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A Glen Allen college student’s short but powerful video – showcasing nine black students from the community – is beginning to go viral, just as the national video that inspired it did.
But the unlikely story of how it came to be is perhaps its most inspiring aspect, reflective of the message it shares.
Glen Allen High School graduate Kate Gharib, a rising sophomore at the University of South Carolina who is a few days from her 19th birthday, was feeling troubled by the plight of black Americans, in light of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, and itching to do something to help.
When she awoke Friday morning, she checked Facebook and saw a video from black actor Tyler Merritt. In it, he shares an assortment of his random likes and dislikes (“I’ve done goat yoga – I’m really not proud about that,” he says at one point), before closing with a chilling statement: “I just wanted you to get to know me better – before you call the cops.”
Moved, Gharib noticed on her Facebook feed the post immediately under the video, which was from a friend of a friend and included that person’s own typed list of facts about himself, in the same form Merritt had presented his.
“It made me think. . . it would be really impactful to do that specifically for Glen Allen,” said Gharib, who is white. “People are going to watch that video to be able to say, ‘I went to high school with that kid, or I know his family.’ Something like that, I feel like it would hit people a lot harder.
(Click the audio player below to hear Kate Gharib and Ashley Friday discuss the video in their own words.)
“My goal from the beginning was, I don’t want my voice to be heard right now, I want my friends in the African-American community to be heard.”
On that same (and as it turned out, appropriately named) day, Gharib reached out to former Glen Allen High School classmate Ashley Friday, who is black. She’d already contacted Friday days earlier to show support – something that struck her former classmate immediately.
“That really stood out to me,” Friday said. “Not a lot of people who don’t look like me were reaching out for support. I was so honored that she reached out to help.”
So when Gharib reached out again to share her idea – recreating Merritt’s video, but with black students from the community – Friday was immediately on board.
“A lot of people’s activism stops with their social media,” Friday said. “So I really appreciated the fact that she wanted to not just, you know, tell me that she supported me and supported our community but to show me as well. When she messaged me, when I read her words, they came from such a pure, like, honest place, that there was no hesitation for me.”
'Coming from the right place'
Perhaps even more surprising to Friday: the two young women had never really interacted in high school, even though they knew of each other.
“She always had that reputation of being a really nice person,” said Friday, who attended George Mason University for one semester last year before taking a break to work but hopes to return in the fall. “I knew that she was coming from the right place and that her heart was in the right place, and I wanted to help her as much as I could.”
So Friday immediately started contacting friends and acquaintances to invite them to participate. She and Gharib set up a Google Docs document online, invited anyone who was interested to sign up for a Sunday time slot to be videotaped at Crump Park, and hoped for the best.
Strong initial interest, though, only resulted in a couple sign-ups. So Friday got even more proactive, direct-messaging dozens of friends on Instagram and sending them the link.
“I had a lot of people who immediately signed up,” she said.
By Sunday, eight people had signed up. Gharib spent about an hour recording them, and Friday, one by one, having each person read several of the same statements (“I am a proud black woman,” for example) and sharing unique elements about themselves, just as Merritt had done in his video.
“I’m going to graduate from Howard University, become a pediatric doctor and travel the world,” one young woman says.”
“I’ve never owned a gun, I’ve never been to jail, yet I hate the fact that someone might be afraid of me because of the way I look,” a young man says.
“I love baseball,” another young woman says.
Gharib, who has been making videos since her freshman year at Glen Allen and who hopes to pursue visual communications at USC, edited the footage Sunday night and Monday morning, then posted her 3 minute 44 second video that afternoon.
By Wednesday morning, it had more than 4,000 views. The impact was immediate – and emotional.
“People who I haven’t spoken to in forever but follow me on social media have been messaging me like, ‘This is so powerful,’” Friday said. “My mom, she was there when we were filming, and when she watched the final product, she had tears in her eyes. People have been so touched and so moved by what was said in the video.”
Gharib has heard and seen similar feedback.
“I’ve been really surprised about how fast it’s been spreading,” Gharib said. “I don’t know how the protesting will end or what’s going to happen, but I just hope that when social media kind of goes back to the every day things that this conversation doesn’t stop.”
Knowing there are people who care
Gharib attributes much of her own perspective about life and relationships to her role as class historian for all four years at Glen Allen High, through which she worked with different groups of students during fundraisers and other events. But she’s also gained much knowledge during the past year in college deeper in the south, she said.
“Leaving . . . my Glen Allen bubble, going out and seeing things I hadn’t seen before, I think has definitely opened my eyes a lot,” Gharib said. “For a lot of my classmates that I went to high school with, I would say probably the same thing. I think people are having a change of heart, being exposed to more and seeing the injustices in America. They really do want change for our futures and our kids’ futures.”
Friday senses that the video and its message may already be helping make those goals realistic.
“I love that the video has started this conversation, this dialogue, and that it’s spreading,” Friday said. “I think that the only way you can dispel ignorance is through knowledge, is through educating, and I think this video does that.
“At a time where the black community might feel like we’re alone and we’re fighting this alone, it’s just really nice to know that there’s people outside of our community who see us and who hear us and who care.”
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