The circle of least confusion
Cameras are idiot witnesses. They see only what they see, supplying no context. All they apprehend is light and shadow, which they may distort or foreshorten. As with all manmade instruments, they have limits. No lens can focus all rays into a perfect point. If you look close enough at any camera-collected image you will notice that even at best focus every image is comprised of tiny blurred spots. The smaller these spots, the sharper the image. They call the smallest of these spots the circle of least confusion.
So much of what we see these days is processed through cameras and presented on screens. The proliferation of camera phones and surveillance systems has created a world where we might reasonably expect complete privacy only when we are alone in our homes, with the lid to the laptop snapped shut and our devices stowed away. There’s really no need for a Big Brother to watch us, for we have become so used to spying on one another. We feed our Vine and Instagram accounts with mundane little movies and visual miracles. So prevalent and expected is the causal collection of images that we might really believe that without pics, it didn’t happen.
One of the best things about a society where nearly everyone has access to a hand-held camera and a publishing platform at nearly all times is that few interesting public happenings go undocumented. It hardly seems a week goes by without some viral video capturing our imagination. Often we see things we shouldn’t.
In the case of the sheriff’s deputy serving as a school resource officer who was caught on camera slamming a teenage girl (and her desk) to the floor in a South Carolina high school classroom last week, we know only what our eyes perceive. We only know what we can glean from the viral videos—we don’t know much about the lives of the actors involved before they performed this skit. Obviously how you interpret the video may have a lot to do with your attitude toward white cops and/or black teenage girls. Some people have defended the officer, pointing out that the child was disrespectful and disruptive and that he was well within his rights to remove her from the classroom and even arrest her.
More people were upset at the violent force the officer applied and the ease with which he flipped the student’s desk. There’s something fascist in the way strength is exerted in this case, in the way the power enforces its will.
Would some of the people who are defending the officer perceive the situation differently if the man in the video were not wearing an authoritative uniform? Probably, just as some people would feel differently if it were a black officer manhandling a white girl.
Had it been a teacher who lost it and flipped over a chair with a student in it, we might be horrified but, for me at least, the scene would be less loaded. It would simply be a case of an adult acting out. It would be ugly, and it would probably be actionable, but it wouldn’t seem emblematic of a problem larger than the individuals involved. People would not likely see it as yet another example of teacher arrogance and disdain for their charges.
I expect police officers to be better equipped than teachers to deal with the unruly. I expect them to be more patient and better able to absorb abuse and disrespect than civilians. I expect them to take seriously their duty to protect and serve and to understand it is not in their purview to mete out punishment. In truth, I expect them to be better than I would be in situations where they are cursed at, spat upon and battered by tiny fists. I say “expect” because it is what I mean. It has been a long time since I’ve worked closely with police officers, but I spent about a decade talking to them every day. I understand working with life’s misery makes you cynical and that it’s not uncommon for cops to speak disparagingly of everyday citizens who understand little of the job’s difficulties, but I can think of only one or two who might have been capable of acting the way the officer did on the video. Adults just don’t do such things to children.
At least not to children they perceive as fully human; the same as their own, or the sons and daughters of their friends.
On Friday a bunch of students at the high school walked out of class to protest the sheriff’s department’s firing of the resource officer. They want him back in the school, where he also serves as the football team’s conditioning coach. (He can allegedly bench press 600 pounds.) Some of them think he’s a nice guy.
On the other hand, there have been allegations that he has used excessive force in the past. You can find stuff on the Internet to support whatever you are predisposed to feel. In recent days I’ve heard people say those who refuse to meekly defer to police officers deserve what they get. I hear that and understand how fascists thrive.
You don’t know the story any more than I do. We just have the images, a few seconds that might represent the worst moments of a person’s life. We cannot wind back a tape past its beginning, to the hours and days and years before whatever vivid incident exploded in a camera’s eye. Cameras do not X-ray souls.
Their resolution isn’t perfect. All we can do is examine the circle of least confusion: A man doesn’t do that to a child.