This video is age restricted so you might have to sign in to your youtube account before viewing. Also, you shouldn't watch if you are easily perturbed.
A disturbing and harsh truth that I've been aware of subconsciously, but not fully, is the fact that American police officers have become increasingly violent in terms of dealing with criminal offenders however trivial or significant the offenders' actions may be. I watched this video in disbelief as a blur of recordings of police brutality were flashed on my screen. Although the film includes highly dramatic music and a commentary that includes appeals to logos and pathos, the clips can easily speak for themselves, exposing the reality of a minority (hopefully) of police officers' morally disgusting professional conduct. Although I can write at great length on the moral and ethical vacancy of these types of police officers and the injustice that they serve to humanity, I am mainly interested in the power of the recordings on their own.
The clips on their own serve as a great rhetorical device. All that is needed as a requirement for these recordings to serve as rhetoric is a sense of human decency and a value of justice in the mind of the viewer. With these requirements in mind, the argument is able to construct itself. I feel that the general argument that the clips present is: why are police officers who are supposed to serve the best interests of the people aiming to do the opposite? An emotional response is first elicited and what follows is the viewers own sense of ethos in determining the values that are being contradicted within the society that they are apart of and in essence, represent. The filming of these acts of professional indecency allow a direct representation of truth to surface. How a viewer takes these representations is up to them. It may not be a piece of traditional rhetoric, but any individual with a sense of cultural awareness knows that the conduct is in the wrong. Ultimately, cultural awareness and understanding allow the argument to exist.
The element that makes this type of rhetoric so powerful is that anyone has the power to record malicious police behavior. Cell phones and recording devices are prevalent enough to make this tool as powerful as it is. In this following music video, Sage Francis and other spoken word rappers highlight this described power.
The following images reveal the inhumane actions of police officers and the power that recording devices have in relation to this. These actions might have gone unnoticed if recording devices weren't in place. They are graphic.
Connor, I agree that disgusting police activity is becoming alarmingly more prevalent. Thankfully, though, so is social media. With the advent of the internet frenzy, wrongdoers are much less able to hide. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and countless other sites publicize shocking information (like the videos you shared). These sites are especially valuable because they create an omnipresent rhetorical audience. Somewhere, there are people who will watch and respond to content like the police videos. Whether those people are the poster's next-door neighbors or next-continent neighbors, they're ready to receive the message. The ongoing dialogue online (which spreads into the real world) is allowing rhetoric to become an even more powerful vehicle for change.
ReplyDeleteHey Connor. I watched the first video and there really are no words to express how appalling that was. Its not that I haven't seen this before or known about it but what makes it worse is that pedestrians had the opportunity to film this and they didn't even care. Yes, those filming this most likely went out of their way to find it but still these officers clearly do not care. They broke the one man's leg (who was already in handcuffs) and could not have been bothered. I really hope that this being shown on social media will really cause change but that cannot happen if these police officers are not reprimanded.
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