Fuck the Police and the Media are Spineless

The Media, Violence, and the Public Subject



Today I was interviewed by New York Channel 7 News and Univision and my constant thought after the interview was, "How are they going to slice up my interview? How am I going to say things I haven't said?"

I was interviewed because I asked the Channel 7 News lady why there had been no media on 13th Street when the police closed off the area even to civilians and took out and arrested some of the student activists who were occupying the New School. From Joe Coffee, where I work, we had a very good view of what was going on. Although at points, the police and firefighters formed a wall so it was harder to see what was happening, it was clear that Joe Coffee had the best view from any civilian p.o.v. in the street. I later heard on a report that there were ten riot police for every activist. Police were everywhere. At Joe, the comments were like, "The police want to do something because they're not letting anybody in"--or out, they ordered Joe employees back inside when two wanted to sit on our bench and have a break--there were no customers. Two boys and a girl were arrested outside of Joe. The boys were taken away quickly. I watched closer and realized that I knew the girl! I felt really bad that I did not think I could show her much support because at that point it was just her surrounded by about ten NYPD and a few firefighters who were all about twice her size. I am a brave girl myself but I would not like to be in the position of being surrounded by ten large, heavily-armed men with the force of the state behind them. While in plastic handcuffs. I really regretted that I had not brought my camera first, for the value that the photos would have but second for the fact that in the aftermath of these events outside of Joe, the only narratives existing would be the narrative of girl and the many narratives of the police, the firefighters, and suited detective. I would imagine if there was any sort of brutality against my friend that all those on the payroll of the city of New York would have one sort of story while my friend's story would be different. If there was still photography, film clips, and journalists' stories, this would provide a more diverse narrative landscape in the event's aftermath.

This event reminded me of a protest that I witnessed and photographed four years ago almost exactly in Bethlehem, Occupied West Bank. At that protest which took place on Palm Sunday at the checkpoint to protest Israeli Army restrictions on Palestinian movement, specifically about their practice of denying Palestinians access to Jerusalem, there was a almost a one-to-one ratio of protesters to media and by the time Israeli solider reinforcements were called, the protesters and media still seemed to outnumber the soldiers. I recall how safe I felt, moving from one side of the police barricade to the other because of all the eyes--all the camera's eyes.

The events on 13th Street this morning were invisible. I can describe them to you now, you can see them in your mind's eyes, but there is no visual representation of them. Although cameras often witness violence or even create situations in which violence is practiced especially for the camera, massive media presence makes me feel safer. To set a camera's gaze on a policeman is to set his conscience's gaze on him. At the risk of offending someone, I must point out that this is if he has a conscience. A lens lets the public subject know that the whole world could be watching, and that as the whole world is watching, it judges. A camera's gaze reminds its public subject that his actions have consequences, that the world functions according to some moral structures and that the moral structures can accuse him of being a bad person. The fact that the lens is really so many more eyes than just the eyes of the photographer or videographer gives this recorded media the power to keep people from performing acts of violence or goad them to preform them. In this situation, I think heavy media presence would have encouraged them to refrain from violence against the activists. The role of the media's eyes is different in each situation but it is clear that it is always powerful.

When I began to ask the lady from Channel 7 News why there was a media vacuum for a whole block of 13th Street and she answered that the police put the media in a pen. I wanted to ask her why they did not realize their power first as a group of people but second as people with cameras. I wanted to shame the journalists for letting themselves be controlled by the police. A journalist is not obedient. These were. Instead of letting her have it, I saw that her cameraperson had turned a camera on me and she began asking me questions about what I saw. Very soon, there were about seven recording devices around me. I knew I needed to emphasize my own emotions for them to keep paying attention because they kept asking asking about violence and I had seen none aside from the institutional violence of the state and I wasn't going to lie. "I was scared because there was no media there. Many eyes--eyes that do not identify with one side or the other," I looked at each camera, "make people less likely to commit brutality." I wanted to let them know that their role was not to stand in a pen like animals but to break police barriers. I wanted to let them know that not only was this their role, but that it was within their power, because their eloquence is verbal forever, whereas a bullet's eloquence silences forever.