The recent events revolving around the deaths of George Floyd, Ammon Aubrey, and Brianna Taylor, have resulted in an outcry,

not only in the respective cities in which these three black people died, but across

the country and around the world. It's brought to bear not only the issue of deaths at the hands

of police, but the lingering issue of inequality and injustice experienced by people of color

here in the United States. Witnessing on video,

one man being suffocated to death by an officer of the law, and another man chased down by a truck

with armed men who took it upon themselves to deprive him of his rights and his life, gives rise to

so many emotions, not least of which are anger and grief.

There are those that react to this time with their usual posturing, explaining these events

as the fault of a few bad cops or bad people who brought it upon themselves. They say that these people were

not respectful of the law and the society that at least on paper is intended to treat all of its

citizens equally. Everything is okay, except for a few bad apples. I've struggled with what to say about all this.

I don't have a huge platform. I don't take lightly the voice that I do have in our small

photographic community. I try to bring integrity and honesty to all my work, especially this

podcast, and it's especially important to me to do so during times like these.

So rather than using my singular voice, I invited two black photographers, Idris Solomon and Charisseme,

to discuss recent events and the role of photography in documenting not only demonstrations, but the stories of these

and other communities.

Cherise May is a visual storyteller, an adjunct professor at Howard University, her alma mater in

Washington, D.C. She is the president of women photojournalists of Washington W.P.O.OW, and co-chair of the Photography Committee at the National Press Club.

Idris Talib Solomon is a photojournalist and portrait photographer based in Brooklyn, New York.

In 2016, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to photograph hip-hop culture in Ghana. He is also the host

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