This is another one of those times when I’m trying to choose my words very carefully. No offence or accusation intended, and I hope I don’t fuck it up. Aspiedom sucks.
However: the power of the imagery of that event is as much to do with the race and class of the victim as it is to do with the “clarity”. Innocent, non-violent people get trampled by riot cops all the time. It is a completely routine event. It gets filmed quite often, too.
The reason why the granny in red went viral was this:
https://twitter.com/nicnichwall/status/908876145671720961
She was a person with a combination of race and class [1] that is accustomed to thinking of itself as immune to events like this. The demonstration that she wasn’t was shocking to people who shared that assumption of safety.
So, on the one hand: yes, if you’re trying to appeal to Americans, especially if you’re trying to appeal to middle class white liberals, imagery like this has a lot more power than yet another picture of a poor or black person getting beaten or killed.
But on the other hand: you need to be careful about buying into the framing of the people you’re fighting against.
The fact that one middle class white person getting some incidental bruising attracts more attention than thousands of poor and black people getting gassed and beaten is the very thing you’re fighting against.
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[1] No, I obviously haven’t examined her bank balance. Talking about appearances here.
