By Michael McCarthy, Staff Writer
Rasaaq Shittu (Haverford ’23) shares the grief motivating the protests, petitions, and social media movements to overhaul America’s racist institutions. Frustrated by the lack of substantial change, he and his high school friend James Guntz sought to enact large-scale change by beginning small. @EnoughBadApples, an Instagram account that archives videos and images of police brutality at protests from across the country, puts its followers in direct contact with shocking, grisly images of police violence.
Teargassed crowds, officers armed like soldiers, and wounds from rubber bullets feature prominently. These jarring images are meant both to awaken viewers to the reality of police brutality as well as to provide advocates of racial justice an archive for debates and conversations about police militarization. “I want it not only to be an archive,” Rasaaq said in an interview, “but a tool that people can use in conversation.”
Viewers would be hard-pressed to find these videos on the nightly news. @EnoughBadApples relies on a team of six associates who dive deep into Twitter chains and Reddit threads searching for videos of police aggression, almost all of them filmed on handheld devices like iPhones. They compile their findings in a Google Drive, the database of the account. From that database Rasaaq draws the numerous videos and images he posts on the account.
@EnoughBadApples fills a gap in the broader media’s coverage of George Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests and unrest. Reporters “haven’t given a voice to the protestors” in Rasaaq’s eyes. Instead, they focus on wide shots of massive crowds and accounts of rioting and looting, giving peaceful protests short shrift. To Rasaaq, media coverage of burning cars and broken windows frames the narrative in favor of the police and refuses to acknowledge the role they play in igniting violence. “The respect for facts and for getting accounts of what’s actually happening to people on the streets and the highways and protests, it’s just not there.”
Every week, the account releases a “basket” that statistically analyzes its videos. They provide “another insight into what’s happening in the streets” by detecting trends in their videos, everything from the areas with the highest concentrations of documented brutality to the correlation between race and arrests. The baskets are intended to make the deluge of information about police brutality comprehensible and, as Rasaaq says, “make math work for people.”
Surprisingly, the account has faced no severe censorship. When it began, posts came at such a rapid speed that it was flagged as a spam account. Spreading out posts over time has been a consistent concern, for if the account is flagged twice, it will be permanently shut down. Some graphic posts have been censored by Instagram, such as a picture of the NBC journalist Ed Ou bloody from a rubber bullet wound. In a story saved on the account’s page, it encourages followers to “use third party apps to save our videos when you can.”
Backlash has also been limited. In a way, Rasaaq wishes this weren’t the case. “I almost want there to be some sort of resistance because it means that we’re reaching people who don’t already agree with us on police brutality.” Though widespread support for the account has allowed it to thrive, the presence of trolls would demonstrate that it has ventured outside of an “echo chamber” of people who mostly agree on the nature and scope of police brutality. “As far as I’m concerned, I hope to have more of those trolls.”
@EnoughBadApples aims not just to disseminate information, however. It is trying to change the conversation about police brutality, even if the account itself is not polemical. “I’m a big believer in not trying to shift people’s opinions but showing them enough evidence where a conclusion is quite reasonable to make,” Rasaaq says. He hopes that videos of police brutality render it “almost impossible to deny its nature” especially since the police force is now targeting not only the Black community but peaceful protestors as well. “It is a weapon,” he says, “that will lash out at anyone that questions the nature and the power of the police.”
The future of the account is uncertain. Rasaaq and his team have enough videos in their Google Drive to provide months worth of content, and they hope to keep the account running until that Drive has been emptied. Even if the protests were to completely subside, Rasaaq says, “that doesn’t mean everything in our database has been posted.” The question deciding the future of the account seems to be how long police will brutalize protestors and be filmed in the act. The answer to that question remains unknown for the foreseeable future.
Rasaaq does have one certainty, however. The account will go on “for as long as it needs to.”
Anyone who wishes to support the account can follow it on Instagram and share its content on their personal feed. Those hoping to join the account’s team of internet researchers are encouraged to send a direct message to @EnoughBadApples expressing their interest.
Image credit: @EnoughBadApples via Instagram
