Allissa Richardson: 'It’s telling that we’re OK with showing black people dying'

The author and academic on why smartphones have been a game changer in African Americans' struggle against police brutality - and the ethics of sharing violent images

In her new book, Bearing Witness While Black, Allissa Richardson, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, explores how video footage captured and shared by victims, activists and shocked bystanders has alerted the world to a struggle for justice that has a very long history.

Did technology bring us to this moment?
Since African Americans reached American shores, they've been trying to communicate injustices that have been meted out against them using the technology of their day. We have icons like Frederick Douglass, who wrote three autobiographies to bear witness to slavery, and Ida B Wells whose The Red Record kept tally of lynchings in America. That spirit has deep roots. But now the tools helping carry that forward are smartphones and social media. For the very first time, millions of people can see these incidences of police brutality themselves - what happened and who did it - in quick time and without the need for legacy media. It is an amplification we didn't have in the past and it has created some incredible political power.