Regarding the Abjection of Black Bodies

Why white people should be more cautious about what images they share on social media.

I was recently scrolling through my Facebook feed when I noticed several people posting an image of a young man in the Belgian Congo. In the photo, he’s gazing at something on the porch beside him and, while it’s not clear at first what the objects are, the caption reveals that they are in fact the severed hand and foot of his daughter. She was dismembered as punishment for his inability to meet the rubber quotas imposed by his Belgian overseers.

The sharing of this image presumably intends to show the viewer the necessity of removing statues of King Leopold II of Belgium, a man notorious for his cruelty and for the atrocities he ordered perpetrated upon the people of the Congo including, of course, the severing of limbs for failure to meet rubber quotas. Why, after all, should Belgians memorialize this person who oversaw the brutalization of millions of people? What message does this send to the rest of the world? Most importantly, isn’t it finally time to decolonize our public spaces, wherever they are?

However, as I looked at the image, I found myself wondering: is it really necessary for white people to continue sharing images of abjected Black bodies in order to elicit sympathy…