January 6, 2021 was a day in America that will never be forgotten. It was the counting of the Georgia state runoffs, as well as the senate meeting to certify the election. You’d think after the previous year we just had watching this country, and the world, be flipped upside down, that there wouldn’t be much left to surprise us. However, that is obviously not the case, and ‘normalcy’ is looking farther and farther away. At Least now with a new president, America has a chance to be ‘Great Again’.

So, what did happen yesterday? By the time I fully realized what was going on, too much had already happened for me to even try to make sense of it all. Thankfully. Blackformation has more eyes than just my own (thank you, Jordan Hansen). I’m sure there is more than we can cover here.

This is what we know.

The day started with the senate meeting in the capitol building in Washington, DC to certify the next election. Several state votes went by without issue… that is, until objections were made by a group of republicans, mainly led by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The group was calling for a “10-day audit” of the results after “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations, and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.”

Before I continue, people need to be aware that these words throughout history have come from the mouths of dictators and government agencies trying to either steal power or destabilize the government. The United States would police/sanction these actions if they had come from other countries. I know I’ve spoken on this many times, but the foundation of hypocrisy on which this country stands is disgusting and needs to be addressed.

This day is a perfect example of why addressing our nation’s hypocrisy is critical to the growth of our country, and the preservation of personal safety and national security. Not all of the Republican party has completely lost sense of reality and what being American actually means. I’d say, most notably, the words of Mitch McConnell during the senate hearing speak about how overturning the election would be a death spiral for democracy.

Of course, he is not the only Republican to speak out against this disgusting misuse of power. That being said, I don’t want to give too much credit to these people, because the people that are speaking out now are the ones that have enabled this in the first place. I do have respect for them identifying the issue and confronting it, instead of blaming ANTIFA.

People that think ANTIFA caused this must have an enormous amount of accepted ignorance, given that the ‘protestors’ that stormed the capitol building were only nearby because Trump was holding a rally outside. At the end of the rally, on video, Trump himself told his supporters to march toward the capitol. Power cannot deny the truth when it’s caught on camera, and the whole world is watching it live.

On this day, after the president told his supporters to storm the building, on camera you see the police letting people open the gate and walk right through. Senators were informed via text that the Capitol had been breached. Just as the mob was entering the hall, the public livestream was cut. Senators, House Representatives, and staff report being given gas masks as they were evacuated.

The mob was made up of Trump supporters, Proud Boys, Neo-Nazis, The 3%, and many other well-known white supremacist groups. This mob caused the Capitol to be put on lockdown. Four people died during the insurgency, and many more were injured. There were bomb threats, and physical bombs were found in the left and right wings of the building. The FBI reported disposing of additional devices that were uncovered in Washington after reports of improvised explosives on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol during Wednesday’s rioting. “Two suspected explosive devices were rendered safe by the FBI and our law enforcement partners,” a spokesperson for the bureau said in a statement. “The investigation is ongoing.” The mob also vandalized and stole from the Capitol building of the United States of America.

Mayor Muriel Bowser requested the full activation of the D.C. Guard to support local and federal law enforcement as they responded to the situation at the Capitol. The Pentagon held up the National Guard to discuss the optics of having uniformed government personnel sent into the capital. The request was eventually approved. There have been no other requests from the D.C. government.

State representatives later started reporting their safety, while calling for consequences to be placed on Trump and other Republicans for inciting a coup. The mob then started targeting members of the media, moving from point to point, systemically pushing them out, and eventually attacking them directly until they had no choice but to flee. The on-site journalists had to leave behind thousands of dollars of equipment that was stolen and destroyed by the mob.

Throughout the evening, multiple videos surfaced of Capitol Police walking hand in hand, enjoying life, and taking selfies together. All of this was documented by live streamers. In one of the streams that showed police taking selfies with the mob, you could hear people yelling “ACAFT” (All Cops Are For Trump), a play on “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards). There is a lot of video evidence showing that the police did absolutely nothing to stop the situation from escalating, as well as strong evidence that many did the exact opposite.

When I was watching the live streams, it caused me to tear up a little because of how many times I was on the street protesting this year—how I had to defend my people, and myself. So many times, we were blamed for things we had no part in. We were called thugs, goons, and animals. And these people were being called ‘peaceful protesters’ and ‘patriots’ as the U.S. Capitol was being overthrown?

We never made people fear for their lives. We went out there fearing for our own, and we had to earn the title of ‘peaceful protesters’. This was not the only state Capitol that was under siege on January 6; the Capitol building in our own state of Washington was also a target. The Olympian reported that a pro-Trump rally grew “more aggressive, focusing its anger largely at the nearby Governor’s Mansion.” Thankfully, the Governor and his family are safe, but the January 6 incidents are only symptoms of an underlying disease in our country.

After the Washington, DC Capitol building was cleared, the senate reconvened, and within a few hours, the election was certified. Joe Biden will be the president, and the Democrats now hold the senate majority. I feel the white liberal frame of mind now has another excuse to not give Black people what they are owed.

The white liberal no longer needs to pander to Black people because the election is over. The white liberal and white America will pander to these ‘Patriots’. They will say that violence leads to nothing, but violence is how this country has ownership over anything.

No longer are we bought and sold, only outright owned.

If you didn’t know what white privilege was, you should now.

A narrative by us for us: Blackformation

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Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash