Five Takeaways from the Insurrection:

What the threat on our democracy taught us

Just when we thought 2021 might give us a chance to catch our breath, an insurrection occurs. It was violent, it was shocking, and it was unpatriotic. Above all, it was not surprising. The insurrection in our U.S. Capitol building was astonishing in some ways, but for those of us who have been paying attention, it wasn't far off from our wildest fears about the Trump administration. While tragic, I do believe the insurrection was necessary in order to open the eyes of those who have ignored everything the marginalized have been saying for the past four years.

Here’s five takeaways from the insurrection:

1. Black people BEEN KNEW this could happen.

When Trump was running for office, spreading lies and hate, and nothing seemed to stop his fan base from supporting him, we saw the danger then. Personally, when he won in 2016, I believed the world would end. I at least thought he was going to start World War 3 (he may have been close a couple of times, but thank God he didn’t).

In a 2016 campaign rally in Iowa, Trump literally said, “They say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”

Sadly, this may be one of the few times he was actually telling the truth. Trump’s rhetoric has encouraged hate and violence since day one, as hate crimes increased 20% during the Trump presidency. He repeatedly refused to condemn white supremacy, even when he was endorsed by members of the KKK.

Right-wing extremism and conspiracy theories also took a rise during his presidency. Many insurrectionists are Q’Anon conspiracy theorists, who believe that the world is run by a bunch of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.

More than conspiracy theories and constant racist rhetoric (spurred both by Trump and Fox News), there were specific hints that an uprising was coming:

• Aug. 25, 2020 - Kyle Rittenhouse arrested for the murder of two Black Lives Matter protestors. He has since posted his $2 million bail (thanks in part to evangelical groups) and has been seen canoodling with Proud Boys.

• Oct. 8, 2020 - Six men arrested for the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

• Sept. 30, 2020 - During one of the 2020 presidential debates, Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” on national television. Now we know exactly who they are and what they were standing by for.

• Jan. 6, 2021 - Rudy Giuliani calls for “trial by combat”.

• Ever since he lost in a fair election, Trump has spread lies about the election being stolen, and continued to do so, even after the insurrection. He was eventually banned from various social media platforms.

Throughout the years, Black people have spoken out about Trump’s dangerous rhetoric (one example being how Vice President Kamala Harris said he should have been banned from Twitter two years ago). Not enough people took our words and our fears seriously. Unfortunately, a lot of people needed to see the insurrection happen in order to believe us, and some still haven’t opened their eyes. Even though Trump is gone, right-wing extremism isn’t. I hope America will start to listen to its marginalized, before America becomes a place even Black people don’t recognize.

2. The police were not created to protect us.

The police were not created to protect and serve the common man. They were created to protect and serve those in power. Historically, in the North, the police existed to keep labor unions in control. In the South, the earliest police forces were created to hunt down runaway slaves. A system built off of such vile roots cannot truly thrive let alone fully protect those it was not meant to serve.

For years, police reform has been tried, and failed. Despite the mandate of body cameras and implicit bias training, Black and Brown Americans are still being killed by police at disproportionate rates. Black people are still being killed simply for existing while Black (need I remind you, George Floyd). Other Black people survived violation of the police, but end up with permanent injuries and trauma (Jacob Blake, Anjanette Young).

We learned Jan. 6 that the police do understand the difference between Black and White. In fact, they prepared less for the warned insurrection because they assumed this group was pro-police.

We watched as Capitol police officers literally opened the gates for insurrectionists and took selfies with them. Not to mention the failure to arrest or use force against the insurrectionists on site. Black Lives Matter rioters would have been arrested or killed had they tried this. Just last summer, police showed more force towards unarmed Black Lives Matter protestors for less (FYI there's a distinction between rioters, protestors, and insurrectionists. Language/definitions matter).

Defunding the police shouldn’t be a question after watching that footage. Every year, the U.S. spends approximately $100 billion on policing, all for domestic terrorists to just be able to walk through the Capitol armed and ready to tear down our democracy. After the insurrection, it’s very hard to prove that the police don’t exist solely to terrorize Black people.

3. Blue Lives Matter was only ever a response to silence Black Lives Matter.

“Now, it's been obvious from the start that Blue Lives Matter originated as a troll. It's a reference to the leftist slogan Black Lives Matter (BLM), of course, intended to both deflect attention from the ongoing plague of police brutality and to suggest that the left doesn't care about police lives. It's a typically dishonest piece of propaganda from a political movement that has an entirely instrumental relationship to facts — thus the maudlin carnival of fake grief whenever a police officer is killed in a way politically convenient to the far right (or when the police kill a middle-class white person, something the far right would have ignored or celebrated prior to BLM).”

- What 'Blue Lives Matter' was always about, The Week

4. All these flags mean the same thing.

The usage of these flags are explained in this video from TIME:

5. Unity without justice is dangerous, historians say. Just look at the Civil War:

“'Time and time again since the Civil War, the United States has chosen to “let bygones be bygones,” said historian Carol Anderson, a professor at Emory University. “When we don’t hold folks accountable for the violence that they do to American democracy, we end up with insurrectionists storming into our national Legislature,' she said.

True unity is possible, experts said, but only through fulfilling what could be called the abandoned aims of Reconstruction: accountability and a radical restructuring of unequal systems.

Experts offered a range of first steps: consequences for those who incited and participated in the Capitol riot; frank messaging from political leaders who can persuasively dismiss conspiracies and bring Americans to a shared, honest understanding of reality; investment in public education and economic supports that could help siphon away backing from white supremacist movements.”

- Unity without justice is dangerous, historians say. Just look at the Civil War, Boston Globe