COURTESY ASA KRYST

Former Charlotte Independence player Asa Kryst turned to his videography skills to capture images of civil protests in Charlotte sparked by the police-involved killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Asa Kryst unintentionally found himself in the midst of Charlotte protests.

George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, with protests taking place across the world calling for racial justice. Charlotte protests began on May 29 on Beatties Ford Road at same time Kryst went to Page Veronica Salon, which his sister Page owns.

“I accidentally ended up at my first protest on [that night],” Kryst said. “I wasn’t even planning on going, but my sister has a hair salon on Beatties Ford [Road]. I went there just to get my hair done. I pull up and I see that there are people protesting in streets. Me and my sister, we went out there for a little while to just kind of observe, watch.”

Kryst, a Charlotte area native, played college soccer at South Carolina and professionally with Bendigo City FC in Australia and the Charlotte Independence. Since retiring, he founded Blue Method Films, which specializes in photography and videography.

“I did not go to school for film,” Kryst said. “I went to school for marketing. When I was playing soccer in Australia, my mom had a DSLR camera that I brought with me just to take some fun pictures. I ended up filming and documenting a bunch of stuff while I was out there and fell in love with it. Ultimately, when it came time to stop playing soccer I just carry that same passion into film, photography, videography and just kept it going from there.”

Kryst went to a protest Uptown on June 2 with the intention of documenting this moment. He produced a 64-second video on his Instagram @asa_kryst, titled “We Stand Together” on June 3.

“The first thing that jumped out to me was the amount of diversity in the crowd—the amount of other races advocating for Black Lives Matter, the movement,” Kryst said. “It was really cool to see.”

While Kryst’s profession is that of a visual storyteller, his time as a professional athlete did not encourage outspokeness. Professional athletes have long been encouraged to keep their opinions private when it comes to conversations surrounding social justice.

“There was a little bit of a stigma when I was there to not say anything—to kind of leave it outside the locker room [and] to kind of go in there and handle your business,” Kryst said. “We did have a couple guys who would. Shout-out to Bilal [Duckett, a former Independence player], because he was definitely voicing things and trying to make a change in the community. Overall, there was a little bit of a stigma there that when you come there you’re going there to play and not really voice your opinion as much.”

Charlotte is no stranger to black people being killed by police—consider Danquirs Franklin in 2019 and Keith Scott in 2016 who were fatally shot by Charlotte-Mecklenburg officers. The outcry in response to Floyd’s death has captured international attention as clear example to social injustice directed toward black people.

 “It’s tough to say why it’s different,” Kryst said. “I was speaking with somebody about it the other day, and we were talking about how big this specific movement has become. His point to me was, ‘I think it’s just like this, because this case with George Floyd was so blatantly obvious.’ I disagreed completely. All of these cases were blatantly obvious to me.”

On the Net:

www.bluemethodfilms.com

www.pageveronica.com

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