Anyone check out the #RVAProtests "112 Days" show on @CBS6 last night? You can watch it on MSN (linked below), but I did so you don't have to. Two big thoughts:
#Thread 1/
msn.com/en-us/news/us/…
First, the doc not great on repping protestors. Some efforts to give voice to protest, but probably not central figures. I get it - it's hard to parse, there's no "President of the Movement," and lots of folks probably didn't want to talk
2/
But still - why so much freakin' Mark Holmberg? Why let him complain that protestors marched at Lee Circle but not Gilpin Court- and then ignore multiple anti-eviction actions?
3/
richmond.com/news/local/wat…
Why claim in chyrons that "protestors attack police" but not vice versa? Why show police claiming that Lee Circle is all about urine, feces, and rotten couches - and ignore art, community, free food, libraries, bball?
4/
ggwash.org/view/78788/a-n…
And for chrissakes why have multiple Fan residents - both "hidden" and visible - put on a master class in #WhiteFragility? My fave gems: "Protest was different in the 60s." "The most fundamental responsibility of the city is to maintain law and order." Yeesh.
5/
My other takeaway hurts my social scientist heart. The doc is framed by an intro from a clinical psych about the effects of quarantine on psychology, and how it primed people for protest. I have no problem with the psych prof, and this account seems true as far as it goes.
6/
But no sociopolitical analysis? No background of white supremacy, the history of civil rights, and policing? No movement theory? (Ahem - I know a guy)
7/
By fronting this psych frame, the film pathologizes protest, reducing it to an irrational "stress reaction." This is the understanding of movements that we had in the post-war era, back before decades of research expanded our understanding dramatically
8/
So congrats, WTVR - you put on a great documentary for audiences in 1954. Ugh.
9/End
[Shout-out to @ChelseaWiseRVA , who tweeted about this last night, and who most def is NOT in the doc]
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