Yesterday, after a night of endless doom-scrolling through Twitter and watching face after face involved in the chaos on Capitol Hill, I sent myself into a spiral of anguish and upset. I was speechless. My jaw dropped in horror at some of the videos and the words being shouted in them. I couldn’t believe the sheer bravado and ego present throughout. It was jarring, their confidence to be involved in the mob. Their pride. Their brazen example of white privilege. Storming the Capitol of our nation in plain sight, some even wearing their work badge I.D.’s. Pause for a moment and reflect on that. It is sickening.

So, earlier this afternoon I was already overstimulated. And then I tried to go on a walk and every bit felt like it was so heavy, and they soon toppled like dominoes. I ended up crying really hard at a simple response to one of the stories I shared on my Instagram. “Oh my god”. Because yes. Oh my god. I broke. I sobbed. I couldn’t reckon with the fact that so many humans felt that deep seated hatred and anger for others humans. So much so that they showed up with pipe bombs, long rifles, hand guns, Molotov cocktails, pepper spray, metal pipes, and zip ties? It’s abhorrent. And I don’t think many people can put into words how they’re feeling about this reality. It didn’t help that towards the end of my walk, I saw a bright yellow, proudly displayed “don’t tread on me” flag hanging off a balcony. Jarring.

I cried and I let it out, then took a very big step back for a few hours. I nourished my body with good, hearty comfort food. I watched comedy after smoking one of my favorite cannabis strains with my boyfriend. And I tried to fully let myself relax. It was good. It was needed. Please recharge if you need this.

I came back to my social media to people trying to argue that I was a hypocrite. That I responded to the siege on the Capitol and the dangers it presented in the context of COVID too harshly, that I didn’t say the same judgement of the “rioters” of the BLM movement. The fact that they continue to personify the concept that “black grief is criminalized while white rage is celebrated” is painful. Deeming all protesters rioters. Ignorantly lumping in detractors to the movement because it supports their narrative in order to generalize the violence to the entire 26 million Americans that participated in peaceful protests. Peaceful marches and rallies and outdoor speaking events in the support of education and community. With over 95% of those gatherings being peaceful. Some of those, many of those, peaceful gatherings were still met with force and brutality. Violence against voices calling for equal justice. And for police officers to stop killing people. And might I add, in addition to being peaceful, they also included upwards of 90% of participants wearing masks to protect others around them. I attended several marches and rallies in Denver. I have personal context. Almost every single human had a mask on. The antithesis to January 6th and the mob that was in D.C. Last thing that I hope resonates hard: The Black Lives Matter Movement is fueled by the existence of racism, police brutality, and unequal justice under the law. It’s a call for action for real changes that will save lives. What happened on the steps and in the halls of the Capitol was a “movement” fueled by very different fires.

Another thing I want to touch on to conclude: there were detractors to the movement across the nation, and the world, last year. There were people that incited behavior not in harmony with the message that was trying to be voiced by Black Lives Matter. People can see this if they actually pay attention. Protesters ≠ rioters. They are two separate groups. Now bring it back to January 6th. This group of Americans traveled across the country to “save the election”. They were not “detractors to a movement”. They were the movement. And one based on lies and continual echos of a fraudulent election. They attended a rally held by an egotistical man with an injured pride. He bled his dangerous rhetoric over his supporters. He encouraged standing strong to be a patriot, not bowing to weakness. And he told them to March to the Capitol. And they did so, armed with more propaganda and disinformation that they could somehow stop the electoral process from taking place in the Chamber of Congress, as they had already begun the session.

What happened this week was not only seditious by the President of the United States. It was the most un-American thing done by the People that I could have imagined happening. People that so proudly boast their love of the Constitution and the sanctity of our Democracy, actively fighting to stop it from working as it lawfully was. They have been so brainwashed and tricked into believing the lies of Donald Trump and his allies. High ranking officials and members of our Congress, bolstering him to millions of Americans. Twisting truths and making up entire lies. For what cause? Their own benefit. Their own personal or professional gain. You want to talk about corruption? There’s an entire chapter for you.

And the hardest part for me, watching all of this unfold in front of my eyes while scrolling social platforms last night, was that I was losing hope in the good of people with every new piece. Every new piece of evidence of the onslaught they brought with them on members of the police, members of the press, and anyone that didn’t agree with their extremist views. And make no mistake: this movement included vast swaths of white supremacists. Proud Boys. Men wearing “Camp Aushwitz” apparel. Proudly boasting their concept of a “revolution”. And there was violence. I watched people mob photojournalists. I saw people beating on law enforcement. I saw them screaming that they were the patriots, here to save America. This was why I broke down crying, trying to process the concept that these people and their ideologies are pervasive in our society right now. They showed up in the few thousand in Washington, D.C. but there are tens of thousands, likely even a few hundred thousand people that agree with the events that transpired. That they truly believe the acts were patriotic. And you want to know a terrifying reality that I’ve seen with my own eyes on social media the last day? They are teaching that mentality to their children. I saw a woman post openly on her social media that she was having her children watch the news and supporting the mob within it. Again. Jaw dropping realities presented in my doom-scrolling.

A few hours pass after posting about my breakdown. And a new online friend commented. And she told me that I was grieving. Processing the loss of hope and belief that so many people were good and that only a few were not. Of course we want to believe that. We want that to be a rock-solid truth. But watching what happened opened my eyes to the fact that the numbers are not as small as my heart would have hoped for. Between watching the news AND watching people support this assault on our democracy, it was all too much. And she’s right. I was processing grief.

