Social Justice and Technology Access: A Smart phone is no longer a luxury but a necessity for social justice in the 21st Century.

Memorial Day Weekend 2020 will be remembered not so much as the first COVID-19 major holiday, but because of two racial incidents caught on smartphone cameras. The two incidents are very different, however, technology access ties them together as evidence that smartphones are changing the way that social justice will be served and advanced in the 21st Century.

In New York City’s Central Park, Christian Cooper, an African American avid birdwatcher, confronted a white woman whose unleashed dog was damaging the natural environment in violation of park rules. Amy Cooper, no relation, did not appreciate being scolded. Mr. Cooper, haunted by the recent killing of a black man jogger cornered by three white men, turned on his phone camera as the situation appeared to be escalating. Ms. Cooper called 911. Pundits have commented on her use of her white woman privilege, as she can be heard breathlessly beseeching for immediate assistance as a black man was threatening her. They have also commented on the fact that if not for the phone camera video recording, Mr. Cooper may have been embroiled in the sordid case of a black man’s word against a white woman’s word, which historically has never ended well for black men.

On the same day, midway across the country, in Minneapolis, a white police officer, Devin Chauvin, was restraining George Floyd, a black suspect, with his knee on Mr. Floyd’s throat. Young people witnessing the scene turned on their phone camera and recorded the horrific 9 minutes when Mr. Floyd first begged for air and then laid limp for 5 minutes under Officer Chauvin’ s knee. The video also shows Mr. Floyd’s neck lolling around as he is taken to an ambulance. Official reports say that Mr. Floyd died the morning after at the hospital. Some argue that he died at the scene, under Officer Chauvin’s knee. If not for the video recording, the only documentation would have been a laconic police report stating that a suspect experienced a medical incident when resisting police officers.

In the New York City case, the two protagonists were gone by the time the police responded to the 911 call. However, Mr. Cooper’s sister shared her brother’s video, which went viral. Ms. Cooper’s employer could not ignore the controversy and immediately issued a statement apologizing and placing her on leave. Soon after, Ms. Cooper was terminated. Furthermore, the video also showed her mishandling her dog, which she voluntarily returned to the dog shelter where she had adopted him, as animal abuse concerns were raised.

In the Minneapolis case, Officer Chauvin, his partner Officer Thao, and two other officers on the scene were first laid off, and then terminated. However, the situation deteriorated. Mr. Floyd’s family and the Mayor of the City of Minneapolis asked for charges to be brought, which cannot be done until an investigation has been completed as the police is asking for all the evidence to be reviewed. Protests that started in grief devolved into violent riots fueled by an aggressive police response. Videos from the public and reporters on site keep documenting the events. However, it is hard to tell what is really happening in the chaotic footages and in the real chaos of the street mayhem. In the end, those video footages will still be the evidence used to try to sort out the truth and bring some measure of justice to those further victimized by the out-of-control aftermath of an abhorrent case of racially-motivated police brutality.

Changing longstanding racist prejudices and actions, whether individual as with Ms. Cooper or systemic as with the Minneapolis police, will involve complex and time-demanding strategies and tools. Nonetheless, an effective and immediate tool that is already proving to be a game-changer for the advancement of social justice is the smartphone. While some might argue that a smartphone is a luxury that poor people should not aspire to, recent racial incidents are demonstrating again that smartphones are becoming critical to documenting egregious events which would not see the light of justice but for video footage from witnesses. Thus, we might have a new adage for social justice in the 21st Century: “If you want to give someone justice, give him/her/them a smartphone.”