The killing of George Floyd shows why graphic images matter
Imagine if there was no video footage of the killing of George Floyd.
No graphic images of him lying prone, facedown, and cuffed as a police officer asphyxiated him to death with a knee to the back of his neck.
No jarring replays which show the other officers refusing to intervene, or the cold look in the eyes of the officer undertaking the brutal act.
No heartbreaking recordings of Floyd pleading for his life as other members of the public loudly and desperately intercede for the police to let him breath.
Would you even know George Floyd’s name if that footage didn’t exist?
Would you know that he had died, let alone know about the brutal and unjust manner in which his life had been ended?
Even if you did hear a full accounting of his death from eyewitnesses, would you believe it?
Without the graphic footage, wouldn’t it be more likely that our initial reaction would be to downplay the seriousness of the incident?
I think it would be perfectly natural to wonder to yourself whether such a disturbing story was being embellished in some way.
After all, would a group of police officers really do something that horrible to another human being in broad daylight and in full view of the public?
Even if coverage of this event did manage to make major media headlines, and you accepted the reporting and eyewitness accounts without question, would it still have had the same effect?
I’m willing to bet that it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as impacting on you, or the rest of the world, as the experience of seeing those graphic images was.
The way in which the footage of the killing of George Floyd shocked and seared our social consciousness is an important reminder of why graphic images are so important for breaking open cultural complacency about acts of grave injustice.
Every time a violent injustice has been perpetrated against innocent human beings, those seeking to raise awareness and motivate social change about it have employed graphic images in their quest.
The anti-slavery movement used them. The Nuremberg Trials used them. The civil rights movement used them. Various anti-war movements have used them.
And yes, the pro-life movement must also continue to use them.
Like any graphic images of injustice, not every single strategy or member of the movement will need to utilise them, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t have an important role to play in raising awareness about the injustice of abortion.
Some have claimed that it violates the dignity of the unborn victims of abortion to show the images of their killing.
This argument is specious at best.
In an effort to get society to recognise the inhumane treatment they received, and to save others from that same victimisation, it is not a violation of the dignity of a human person to show an injustice that was perpetrated against them.
You are actually honouring their humanity by promoting the truth about their death in order to challenge society to stop treating others like them as mere objects that can be violently disposed of without regard for their human rights.
I have often wondered whether the people who use this line of reasoning are also employing it every time they encounter documentary footage of the victims of Nazism, slavery, or any other human rights atrocity.
Were these same people upset about the graphic imagery of the brutal killing of George Floyd being shared and broadcast all over the world?
Or did they instinctively understand that the truth about grave injustice must be told in all of its painful and harrowing fullness, and that when we do this we don’t degrade the dignity of the victim, we elevate it.
To show their death is to declare; ‘they are us, and what has been done to them lacks goodness and humanity, and it must not be allowed to go unchallenged.’
Others have said that graphic abortion images can cause harm to post-abortive women.
It seems to me that this suggestion, while definitely well intentioned, fails to consider that this same dynamic is true when it comes to graphic images of almost every other act of injustice too.
What about the Germans who never had any idea about the atrocities that had been committed in their name by the Nazis, or the children of the Nazi perpetrators of those acts?
Surely it would have been guilt-inducing and extremely harrowing on them every time those graphic images were shown to the world?
Then there are the majority of other police officers in Minneapolis who do not commit acts of barbaric injustice while carrying out their policing duties.
Showing the footage of the George Floyd killing must be taking a huge and painful toll on them despite the fact that it was others who did the killing in their name.
What about the store owners who called the police?
They had no idea what their decision would truly entail, and by all accounts they believed they had no choice but to report the alleged counterfeit bill Floyd had in his possession.
It’s hard to believe that they are not dealing with an extreme amount of guilt right now, and that seeing the graphic images depicting the police actions outside their store does not add to that turmoil.
While there’s no denying that a callousness use of abortion images can cause unnecessary hurt, it is also important to ask why such images would ever cause hurt in the first place.
The answer of course is because the act of abortion is a grave injustice which brutally ends the life of an innocent human being.
That’s why any of us who have ever participated in, or been party to an abortion always carry a deep pain about that involvement.
At the end of the day though we must never lose sight of two very important things:
The moral culpability for the act lies with the abortionist who receives a lucrative financial sum every time they end the life of an unborn human being carried by a vulnerable mother dealing with immense pressures.
Secondly; graphic images shock us out of the cultural complacency that would want us to turn a blind eye to injustice or even attempt to defend the indefensible.
Just like they did in the unjust killing of George Floyd.