We have all participated in a society that has given rise to yesterday’s insurrection, but we can choose a different path going forward.
Yesterday’s acts of insurrection, sedition, and domestic terrorism have, once again, shocked and disgusted people: people aghast to discover, or perhaps for the first time acknowledge or see firsthand, a reality of who we are as a country. People and companies are once again publicly disavowing the acts in the same usual declarations: This is not who we are; this is not who our country is; this is not our culture; we are better than this. Our congressional leaders have asserted that these acts betray the ideals of our nation. It saddens me that we still do not know who we are as a nation and once again the round of public statements disavowing yesterday’s events miss the mark. We are a great nation in many ways, and I am glad to live in our country. However, yesterday’s events reminded me of what James Baldwin told us about the state of our institutions in 1968:
“ I don’t know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions. I don’t know if white Christians hate Negros or not, but I know that we have a Christian Church, which is white and a Christian Church, which is black. I know, as Malcolm X once put it, the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. That says a great deal for me about a Christian nation, it means I can’t afford to trust most white Christians and certainly cannot trust the Christian Church. I don’t know whether the labour unions and their bosses really hate me. That doesn’t matter. But I know I’m not in their unions. I don’t know if the real estate lobby has anything against black people, but I know the real estate lobby is keeping me in the ghetto. I don’t know if the board of education hates black people, but I know the textbooks they give my children to read, and the schools that we have to go to. Now this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my life, my woman, my assistant, my children on some idealism, which you assure only exists in America, which I have never seen.”
The evidence of the state of our institutions was on full display. The United States Capitol was breached with relative ease by violent white supremacist groups and individuals engaged in insurrection, even though it was known well in advanced that it would be a violent and “wild” day. These terrorists trampled over police (whom they claim matter), scaled walls, broke windows, destroyed and stole property, and took selfies with officers as well as received aid from officers while committing criminal acts. Though death by any account and any count is tragic, the lack of bloodshed from yesterday’s event reveals much more about the state of our institutions. Our nation once again revealed that the ideals of our nation are primarily reserved and preserved for the white and for the privileged. Wealthy and privileged congressman and congresswomen assaulted and obstructed our democratic process while the rally cries (lies) from a sitting president incited sedition and insurrection from Trump’s echelon. This was deliberate. This was known. And little was done to avoid it.
What is most tragic and revealing to me is that Black excellence prevailed in Georgia yesterday, which should have filled yesterday’s headlines with the names of Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and countless others who triumphed over hate and intolerance. Instead, racism reared its ugly head and stole those moments away as white supremacy often does when Black people advance. We live in a society (system) of white supremacy. Like any system, the immune response will try to thwart threats that invade or disrupt the system. The historic outcome in Georgia’s election was a disruption to the system of white supremacy, and we witnessed the immune response of such a threat on live TV in real time. Of course, the attempted coup was planned ahead of knowing the results of the Georgia election but make no mistake about it: these two events are inextricably linked. This unalterable truth is continued evidence of the very state of our institutions, which try to deny participation to Black people in America’s idealism. Or once again as James Baldwin put it:
“If any white man in the world says give me liberty or give me death, the entire white world applauds. When a black man says exactly the same thing word for word, he is judged a criminal and treated like one.”
Instead of distancing oneself from the acts of yesterday by statements disavowing violence, I would invite us to take a difference frame of reference, one in which we look inwardly and reflectively on how our own participation in this society, which conceals its ugliness through a narrative of being a nation of innocence and idealism like no other country, has contributed either directly or indirectly to yesterday’s siege of our beloved capitol building. Indeed, there are names to shout whom have blood on their hands from yesterday’s events, but I would ask ourselves are our hands really that clean? For our hands might not have physically wielded the object that broke a window of a federal building; however, be assured that the object that broke the window carried with it the power we have granted it through our actions and inactions, which have permitted a nation of white supremacy to persist. I do not want white people to hate themselves, nor am I saying that we are all bad people. However, we must reckon with the brutal and difficult history of our nation and our participation in the making of it. Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Why do we choose not to believe who we are as a nation despite this nation revealing itself time and time again?
I invite anyone to take this journey of self-exploration with me in any of the below groups on Facebook or LinkedIn (Find White Antiracism: Fixing Ourselves and Taking Up Less Space if the links do not work). There is a lot that we can do to move forward towards a more equitable and just society, but the direction of our society will entirely depend on how we choose to participate in it.
