This podcast extra is a short conversation with some insights and reflections on the Capitol Riot of January 2021.
Transcript: Exploring the 2021 Capitol Riot
Penny: Sometimes we record extras that just don't make it into one of our standard episodes. This short podcast extra centers on the capital riot of January 2021.
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I think another example that might help us see how racism is kind of built into safety keeping or law enforcement a little bit is to just mention briefly the capital riot that happened in January of 2021, right?.
Eric: Briefly.
Penny: So honestly, I just I just listened to a piece of the testimony of one of the safety or police officers that was injured in that. And it was …he was amazing. I just listened to him and thought, wow, what an amazing American, you know, fighting and trying to keep people safe and doing everything he could. And I was like, wow, we want more people like him in positions like that. So I was really impressed with him. But then also the whole time and even in January, I was … had this moment where I'm like: so, if the crowd that had stormed the capital had all looked Asian. Or all looked after predominantly looked African-American or had all identified as Muslim, the conversation would have been so different and potentially I actually sadly believe the reaction of the officers on the spot or the people with guns and the law enforcement people might have been different. And of the American public that that would have been different, too. And the whole conversation would have been different. But because they were mostly white, it's a completely different conversation. And I think that just indicates a little bit that it's a little racialized. You know. Things happen differently in confrontations like that if the perceived perpetrators are white looking versus if they're people of color or religious minorities like Muslims.
Eric: Yeah. There's so much. You just say brief, you briefly mentioned that, but there's so much and there was so much on social media. You know, there is such a thing as black Twitter. I mean, it's not it's not separate from Twitter, but. …Black folk who tweet or black influences on Twitter and other social media platforms. Black Twitter was abuzz for a long time and still black Twitter is still engaged in all of it, especially in light of yesterday. Yeah, just from everybody. Just about everybody who’s a black tweeter the black influencer. It was saying if, maybe raising your point, Penny, if that crowd was black, number one, it was no no way that they would not have intelligence saying that this is a dangerous crowd. They would have known that and they would have been ready. So a lot of us, and I'm included in this, we were saying that there was no way that a predominantly African-American group, would’ve even got near the capital. So. and if so, yeah, there would've been a lot more bloodshed, you know, to your point. So I'll I'll leave it at that. That… that's brief.
Will: I don't follow black Twitter or black Twitter doesn't follow me up on, but I remember thinking the same thing. I use the word fore-scripted. It feels like that's the way it is. You look at the characters and all the characters in this case are not Black Lives Matter people or groups associated with them that are planning to protest. It's a political protest that is not entirely white folks, but mostly white folks. You know, the vast majority and it's perceived as a political protest rather than a planned riot and things like that. And so the event happens in a different way. And in this case, it was much more police officers getting injured, although some of the people who were rioting and so on the capital also were injured and one person was killed. But, yeah, it would have been scripted very differently from the anticipation and planning to deal with phases all the way through to the police response as the event is unfolding. And then the response would have been different to about, you know, who the good guys and the bad guys are. You know, the police officers are the good guys or the bad guys. Were the people protesting or rioting and […] the good guys and bad guys. And so much of these things have a color cast.
Eric: That's right. And and even the language that the insurrectionists, quote, unquote, and I'll use that term because one of the police officers testified yesterday used that term. He describes people and also to another police officer. He he was repeating what the folks themselves who called on themselves and they call themselves patriots. So even that term, that term’s racialized. Who is considered a patriot, an American patriot? You know, is that is that a white person or a white man, to be more precise, who acts in loyalty to the country's creed and principles and that sort of thing? And I would say with that also the the social order of things. So that's why I think these people were really defending the social order, not simply stop “the steal.” But there's this whole whole set of of of assumptions. Oh, with the whole … that whole movement.
Will: To make another comparison, and this is this is not a perfect one, in some ways it's problematic. But in the 1960s, when the Black Panthers in California in 1967, protested on the steps of the California statehouse, visibly armed with with handguns and shotguns and so on, the response in California, including by the then governor Ronald Reagan, a Republican, was to pass state bills controlling guns, prohibiting carrying loaded firearms. And the NRA, the National Rifle Association, supported this. You know, in contrast today and the response to armed people at the statehouse in Michigan protesting on COVID 19 policies, many of them heavily armed. So there's a racialized quality to where we think of does the armed people in the threat of violence need to be contained or do armed people and the threat of violence need to be celebrated as patriotic.
Penny: Yeah. If you just close your eyes a minute and you and you try to imagine, picture a white man with a gun. He's either wearing orange and hunting deer or he's a patriot. But if you close your eyes and you imagine a black man with a gun. Right, then suddenly that's going to be the dangerous criminal.
Eric: Right.
Will: And these days, even if you imagine a white guy is wearing a black jacket or that other military looking equipment, you know, and and invading a legislature, as happened again in Lansing, Michigan. Again, it's it's a sign of patriotism. And so there's these racial inflections shape (that) a lot of our responses to how we see organized protests and … or people and the possibility of violence.
Penny: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Race in America is so complicated.
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