How videos of police brutality traumatize many Americans

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• Geoff Bennett:

  As we just heard, Tyre Nichols' family, as well as Memphis authorities, said it was important to release the video to the public to convey the brutality of the attack.

  And there were many warnings about the graphic violence in it. But for many people who have seen the video, it is traumatizing and one of far too many like it. Some say the public is exposed to these videos too easily and that it raises real questions for a person's mental health.

  We're going to explore some of this with Riana Elyse Anderson, a licensed clinical psychologist and a current fellow at Stanford Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences.

  Thanks for being with us.

• Riana Elyse Anderson, Stanford University:

  Thanks for having me.

• Geoff Bennett:

  The tragic killing of Tyre Nichols by police, it has permeated social media. It's being shown on the news. It is difficult to avoid watching it.

  How do these horrific videos affect those who end up watching them?

• Riana Elyse Anderson:

  The first is the classic trauma response, where you're looking around, you're thinking maybe this will happen to me, so that's hyper vigilance, or it's bouncing around in your head. That's rumination.

  Those are some of the classic responses we might think of. The second is if you're numb to it. So, if you're the same background, you don't actually want yourself to spike every single time you watch something like this, so you might numb yourself so that you're not responding to it every single time we see a video.

  But the third and the thing and that makes me a little more nervous is that we're teaching when we watch these videos, so you're actually learning to dehumanize people that look like this with the video, so a number of responses, none of them quite good for our body or mind.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, I want to pick up on one of the things that you said, because, in this era of police body cameras and cell phone videos, we have seen the police killings captured on tape not just of Tyre Nichols, but of Eric Garner, George Floyd, Philando Castile, Walter Scott. The list, unfortunately, goes on and on and on.

  What do you see as the compound effect of that?

• Riana Elyse Anderson:

  Yes.

  Again, when we think about what can happen to our mind and our body, there are so many things that, either from a response, where we believe that it's going to happen, or what's more common now, this nonresponse of our bodies and minds are getting used to it, that compounded response is something that I'm a bit nervous is leading to ways that we're believing that this is a common occurrence.

  It is potentially reducing the amount of agency that we think that we have in stopping something like this. It's something that is really impacting those that are watching it, both who are the target demographic and those who are not.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, let's talk more specifically then.

  How should black folks in particular cope with, grapple with, process this stuff?

• Riana Elyse Anderson:

  Yes.

  One of the things that I'm mindful of here is that there was a lot of warning that this was coming. And so for a number of clinicians who I know, including myself, we chose not to watch it. So, we took that warning as a sign that we would not engage with this video.

  It's not going to teach us anything new. It's not going to bring back our brother. So why watch it? That's the first thing that I'm mindful of. But if you did choose to watch it, or if it wasn't something that you knew was coming on, there are three quick things that I think you can do with those feelings.

  The first is to talk it out. Can you process it with something — someone that you care about? Can you walk it out? So can you do behavioral change? We saw a number of protests happening this weekend. So can you put your feet on the ground to actually do something about this?

  And the final thing is to think about the chalking process or things that are a bit more in policy, in writing. So can we actually talk to these police agencies? Can we do things locally and even nationally that it might impact the way that policing changes so that we don't have to see these videos again?

• Geoff Bennett:

  How should parents and people who care for children prepare for some of the questions they might get?

• Riana Elyse Anderson:

  Oh, such a great question. And it's definitely a part of my work.

  So the talk that black parents and parents of color are having with their children, the most important thing in this preparation is being ready for yourself. So have you done the work? Have you thought about and processed and prepared for how you're feeling?

  If you're upset, if you're frustrated, do you tap into that so that you know how you're feeling? Have you processed it with someone else? So the first thing I encourage parents is to be ready themselves to talk it out and to feel it for themselves.

  And the second thing, when you're talking to your child or young people that you care for, listen. So you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know why structural racism continues to this day. And, in fact, that's not for us to understand. That's for the folks who are perpetrating it to stop.

  So you don't have to have all of the answers, but listening and helping your child to process, to respond and say, I don't know, to cry together, being vulnerable, those are the biggest things that you can do for the talk.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Riana, it strikes me that, when these videos are shown over and over and over again, that the culture can become desensitized to it, and that the result is that you have what amounts to a national spectacle of black death.

  Give me your thinking on that. How should we better understand that and better avoid it?

• Riana Elyse Anderson:

  Yes, I think there are two minds of this.

  The first, is it good to be released, right? So there's a "yes, and" here. We love accountability, we love transparency, we love making sure that we know the facts of a case or a situation. So, it's important for us to have that information.

  But it's also really important to be mindful of that impact of our mind and our body. So that trauma can not only make you think about and to be frustrated and to be traumatized by it, but it can also wear at your body as well.

  So, when we think about how we can limit our consumption, that's something that we have agency over. We can choose whether we limit our own consumption, but it's also a question for the media and the police. Are there better methods of even sharing or making it available? Is there a repository that you can check into if you're an adult and you have to sign in for verification?

  There are ways that we can think about holding these officers and these agencies accountable without leading to further traumatization of a community.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Riana Elyse Anderson is current fellow at Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

  Thanks so much for your insights. I appreciate it.

• Riana Elyse Anderson:

  Thank you so much.