{"id":98711,"date":"2022-02-16T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T21:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711///wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//www.yesmagazine.org/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//?post_type=article&p=98711"},"modified":"2023-12-13T10:23:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T18:23:10","slug":"witnessing-as-movement-social-change","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711///wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//www.yesmagazine.org/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//social-justice/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//2022/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//02/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//16/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711//witnessing-as-movement-social-change","title":{"rendered":"When Witnessing Becomes Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n

In May of 2020, 17-year-old Darnella Frazier was in front of a local market in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when she saw a White police officer pin a Black man to the ground. She pulled out her phone and pressed record and stood there for more than nine minutes, silently documenting George Floyd/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2019s murder. Frazier/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2019s split-second decision to hit record and then to upload the video to the internet galvanized the country and the larger global community in the fight for Black lives./wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n

That decision also made her a witness, enabling viewers around the world to count the minutes that Derek Chauvin had his knee pressed against Floyd/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2019s neck. To hear Floyd call out for his mother. To witness, as Frazier did, what it is like for a Black man to die at the hands of the state. And, importantly, this video became a key piece of evidence in the conviction of Derek Chauvin for George Floyd/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2019s murder./wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n

As a political scientist who studies protest, I decided early after Donald Trump/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2019s election that I would write a book documenting the protest movements that emerged over the course of his presidency. I have traveled to protests and community meetings across the country, having conversations and conducting interviews to better understand the way protests emerge and sustain themselves. Over the course of this research, I became particularly interested in other players who are part of the protest scene: the photographers, writers, journalists, and documentarians/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2014like Frazier/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2014who capture the moments of activism and transmit their stories to the broader public./wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n

Along the way, I came to see the ways in which positionality plays a key role in how witnesses interact with protests and their precipitating events, and how witnesses/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/u2019 portrayals dictate how these events are interpreted and remembered by the broader public. Witnesses, whether by accident or vocation, help shape how societies understand social upheaval and respond to social change./wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n/wp-json/wp/v2/article/98711/n

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