I opened my inbox today to an email about the domestic terrorist acts of 6 January 2021 that contained a statement that I want to share with you. I really do. But because I'm not sure what the rules are around directly quoting an email, I think the safest thing to do would be to paraphrase.
This person said that what happened yesterday (which he referred to simply as violence) "punctuated" the feelings we've all been having about the "rioting, burning, looting, and violence" of the past year. He went on to talk in more detail about the Black Lives Matter protests of the past year using words like destruction, serious injury, and deaths. All of this about the BLM protests, and one tiny line about what happened yesterday: that it "punctuated" the feelings that have been stirred up by those scary black folk.
OK. That last part is editorializing. But you get my point. He made an equivocation. And I said aloud, "Oh, for fuck's sake." because my mood was seriously not up to this.
I've gone rounds with this person before on issues of race and my responses to his statements don't seem to hold any sway. But maybe someone else today needs to hear what I would say if I thought my words would make a difference. Here's what I'd say to someone who thinks any parallel should be drawn between the BLM movement and the events of 6 January 2021.
If you find yourself needing to equate the terrorist acts of yesterday with the BLM protests in past years, that's your racism talking. There is no parallel. No similarities exist between the reasons yesterday's terrorism occurred and the reasons black Americans have taken to the streets in protest. No similarities exist in the way police responded to yesterday's acts and the way they respond to BLM protests. No similarities exist between the fear black Americans experience and the privilege white Americans experience.
There are a lot of people who have supported Trump right up to this bitter end skipping past acknowledging the reality of yesterday and heading directly into "we need to heal" and "now is the time for prayer" and "we've seen so much violence over the past year." Papering over their shame with platitudes.
But let's just not. It's OK to be ashamed. We should all be ashamed that we've come to this and that rather than acknowledging it for what it is, we are grasping at straws, mumbling "they did it first" like a pack of kindergartners. What happened yesterday was an unprecedented act of domestic terrorism aimed at taking democracy out at the knees. And if yesterday was the first day you thought, "Um, maybe these people aren't my people?" I urge you not to back away from all this with your hands up.
This is what Trump has been promising every day of his presidency. White power. No rules for the privileged. Hate and violence. An erosion of democracy and the very law and order he loves to call on. This is what he promised. This is what he called on his Americans to take up arms for. This is what he delivered. And the fact of the matter is, this is what Trump supporters wanted right up until they had to look in the mirror that yesterday held up. Maybe not all they wanted. Maybe not what they consciously admitted they wanted. But undeniably part of the package.
When I was in middle and high school, my mom warned me a lot about the company I kept. No one in particular—it was just an ever-present warning about anyone I might consider befriending. She'd tell me (and I'm seriously paraphrasing here) a rose in a dumpster doesn't make the garbage smell like a flower; it makes the rose smell like trash.
So I'm just saying. If you're noticing an odor about yourself this morning and you're doing your best to distance yourself from the smell, that's what's up. You done slept with garbage for the last four years and you've woken up this morning with one hell of a shame hangover.
I started this by saying that it's really not my style to blog condemnations. So to restore myself to myself, I want to end this by saying that the paragraph I paraphrased from the email that set me off this morning doesn't account for everything that was said. The email was an unequivocal denunciation of yesterday's terrorism. But that doesn't excuse the impulse to equate what happened yesterday with BLM demonstrations and protests.
It's not the same.
If you want to talk about why it's not the same, I swear on Dolly Parton I can come down off my soapbox and talk to you about that. Human to human. I can talk and I can listen. I'll empty my pocket of stones and try to put my condemnation to bed. But give me another 24 hours, OK? Because in all sincerity, I am in a mood.
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