no matter who tried to dim it… I will get up and I will fight on!

Tyler Perry