THE OSCAR GRANT PROJECT

by Marcus Gardley

 

 

 

On New Year's Eve of 2009, on a train platform in Oakland, CA, the police fatally shot an African American man named Oscar Grant in the back, while he was restrained -- prostrate and unarmed -- in front of several other passengers.  The event was captured on multiple digital and cell phone cameras and the footage was posted to the Internet where it was watched hundreds of thousands of times by viewers across the world.  How do the Internet images of Grant's shooting operate alongside the proliferation of exported US security practices to create perceptions and practices of racial profiling?