Keep the Focus on Whiteness
The storming of the Capitol yesterday, January 6th was a reprehensible, violent, and disgusting showcase of white supremacy, white privilege, and white rage. It was not a protest. It was a terrorist attack. Yesterday was a reminder to the country and the world that whiteness posits itself to be superior to all, including the democratic government. January 6th started as a day to celebrate the monumental flipping of Georgia and the Senate. And those hopes of a more democratic, more fair, more equitable future were quickly and purposely vandalized and destructed. Lynchings were done to remind Black people of their place and demonstrate what happens if they got out of it. Lynchings were a demonstration of power and evil. Yesterday was the same.
Soon after the news broke, there were many folks who quickly questioned, “what if this was a group of Black people?” While I understand the argument and the strong desire to show the egregious double standard around how white and Black and brown bodies are policed, I pause because the imagined scenario also shifts the focus to Black death, which is already a dominant narrative of white supremacism and racism. So while folks highlight and point out the disportionate policing practices that kill Blacks, we allow for the gross display of white supremacy to fade into the background.
Not today!
Let’s focus our attention on the white supremacy, white privilege and white rage that litters the pictures and videos seen by the world. We are witnessing what happens to the oppressors’ minds after 400+ years of killing, raping, pillaging BIPOC bodies and communities and then justifying it with false and dehumanizing narratives, which dominant our society’s consciousness. What we saw yesterday was a fear-fueled desperate attempt to protect those narratives. White supremacy is like an autoimmune disease and has began to attack its own body.
