I should have known something was up when I saw their big trucks with their big flags on the highway this morning.
Today a mob of crazed Trump supporters ambushed the U.S. Capitol Building and successfully interrupted the proceedings to cast electoral college votes that confirm President-elect Biden in office. I sat in my edit suite at work, watching the events unfold on ABC News.
When I came home, my girlfriend was disturbed by the whole ordeal. I took a moment to discuss it with her, but soon I was at a loss for words over how to describe my emotions for what happened. She continued to describe how it was proof that American law enforcement are racist: for not showing overly-aggressive force against a group of vandals on federal property, but showing it during the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. I had a hard time responding, so I said, “I don’t know,” and got ready for our evening work out before dinner.
We had a hard HIIT session today. Really difficult, very sweaty.
We started up the oven and prepared our frozen taquitos for dinner. It was unusually quiet, so I tried to get a conversation going. Eventually, I learned that the national news was still weighing heavy on her mind, and heart. It got me thinking a little about myself and how I process world events.
There was a part of me that treated it like a distraction. I struggle to focus on what’s important right in front of me. I didn’t want to let a big event so far removed from my physical existence and livelihood get in the way of how I felt about myself and my mood today. I have a hard enough time as it is to manage my own emotions and keep a reasonable self esteem. Or at least those were the excuses I put up, at first.
When the protests were happening last summer, I didn’t know how to respond emotionally then, neither. It was all overwhelming. Having to come to terms with the racial biases in law enforcement, and figuring out how that translated both in politics as well as my personal life, was challenging. On one hand, I want to be oddly loyal to my country. I have a lot of pride about where I come from and it’s not for any particular reason other than that I simply come from here. It’s where I was born so I see it as the land that gave me the opportunity to be who I am today. Yet, on the other hand, I struggle to keep that love for country when I reckon with the hard truth that racism is ingrained in us. It’s become hard-wired. I really work hard to break the binds of my color-blindness. My relationship right now shows me that I still have a lot of work to do.
Was today absent of aggressive law enforcement in response to the coup? Yes.
Was it an act of racial preference, profiling these mostly-white law breakers as first class protestors? Hard to say, regretfully.
But I think the case was made well for me today to say yes. Compared to the governmental reactions to demonstrations and rallies held just a couple seasons ago that too often produced confrontations by police, it would appear that some strange special treatment this time around has allowed unruly, disgruntled and dangerous mobsters to waltz freely through the chambers of American democracy.
My tears are black today.