Editor’s Letter

CEO and Executive Editor of the Montecito Journal Media Group

3 Dylans, 2 Zimmermans, 2 Coopers, and 2 Junes in Minnesota: What Are We Going to Tell our Kids?

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The George Floyd video is a Zapruder film of not just the final moments of a man’s life, but a snapshot of race relations in this country, at this particular inflection point. What each of us finds most disturbing about that video is as unique and diverse and distinct as we are. As bad as the Miami, Dade Police showing solidarity (photo by Richard M. Clements @RClementsMBPD) entire 9 minute 43 second video is, the worst part for me may be different than the worst part for you.

Clearly, the officer doesn’t perceive the man he’s arresting to be a threat. We know this because the man on the ground isn’t resisting and Officer Chauvin’s body language tells us visually that he’s in complete control. Not just in control, but he can do all this, metaphorically, literally, and casually, with one hand in his pocket.

What’s most remarkable about the footage to me is the new levels of lack of remorse. For much of the video, Chauvin stares dispassionately at the cameras, and, though he knows he’s being recorded, he’s not the least bit ashamed; maybe even a little proud. Triumphant. Defiant.

The images that have emerged from this latest incident sent me back to lynching postcards I had inadvertently seen as a kid. They were oddly (and I suppose ironically) in a magazine called “Life.” Those images were seared into my memory. It was stunning to me that people were so “out” about lynchings that they actually made postcards of the events; and there was even a robust lynching souvenir trade.

Lynchings were social events, people got dressed up for them, smiled for photographs – not the least bit hesitant to be identified – and, like Officer Chauvin, showed no remorse. Like fishermen pose with their giant catch only the catch is human. And it isn’t just a few fishermen. Lynching postcards featured scores, sometimes hundreds of people, men, women, and children enjoying the event.

In Susan Sontag’s book Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag writes about the intended impact of witnessing such ghoulish cruelty. “Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us,” Sontag writes.

My kids have seen the George Floyd video. Not just once, but over and over on their ever-present hand-held devices. And likely so have yours. What started in the 55401, thanks to modern technology, is witnessed here in the 93108, almost instantaneously. Now forever etched into our kids’ young memories, these haunting images will in some profound way inform who they are and who they will be. Which is why I believe that to not take a stance on it, to not

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