Saturday Night Live alum Jay Pharoah is the most recent movie star to talk out about police brutality. In an Instagram video launched on Friday, the comic detailed his expertise being detained by police. His story was accompanied by safety footage of the incident captured from a close-by retailer.
Pharoah was jogging on Ventura Blvd. and Corbin Ave. in Los Angeles when 4 officers flanked him with their weapons drawn. He recalled being ordered to put face down on the sidewalk earlier than being positioned in handcuffs, and the way one cop positioned a knee on his neck. After asking what was improper, Pharoah says the officers advised him he match the outline of a suspect within the space who was sporting gray sweatpants and a gray shirt. He was then launched when police verified that he was not the person they have been searching for.
“I may have simply been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd,” Pharoah mentioned within the video.
Pharoah’s expertise is horrifying and his message is highly effective, however there are elements of this video that go away some to be desired. The opening montage of police hugging protestors towards Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech comes throughout as misguided since a rising criticism of those photos is that it trivializes the very actual concern of police brutality. And the ultimate sequence of Pharoah on the bottom with a knee on his neck feels extreme on condition that his level was already made along with his story. Pharoah additionally locations the burden on Black males, particularly, to teach themselves in regards to the regulation to guard towards police brutality however doesn’t name for any accountability for the cops who use extreme power. And in specializing in Black males, he leaves out Black ladies, like Breonna Taylor, who’re additionally focused by police and whose tales are sometimes neglected. (The #SayHerName marketing campaign was launched in 2014 to handle this very concern.)
I applaud Pharoah for opening up and sharing this harrowing expertise on a public platform. Each instance of police brutality is crucial in elevating consciousness and transferring the needle ahead in order that actual change is feasible. Discovering the proper response to the trauma he is skilled is a whole lot of stress to position on Pharoah, however in solidarity with the sentiment that each one black lives matter, I feel it is also vital to level out the elements of this video that fall in need of that message.
Jay Pharoah