Now Is the Time for White People to Pick a Side
The Capitol insurrection awakened some of America’s greater parts. But can the country’s majority stay woke?
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The storming and seizing of the Capitol building will forever remain etched in our collective memory. It’s challenging to forget an assault on democracy or see a federal institution penetrated. Politicians were hunted for harming. We saw property destroyed and defaced — with feces and urine left behind.
The damage superseded government property. A week after the insurrection, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a video sharing her experience inside the Capitol as she hid from domestic terrorists while fearing her life. Four Democratic members of Congress caught Covid-19, likely due to being bunkered for hours with unmasked Republicans. The siege produced several deaths, including a woman who was crushed, another shot in the neck, and suicides by a Capitol police officer and a rioter who faced criminal charges.
While the insurrection was a treasonous travesty of historic proportions, it may prove to be a real watershed moment. Whether in Tulsa in 1921 or Charlottesville in 2017, America has a habit of deflecting from the truth. Yet what spoke thunderously over the past week wasn’t a visually impaired United States of America. Instead, the red, white, and blue exhibited a hawk’s optics and swiftness. Not only did the nation look into the mirror and face its poor health, but it also took immediate action to extricate its cancer(s).
The question now is, will the rest of America join this fresh path toward reckoning? In this very moment, Americans — specifically, White ones — can begin to redefine themselves and discontinue their horrible contributions to world history.
First, the president was pinned as the author of this terrible chapter in U.S. history. Then the feds sought to punish all who were foolish enough to follow the Robert E. Lee reincarnate. Many were tracked down, arrested, and charged (the least intelligent assisted in their capture by posting selfies inside the Capitol). Some of the cowards who…
