The Reel Story

 

It wasn’t what “he said” or “she said”, it was what IT said. Darnella Frazier’s video wasn’t a reel of film (as my anachronistic title suggests), a tape, or footage of anything, even though those terms still abound. But it was history, right up there in impact  with the famous Zapruder film documenting the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. The murder of George Floyd at the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was captured on a cellphone by a teenager.

We heard the young woman’s testimony at Chauvin’s trial, in which she was beating herself up for not having done something to save Floyd’s life, just pressing a button on her phone, but there was no other role she could have played. Maybe the fates assigned her to be there and do exactly what she did. George Floyd’s little daughter said her daddy changed the world. Not quite! George needed Darnella and her cellphone camera to do that.

Ms. Frazier wasn’t the only one in the small group of bystanders with cellphones, and some of them also took photos or videos too. But it was she who captured, from beginning to end, those 9 minutes and 29 seconds that were critical for Chauvin’s conviction.

Think of the presence of mind it took for that young woman to keep recording that video. At any moment, one of the other officers at the scene could have forcefully shooed her away, confiscated the phone, even arrested her. Think of the additional courage it took for her to post what she recorded.

Most of all, think of all the circumstances that put that little recording device, just like the ones many of the rest of us use for cat videos, in those particular hands at that moment in time last year. We can argue about whether or not it was fate. But what is crystal clear is that it was necessary.

These little cameras are everywhere now, so much so that we take them for granted. They have turned many of us into reporters in times of disaster, and in some cases, witnesses to crime. But I think there are very few Darnellas among us, at least, so far.

 

AfghanExit

President Biden’s decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan by September 11 is overflowing with symbolic significance, but is getting mixed reaction. To start with, critics say the announcement of an exit date puts a target on the back of each and every American servicemember still there. I think that rather than shooting at us, the Taliban will be too busy waving goodbye. But whichever it is, the time has come.

It was only a few months after 9/11 that American forces believed they had the opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, but the trigger wasn’t pulled. It took us another 10 years to get that done, and it wasn’t even in Afghanistan, but Pakistan.

But that still wasn’t a logical end point. We’ve been trying to defeat the Taliban, or negotiate an end to the conflict there. It does appear to many that we are abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban.

We may have failed to learn a lesson from the Vietnam War. No matter our efforts to prop up a weak government that we try to preserve in our democratic image, it is usually no match for a genuine movement of zealots devoted to an individual, a system, or a religion, however wrong-headed it may be. The change has to come from within.

There is also the legitimate issue of whether we are dismissing the sacrifices of our troops who were injured or lost their lives during this 20-year war. I don’t think their effort was wasted at all. But Afghanistan has been the military graveyard of not only us, but the Russians and the British before us. Another lesson we learned the hard way.

That said, we cannot say “never” when it comes to foreign wars. There are some that will involve us, either by the need to protect ourselves, by the fulfillment of a treaty, or for by a humanitarian cause, or all of the above. We HAD to be involved in World War II. I personally wish we had been involved in Syria, but we chose not to. In the end, we just have to pick our battles, and we haven’t always been good at that.

I do agree that we cannot be the “policeman of the world,” as the saying goes. But I do think the world needs a police force. I guess that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.

 

The Vaxed and the Vaxed-Not

 

We could see this coming a mile off, and now it’s on our doorstep: the concept of vaccination passports: little things we can carry in our wallets or on our phones certifying that we have been fully vaccinated against COVID. They are the keys we may need to admit us to indoor businesses, schools, theaters, or outdoor concerts or sporting events – or even our jobs.

The UK government is actively moving forward with such a plan. In this country, New York has the Excelsior Pass, a phone app that allows people to display their vaccination status. Major retailers, airlines, schools and universities, and other groups are all working on versions of pa

Civil libertarians are already resisting the concept of passports and simply wouldn’t stand for them on a national level. In Florida, the governor is prohibiting businesses from requiring them.

I recognize that I’m speaking from privilege, because I have had my shots, but I’m in favor of the passport idea, even if only on a sub-government level. Business owners, for example, should have the right to determine what’s best for the safety of their clientele and employees. Prohibiting them from doing so seems anti-libertarian to me.

Yes, there is discrimination involved. People who have difficulty getting shots may feel like second-class citizens, but that situation is likely temporary, as we sort out access and supply issues.

What about those who simply refuse to get shots for various reasons, including religious ones? That is their choice, but that choice comes with real-world consequences and restrictions. They may at least need to show proof of a negative COVID test. For those who worry about being included in centralized databases, consider the ones you are already in. Do you have a smartphone or a computer, use social media, carry a driver’s license, or vote?

I think the answer is in the time factor. At some point, there will be an acceptable level of COVID, which will be called herd immunity, and maybe such passports will be unnecessary or secondary, or accepted as part of life. For the moment, though, what other reasonable choice do we really have, if we want to get back to something called normal?

 

The Rest...of the Story

Radio listeners of a certain age will hear in their heads the voice of the late Paul Harvey and his signature just-before-the-water-breaks pregnant pauses. He had an entire series called The Rest of the Story.

As we mourn the victims of the Georgia massage-parlor shootings, especially the Asians, there is a tendency to bundle this in with the dramatic increase in hate crimes against Asians, even to draw a direct line to the utterances of our former President. But in this particular crime, there are also other threads to pull on.

The current convention is to focus more on the victims and less on the accused, so that he won’t be glorified. But motives and circumstances leading up to crimes like this are also important. For example, this young man is said to have sought out rehabilitation for his sex addiction. He reportedly told police the shootings were his way of eliminating temptation.

As humans, we have to learn to take responsibility for our actions. But what level of guilt compels someone to act out in a violent way? Guilt can prompt an individual, especially an addicted one, to try to get rid of this nagging feeling by blaming it on the perceived outside cause. He had reportedly been a customer at one of these massage parlors.

What was he struggling with, why, and how? What moral and religious orientation was he raised with? How big an issue is sex addiction? Do we take it seriously, or treat it as a joke? Does this fellow have an “Asian thing” when it comes to sex? What is the special attraction of an Asian massage parlor, sometimes included in the names of such businesses?

And last, but not least, there’s that element that is all too familiar, in America, anyway: the gun. Should anyone, even if, or especially if, they are having a “bad day,” be able to buy a gun on that same day, as reported in this case?

Violence against Asians is not new. It has been going on for centuries, and is another chapter in our country’s sorry racial history. All I’m saying is that while there are many commonalities in crimes like the one in Georgia, there are also special issues involved, and we would do well to consider the rest of this sad story as an opportunity to learn more about them.