Watching you, watching me: We're our own surveillance

Over the last couple of weeks, I've watched as video and images from Minneapolis protests emerge across social media. Some visuals are featured on legacy media pages, others filter in from bystanders or those being targeted. Almost no civilians wear masks, contrary to the armed, uniformed representatives of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Everyone has a smartphone. The agents, rarely if ever equipped with body cams, and not necessarily required to use them anyway, also record the interactions—people screaming, chanting, questioning. Whistles and car horns add to the cacophony. These scenes are becoming ever more common, and yet reflect a relatively small portion of our collective observances.

By now we are well aware that government has increasingly invasive ways to track, document, record, and predict our movements. From airplane boarding by photo, to license plate recognition systems that don't just capture letters and numbers, but our timestamped comings and goings and the face of car occupants, our ways of viewing one another are not only synced up with AI tools, they are often tapped in with law enforcement.

These systems presume imminent wrongdoing and usually criminalize anyone not fitting a cis-het white male halo, as liberation strategist and privacy advocate YK Hong discusses in their work. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission brought an injunction against Rite Aid because the pharmacy retailer, with thousands of locations throughout the U.S., had employed facial recognition between 2012-2020 and had not alerted customers.

The retailer claimed that the software implementation was intended to identify those likely to engage in theft or other criminal behavior, according to the FTC filing. But customers were mistakenly labeled as shoplifters. These incidents resulted in retail staff calling police, confronting shoppers—at times in front of colleagues or children, preventing shoppers from purchasing items like prescriptions, and subjecting people to unwanted searches. The technology "generated thousands of false-positives," the FTC wrote.

And yet, it's not just government officials and companies who want to know who we are, what we're doing, and who we're with at all times. We have each other doing a lot of the legwork, in ways that need sincere reflection. "I think, sense, feel, man, like I'm under some kind of microscope," Jill Scott sings on "Watching Me." I return to this song, more than twenty years old, a lot lately.

I've noticed the behavior mostly on public transportation, where the characters are always on display. I follow a number of folks on social media who regularly make it a point to post images of strangers living their lives, admittedly in their less attractive moments.

As a resident of New York City I am often on the train, where absolutely all levels of life co-exist, not always peacefully. Depending on the time of day I may be serenaded by a mariachi trio, observe a heated argument escalate into a brawl, or see someone lose the nausea battle to their hangover. A rule I have is to always avoid people with beverages. The MTA is undefeated. I once saw a grown-ass man reading a book get bounced out of his seat onto the floor as the train jerked. No one laughed. Coulda been any of us.

Last night I took the bus about 1.5 miles and a woman stood in the aisle and prayed over everyone for the entire ride. "You never know when your last day on this earth will be," she said, scanning the seats, one hand gripping a yellow safety pole. I did not make eye contact with her because that is a rule you try not break on public transit. But to myself I thought, "Yeah, you right." Let us pray!

I was in the woman's immediate field of vision and I wondered if another passenger was recording her, and by virtue of documenting her, were they documenting me? People record from a place of amusement or bad manners, and sometimes they record because it seems like low-stakes effort in an incident they'd rather not confront. When Daniel Peely, an ex-Marine, killed Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator who was reportedly agitated and asking fellow train riders for food or money, people pulled out their smartphones to record Neely being choked to death rather than intervene. You didn’t throw your scalding hot latte at the assailant, you didn’t lodge a book at him. But the killing is on your phone, I guess?

It's not just the Amazon Ring devices turning neighbors into amateur detectives. It's the people we think we can trust. In 2024, French prosecutors brought charges against Dominique Pelicot for drugging his wife Gisèle, subjecting her to rape by tens of men for more than a decade and recording the assaults. In England last year, prosecutors charged Philip Young for similarly brutalizing his former wife, Joanne, who endured thirteen years of being drugged, then raped by strangers. Plenty of women fantasize about submitting to their men partners. Plenty of women enjoy cuckold or group sex dynamics, or want to be consensually blindfolded or restricted. The kink isn't what's scandalous and horrific, the deception is. The secrecy and the manipulation is where those rapist men found their arousal and power. What is it about seeing without being seen that people love so much?

Still, recording people who don’t want to be recorded has been a necessary tool to fight in a rigged and unjust cultural and political system. Consider any number of the “Karen’s” who had to explain their dives off the deep end to their HR departments the following workday. In 2020, the Central Park dog-walker Karen, Amy Cooper, told 911 operators she was being harassed by a Black man, Christian Cooper (no relation), who was simply enjoying the birds. Had he not recorded the entirely avoidable incident, he may have suffered police detainment or worse. She did not want him recording her and yet, it was an infringement on his own privacy to not document her harassment.

Where can the line be drawn? It should take substantially more than being in a relationship to end up in someone's X files, and laws in some (only some!!) U.S. states acknowledge this. It should take more than walking down the street in Soho to be unwittingly added to an influencer’s social media campaign, but the legal answer to that is to basically stay home. Public transit is a part of public health. You shouldn’t have to fear a fellow rider will take advantage of you being vulnerable, sick, or tired. New York’s answer has been to add police to various stops. When I see them, they are usually in a circle together looking at each other’s phones.

Not everyone is vying for their viral moment, especially when it’s not on their terms. I’m asking for us to consider whether recording someone on the train who is asleep, drooling, and therefore not consenting, and texting the clip to a friend for laughs, is all that far away from the police feeling confident that a low-definition AI matched image that looks like you, is you, and deciding to detain you until (if) they figure out what's what. Surveillance may be a spectrum, but a creep is a creep. Are we clear where our pendulum falls?

As our various devices become fodder for inspection (not necessarily circumspection!), for people committed to seeing this country beyond the historic and present state of terror, we need not just move in silence when it comes to brand launches and engagement announcements, but throughout our day with everyday people. We should remember that phones are one of many tools we have on our person to potentially disrupt, distract, and deescalate. We can remind ourselves that daily observations need not always live in our cloud archives. And if you're going to be outside tussling with an unhinged occupation, protect your identity and therefore those who may be around you on any given day: wear a mask.

Can you explore the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. through the lens of plantain? Claro que sí, says Von Diaz. A writer, documentarian, food historian, and my heart sister, Von filmed a segment about her connection to King’s civil rights work last year. She threads together her Puerto Rican roots and American South upbringing with the cultural influence of New York City. Brief cameo at the dinner table from yours truly! Such a beautiful spread you’ll want to buy/borrow her book, Islas. Look for the mofongo.

In late 2017, I started working on my first collaborative book with heralded chef Marcus Samulesson. That project came to the world in 2020 as The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food. Now in 2026, Marcus has channeled the spirit of the book into a residency program, which he announced on Instagram last week.

Developed in partnership with the artist retreat Denniston Hill co-founded by Julie Mehretu, the Rise Residency seeks mid-career professionals in or around the world of food and beverage (cook, writer, drinks producer, farmer) who are ready for two to three weeks onsite at the Catskills campus for space and time to create, resources (recipients will receive a $5,000 living stipend), and six months of mentorship. The founding cohort will consist of two people, with plans to expand future cohorts.

The residency website has details and a robust FAQ section (I’m not involved! I have no intel!). I’ve had a couple writer residencies/fellowships of my own and they’ve always been transformational. If you’re on the fence, I say throw your hat over, then go get it.