Wednesday, January 6, I woke up celebrating that voters in Georgia snatched the coveted crown of leadership from Majority Leader (now Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell by voting Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff into the United States Senate. It was a glorious day as we also awaited Congress certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win making him the 46th President of the United States. As Congress gathered to begin the certification process, Donald Trump thought the best way to stroke his ego was to give a speech to a large crowd of his cult-like followers that had gathered in DC to protest the certification process because you know nothing says I love America more like trying to stop the certification of an election by the American people.
During his speech, Trump said, “We’re gonna walk down, and I will be there with you, to the Capitol and we’re gonna cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness.”
Of course, Trump was nowhere to be found as hundreds of his supporters marched to the Capitol with little to no law enforcement resistance and took it under siege. Legislators were told to shelter in place as rioters climbed the Capitol walls and stormed through the halls. One rioter sat at Nancy Pelosi’s desk, another stole the podium, windows were broken, offices ruined, and a woman that was an active participant in the riots was shot and killed. All of this happened while the police mainly sat by and did nothing. One officer was even caught taking selfies with the rioters. (That is another blog for another time; however, I believe there was little to no law enforcement resistance because law enforcement sides with the rioters.)
Immediately White people took to the news and social media to express their outrage, and I could practically smell the stench of their hypocrisy. Let the pearl-clutching begin.
Where have you been, White America? What world do you live in, White America?
You have got to be kidding me.
Black people have been telling this nation that this was coming. Black people have warned you that this day would be upon us. But let’s be real, you thought, it could never happen to you. You thought, “we are better than this.” No, if fact, White America, you are not better than this. THIS IS WHITE AMERICA! And if you believe the people storming the Capitol is about any other thing than White people fighting for racism, you are still missing it.
Black people have always understood what this is about. Black people understood what Trump’s win was about. It had NOTHING to do with America’s economy or love for America and everything to do with White supremacy. This man built his presidency on the slogan Make America Great Again! AGAIN? WHEN? When has America EVER been great for EVERYONE? That should have TOLD YOU HIS AGENDA RIGHT THERE!
But what did White America do? Ignore it. You ignored Trump when he demanded to see President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. You turned a blind eye and deaf ear when Trump disparaged Black women. You said nothing when he called countries in Africa shithole countries. You were silent when he talked negatively about Representative John Lewis. You did nothing when he vilified Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee and trying to bring awareness to police brutality. You did nothing when he called people from Mexico rapists and locked kids in cages. You went along with it when he instituted a Muslim ban. You tried to rationalize it when he said there were very fine people on both sides when racists marched into Charlottesville and killed Heather Heyer. You tried to explain away his racism as him just being a political outsider.
And it doesn’t stop at ignoring Donald Trump.
White America didn’t even blink when a White man bombed an entire city block in Nashville. You were silent when Trump supporters stormed capitols in various cities. You said nothing when White people stepped into state capitols waving guns. You barely whispered when Trump supporters plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
THE WRITING HAS BEEN ON THE WALL! IT IS WHITE AMERICA THAT REFUSED TO READ IT!
YOU FOOLISHLY CHOSE TO IGNORE IT BECAUSE IT WASN’T HAPPENING TO YOU!
So don’t pretend to be shocked now. Fuck clutching your pearls. What happened yesterday has been ALL AROUND YOU! YOU CHOSE TO IGNORE IT!
My advice to you is to ask yourself, what am I refusing to see? What am I refusing to come to terms with? And then go deeper and ask yourself, WHY DO I REFUSE TO SEE?
While Trump certainly stoked the flames for what happened yesterday, ultimately, what happened sits squarely at the feet of White people. You have ignored White supremacy long enough. If yesterday teaches you anything, it should teach you that chickens ALWAYS come home to roost. And quite frankly, as a Black woman in America, I hope you enjoy the sounds of the clucking as you choke down your crow.
Categories: Current Events, Politics, Race Relations, Thoughts, Musings and Reflections
This was the message I left on my Tumblr blog:
I know I’m getting pretty f*cking tired of white people’s assumption that other white people are not, or cannot be as dangerous as the white people they saw invade the Capitol building yesterday! White people, no matter what atrocities they commit against each other, and PoC ,are always assumed to be innocent, both before, and after, the fact. No one believes white people (especially white men) will be capable of violent behavior before the fact, and many white people make excuses for why they did it, after.
Whereas a single Black person (whether man or woman) no matter how innocuous their behavior, is automatically considered dangerous, and must be treated as such, despite any evidence to the contrary.
I really don’t wanna hear anymore how unlike America it is, or how surprised people are that it happened. Y’all can miss me with that “This isn’t who we are,” shit. This has always been who America was, and still is!
I can very much guarantee you, that at the very least, one group of people absolutely were not surprised by watching white men act like dangerous fools. BIPoC have seen white men behaving badly, again, and again, and again, throughout the entirety of this country’s history.
And for many of them it was the last thing they ever saw!
As for chickens coming home to roost, this always happens. White people will ignore things that are happening to marginalized people, despite our constant warnings that if they don’t help solve the problem its going to happen to them. By the time whatever it is reaches their backyard, theyre acting shocked!
Honestly, I just want to shake the f*ck out of these people.
Every time some catastrophe hit black neighborhoods, we always warned that in five to ten years it would hit them too. When predatory lenders hit Black neighborhoods in the 90s, after they ran out of time and money with us, and the government did nothing to stop them, they turned their attention to white neighborhoods, which resulted in one of the biggest recession America had in decades, and is still recovering from, today.
When the crack epidemic hit Black neighborhoods, they could have put some infrastructure in place to handle it. Instead, white people decided to wag their fingers at our lack of discipline, and told us to stay away from drugs. Twenty years later they’re suffering through an opioid epidemic that ‘s shortening white men’s lives, with no infrastructure in place to save them.
For decades, white people have been ignoring white men behaving badly towards marginalized people of all stripes, and doing nothing to study or curb the issue of toxic white masculinity, combined with white supremacy ,and now that same attitude is aimed at them. We’ve witnessed more mass shootings in the past ten years than the twenty years that led up to it!
One of America’s biggest issues is that it reveled happily in a permanent underclass that it could wag its fingers at and shame for having problems, not solving any of those problems until it came into their suburban backyards. They have, for the past seven decades, refused to acknowledge that we all live in the same boat, and ALL our fates are connected. They preferred instead to gloat over problems they were told we caused to ourselves, rather than fix an issue that would hit them sooner or later.
All This is the kind of shit that happens when America’s citizens are divided.