‘#WhileBlack’ Review: Timely Doc on Black Trauma and Social Media

The intersection between Black Lives Matter and social media is explored to powerful effect in Jennifer Holness and Sidney Fussell’s documentary, receiving its world premiere at SXSW. While it concentrates on two cases in particular, #WhileBlack serves as a generational examination of how police brutality has been exposed more widely than ever thanks to the ubiquity of cell phone cameras and platforms like Facebook and TikTok, even while the corporations behind those platforms have profited from the human suffering they put on display.

One of the film’s chief topics is the most notorious case in recent years, the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, currently serving a 22-and-a-half-year prison sentence. Passerby Darnella Frazier, then only 17 years old, filmed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes even as Floyd repeatedly pleaded, “I can’t breathe!” The resulting footage shared online garnered more than a billion engagements in a week and led to massive protest demonstrations not only in Minnesota but around the world.

“She wielded probably the most powerful weapon available to her generation…journalism,” one of the commentators in the documentary observes. The resulting outcry led to the formation of such organizations as the Agape Movement, whose office is located in what is now called George Floyd Square, and the Minnesota Freedom Fighters, whose goals are to protect and support the Black community.

#WhileBlack also focuses on another injustice: the 2016 death, also in Minnesota, of Philando Castile at the hands of a police officer who shot him during a traffic stop over a broken brake light when Castile reached for his wallet. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter were also in the car. Immediately after the shooting, Reynolds began livestreaming the encounter on Facebook. The footage was subsequently shared tens of thousands of times. The police confiscated the phone; according to Reynolds, they wanted to delete the footage, not realizing that it had already been broadcast in real time. The incident brought Facebook Live significant public attention.

“That product was launched by the pain and suffering of that family,” a technology expert points out.  

The stories behind the tragic incidents are recounted by Frazier and Reynolds, respectively, abetted not only by the footage they filmed on their phones but also clips from footage shot by police bodycams and dashboard cameras. We also learn that Meta took down Reynolds’ footage at the request of the police department, and that media organizations hand over data to law enforcement the vast majority of times it’s requested. Both women talk about receiving death threats and online abuse after posting their footage, and the psychological trauma that resulted.

The documentary also describes how the tech companies benefit from the countless hours of uploaded content to their sites free of charge. In effect, they’re performing a public service by showcasing examples of police violence, but also profiting from them at the same time.   

#WhileBlack examines the aftermath of the incidents, including the fact that the Minneapolis intersection where Floyd was killed has been renamed George Floyd Square and serves as a memorial. “At times you feel like you’re driving through a gravesite,” a commentator observes.

It also harkens back to earlier tragic events that were filmed, such as the 1991 beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles police officers that was videotaped by a nearby resident, George Holliday, from his apartment balcony; and Abraham Zapruder’s 8mm, 26-second film capturing the assassination of President Kennedy. The difference is that in those cases, the people who photographed the proceedings owned the physical copies of the footage; in the modern era, it essentially becomes the property of the media corporations.