Today America Showed Us Exactly Who It Is. Believe It.

This is how injustice rots everyone to the core

David Dennis, Jr.
LEVEL

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Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump as they storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images

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I know I shouldn’t feel this way. I fight it with everything I have. I’ve worked to feel something other than what my most base instincts are pulling at me to feel. My brain tells me to keep these thoughts somewhere in my gut, away from my mouth and the keyboard at my fingertips. But I can’t help it. The voice is still there: Why aren’t police shooting these people?

January 6, 2021, is one of those moments in American history we’ll always remember. One that redefined the country and tore through a bottomless well of facades built on preserving White myths. Trump supporters — whether Proud Boys or MAGA Nation or neo-Nazis or all of the above or anything else — armed themselves with heavy artillery and stormed Capitol Hill. They scaled the Capitol building. They took the House floor. They occupied the offices of sitting representatives. They did this all on national TV and live on Twitter. They livestreamed themselves doing it.

The whole time, I kept waiting for police to shoot someone.

This is how injustice rots everyone to the core. I don’t believe in police…

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David Dennis, Jr.
LEVEL

Level Sr. Writer covering Race, Culture, Politics, TV, Music. Previously: The Undefeated, The Atlantic, Washington Post. Forthcoming book: The Movement Made Us