Stop the False Equivalencies
Comparisons of Black Lives Matter protests with the terrorist attack on the US Capitol is emblematic of the entire problem with white supremacy.
With Black Lives Matter, there’s deep anger around law enforcement murdering people of color. Often, as they gasp, “I can’t breathe.” And it’s not isolated to murder. It’s part of deep, systemic racism that people of color have been living with (and being tortured, raped, lynched, starved, enslaved, discriminated against, mocked, dehumanized, and murdered by) for hundreds of years.
The unprecedented terrorist attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters was not motivated by hundreds of years of horrific oppression. Nor was it motivated by a current state of oppression that is grounded in a material reality. It was motivated by the voice of a scared and angry white man (Donald Trump) who has helped unleash their emotional fears of being socially displaced. That little white man in their heads is telling them that an election was stolen, when in fact: it was entirely legitimate. He’s feeding them the kind of fake information that motivated white people to commit heinous crimes throughout history, just as he did with the Central Park Five.
People of color face a threat that is real, dangerous, deadly. Trump supporters face a threat that is fake, delusional, manipulated.