Shortly after processing though, I stumbled across a story from a woman named Sharon. Someone who teaches about government and understands history and constitutional context. She shared tonight about a fundraiser she had back in December. She wanted to mark and celebrate reaching 50,000 followers on her page, a page where she shared educational content about the election and the electoral college. She thought she could raise $1,000 for her community to support people in the most need. Her stretch goal was $5,000. And this woman raised $125,000 in a week. Because of small donations by thousands of people. And she used that money for so much good, that it brought me to tears. She documented the entire story and journey in her Instagram stories. And gave insight into who the money was actively going to. How they were hurting and how this money could help. It took me about an hour to watch every story. And I was bawling for at least half of that time – legitimately. Not exaggerating. But you know what that story did for me? It renewed my hope. It gave me back the humility and understanding the good of so many people. So, so many humans are good. And loving. And kind and compassionate. And willing to learn how to help others and contribute to them in their most need. It was so beautiful. My eyes are still tender from watching it.

We have broken components of our nation. Some that bring me to my knees, aching. I want people to be at peace. I want universal understanding and empathy and compassion for one another. I want less excuses for poor judgement and more will to entertain an apology and a want to do better. I want accountability that stems from being humbled by the stories of your fellow man. I want compassion and empathy for others that have lived very different experiences to be a bridge to healing. And I do believe that we can do that. But it involves work. It involves active work. You have to be an active participant in dismantling white supremacist ideologies. You have to speak up and speak out when you see injustices and brutality. You have to understand that there IS a delineation between how certain demographics in our nation are treated. And it’s unacceptable. It is absolutely unacceptable. And we have to work together to uphold the truth in media and reporting, to not look for confirmation bias but to actually look for genuine sources that are beholden to the truth, beholden to the facts, with no agenda behind it. Many sources can be slightly biased, in either direction. But it’s mostly important that they. be. factual. in their reporting.

I made a note a few hours ago about the fact that we need to confront our relatives. I acknowledged the harsh truth that the people that were involved with breaching the Capitol were people’s relatives. These were peoples mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. Peoples grandparents. And if you’re denouncing the actions of these people, but you have family members or close friends that support it? I have news for you. It is YOUR work, your job to call them out or call them in. If you give them a pass because “they have a good heart, they’re just confused”, the cancer of that mob mentality merely persists at best or spreads pervasively at worst.

I have watched and monitored a few extreme right wing social media accounts over the last few months. And it all started because of the misinformation and propaganda that immediately spread after Donald Trump lost the election. It started at getting upset that a woman that I went to high school with in Northwest, Arkansas had posted a misleading article about states starting to rescind their projected win to Biden, such as Pennsylvania. I messaged her that her source was a questionable source of media, and that the information within her message wasn’t true. And that it was harmful that she shared disinformation to her 30,000+ followers on her platform. I said that it was her responsibility, with having that large of a following, to be beholden to trusted, credible media sources. And to halt disinformation and lies in its tracks. To be an advocate for honest media and credible research into news. She claimed she didn’t know that it wasn’t true and that she had taken it down; that she hadn’t seen my message and that she was just getting back to me. She stopped responding, very quickly into the conversation. And as I was clicking through her Instagram story that day, I came across a post she had written where her friend had her account “deleted again”. And she tagged her new account. I had never seen something like this while scrolling through my Instagram. I clicked on it. And I stumbled across a page created and run by a white woman that pushed out lies, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. I was taken aback at first. How had I never actually seen something like this myself up to this point? Probably because I follow some pretty sane people online. I fell down a rabbit hole after coming across this account. White woman after white woman extremists that were posed as cute, conservative, Jesus-loving Americans. Women that supported fitness and a twisted sense of Patriotism. I was honestly a little sick to my stomach. Because the woman I originally had a heated moment with followed people like this. She supported this madness. These theories. Red pills. QAnon. And then it begs the question – how many people know that she actively follows these accounts? She doesn’t ever post anything divisive or Pro-Trump crazy or conspiracy theories. She’s a white woman, educated in NWA, who has a stay at home mom kind of life, making money off of blogs and affiliate links and sponsorships. She’s a Christian woman who follows extremist accounts. And that just hints at another harsh truth: she is NOT the only one. There are plenty just like her. Sweet, seemingly intelligent, calm people. That coyly support chaos. I’ve never seen it before and it’s unnerving.

So I bring it back around to what people keep comparing the attack on the Capitol to: the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight for equal justice under the law and dismantling of white supremacist ideologies. The fight for liberation from systemic oppression baked into our systems and infrastructures. That fight is a big fight. That fight involves federal government and local governments and so many higher, heavier issues. But I was reminded in beautiful eloquence by a woman named Kelechi Okafor, an Actor/Director and podcaster from Britain. I watched a video tonight where she so perfectly summed up “your racist relatives” on her Instagram page. And she touched on the idea that if you’re giving your relatives a pass because they lived in “a different time” than now: “if they are breathing in and out right now, they are of *this* time” and that they can grow and evolve with the time, as they’ve grown and evolved in a multitude of other ways. But they just can’t get past their pesky racism. And we can’t allow that to persist. Before we start trying to tackle dismantling white supremacy in our highest systems, the heavy weights, we need to also commit to tackling the racism and oppression present in our immediate circles, the lighter weights.
Call out and call in. I know there are more people that condemn this chaos than condone it. More people know and trust in our democracy and democratic process and they recognize that this mob was an embarrassment to our nation across the world. It is a dark stain on our history. Our sitting President incited a mob to attack our representatives in Congress, and our Vice President of the United States. That is heavy. And it’s taken me a few days to begin to process that. We need to make sure that we call out and condemn the people that we know more personally that want this eruption to continue. That continue to follow extremist accounts. That post messages that evoke extremist behavior. That follow the back up accounts of media that gets banned.
This is not patriotic. This is not American.