If they’d been black so many would be dead
HAD the rioting pro-Trump mob at the US Capitol been black men and women protesting the treatment of black lives, so many of them would be dead.
Had they been railing against Tuesday’s announcement that no police officer would be charged over yet another fatality, this time Jacob Blake – shot several times in the back as he got into a car containing his children – they would have sent in the National Guard.
The reaction would have been brutal. Ugly. Horrific.
We have seen it too many times to uphold any lie surrounding it. Remember the anger Trump tried to heap on those exercising their right to march over the killings of
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor?
This time he was twiddling his thumbs on Twitter as Capitol Hill and American democracy went up in metaphorical flames. Would a black protester have been able to smile for the cameras carrying a podium as he strolled around the building? No. Would they have waited hours before moving in riot police – with senators barricaded inside the Capitol building – had the demographics been different? No chance.
What is striking is that while Trump and many Republicans have tried to claim that “this is not who we are”, the lack of action and the entitlement showed it is exactly what America has melted into.