Key Takeaways (At a Glance):
- The High-Tech Lynching: While mobile technology has empowered marginalized communities to document state-sanctioned violence, the relentless, uncensored barrage of Black suffering on social media has morphed into a form of digital trauma.
- Defining Racial Pornography: The frequent, gratuitous display of racialized bodies suffering—whether in news feeds or narrative fiction—often functions less as activism and more as a desensitizing spectacle that caters to voyeurism.
- The Fiction Problem: Acclaimed works like Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and Childish Gambino’s This Is America attempt to spark dialogue but risk replicating trauma, forcing Black audiences to relentlessly relive historical and contemporary violence.
- Healing vs. Reliving: True activism and Black healing require breaking the cycle of the spectacle. Art must evolve past merely showcasing Black death to prove that injustice exists.
Every morning, millions of people wake up and scroll through their social media feeds. In between the latest viral memes and pop culture updates, it has become tragically common to encounter an informative post attached to a graphic video: a Black person being harassed, brutalized, or murdered by police.
Today, with over 56 percent of the U.S. population carrying video-enabled smartphones—and particularly high usage among African Americans—mobile technology has provided marginalized communities with an unprecedented tool to document state-sanctioned violence. In cases like the murder of Eric Garner, circulating footage played a key role in prompting public outcry.
However, the frequency and uncensored nature of these images leave us with a profound ethical question: Why do we constantly need to see Black people being hurt? While social media can be a unifying agent, the relentless barrage of Black suffering is creating a dangerous phenomenon known as Racial Pornography. This cycle not only desensitizes the public to Black death but also infects the art Black creators produce, inadvertently hindering the healing process and replaying trauma on an infinite loop.
The Spectacle of the High-Tech Lynching
Using images of Black bodies being harmed to raise awareness is not a new tactic. The most memorable historical examples are the photographs of Emmett Till and the videotape of Rodney King. These images shocked the nation into social consciousness.
Yet, there is a dark history attached to this visibility. Lynching in America was often treated as a public spectacle, with white families holding picnics while Black bodies hung from trees. Today, the spectacle has merely changed mediums. As scholars Christine Harold and Kevin Michael DeLuca suggest, the distribution of these images contributes to a “high-tech lynching”—one that manifests in the ether of social media feeds and television broadcasts.
When videos of Black death go viral, they trigger deep psychological wounds. Clinical psychologists note that graphic videos, combined with the lived experience of racism, create severe trauma reminiscent of PTSD. This trauma is exacerbated by the “autoplay” functions of platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which strip the user of consent, forcing them to witness violence without warning.
Racial Pornography in Narrative Fiction
I define Racial Pornography as the frequent use of violent imagery to project a specific, often negative, mindset onto the racialized body, catering to a sick sort of voyeurism. The earliest cinematic example is D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), which depicted Black men as brutish, savage monsters. The constant imagery of Black men as hulking beasts in fiction creates lasting, deadly prejudices in reality.
Unfortunately, this racial pornography has bled into modern, critically acclaimed fiction—often under the guise of “healing” or “raising awareness.”
Take Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning film, 12 Years a Slave. While beautifully shot and historically vital, we must ask: Why do we need another movie showcasing the gruesome torture of Black slaves in the modern era? McQueen famously stated that he “doesn’t make films for white people.” But if the film is meant for Black audiences, how is forcing them to endure visceral, unrelenting scenes of torture—such as the grueling tracking shot of Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o) being whipped—actually affecting them? The camera’s lingering, floating gaze during the whipping scene cheapens the emotional connection, turning the violence into a horrific spectacle rather than a profound realization.
We see this pattern continue in modern television. In the Netflix series Dear White People, a harrowing scene involves a campus security officer pulling a gun on Reggie, an outspoken Black student. While the show attempts to explore Reggie’s resulting PTSD, the trauma is repeatedly re-enacted for the audience via flashbacks. The emotional resolution falls flat, leaving the viewer with nothing but the striking, traumatic image.
Childish Gambino and the Desensitization of Death
Even revolutionary art can fall into the trap of racial pornography. Childish Gambino’s music video for “This Is America” was widely hailed as a thought-provoking masterpiece. Yet, the video replicates the shootings of Black people for a stylized commentary on gun violence.
Within the first minute, Gambino shoots a Black man sitting with a bag over his head. Moments later, he massacres an all-Black choir with an assault rifle, evoking the tragic Charleston church shooting. While Gambino flipped the script by having a Black man pull the trigger, the revolutionary façade stops there. Is replicating these atrocities adding to the dialogue of police brutality, or is it simply continuing the desensitization of Black death—this time set to a catchy beat?
Conclusion: Healing Does Not Mean Reliving
When I began writing about this topic, I initially thought about embedding real videos of victims like Tamir Rice and Eric Garner to demonstrate the similarities between fiction and reality. I quickly realized I couldn’t do it. Watching Tamir Rice be gunned down brings gut-wrenching tears. These images will forever be just a click away, but perpetuating that trauma for the sake of academic validity is exactly the cycle that needs breaking.
The point is not to say that graphic images shouldn’t be seen or can’t act as a form of resistance. But when Black bodies are predominantly seen violently hurt and brutalized, it ceases to be about healing and becomes a crisis of representation.
If we choose to show these images, they must stand for something greater. As Carol E. Henderson profoundly writes, “Dying will not be our living legacy.” Healing does not mean endlessly reliving our worst nightmares. As artists, creators, and consumers of media, we must demand a legacy that transcends the spectacle of suffering.