What happened at the US Capitol

What happened this past week at the United States Capitol has shaken the world. In classes, I was grateful that teachers began by opening up the floor to a discussion about the riot. In Leadership Training, we spent the day talking about the importance of creating spaces to support each other and have discussions about what we felt. 

I sit here today, still processing what happened. A precedent. Chaos. An insurrection. Something our Founding Fathers would find unthinkable. Something that threatened democracy throughout the entire world. I echo what the news, my peers, and my teachers have all said. This was a failed attack on American democracy. In fact, in October, I wrote a post about how the heart of the 2020 election was really democracy, one that put this very founding principle of this country on the line. 

I suppose it was innocent of me to assume that the current president would back down after losing the election, that he would peacefully cede power. I suppose it was innocent of me to assume that there would be a peaceful transition of power, because the truth is that nothing that happened on Wednesday was surprising. And the possibility of having a "peaceful transition of power," as the president finally said later this week, is impossible. That possibility flew out the window as soon as the rioters broke into the US Capitol. Perhaps the scariest part of it all is that Donald Trump has set a precedent for future violent transitions of power, blackening the prospects for democracy. 

All I remember is receiving a notification on Wednesday afternoon, January 6th, at around 2:15 PM. My parents had left the house, so I was alone. I clicked onto the WSJ to find an all-caps a massive headline about the riots at the US Capitol. When I clicked into the article, I found a huge page of live updates and news. Then I checked the NYTimes, in disbelief, and found the same situation. Then I turned on the TV to find that the entire world was already watching what was happening at the US Capitol. I find myself repeatedly writing US Capitol, not just Capitol, because this is something unthinkable in the United States of America, the founder of democracy. In fact, one of my friends from Brazil said that seeing this riot in the US terrified her because it solidified the rule of authoritarian leadership in other countries. 

However, the aspect of this riot that stood out to me immediately was the conspicuous, irrefutable display of white privilege at the US Capitol. I think Dr. Ibram Kendi, a professor at Boston University, summed it up perfectly.

I'm currently reading "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo outside of school. So many aspects of racism that I hadn't observed before became clear after reading DiAngelo. But nothing compares to seeing white supremacy written about in a book versus manifest in real life. This riot was about protecting white solidarity and supremacy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said:

"It has been an epiphany for the world to see that there are people in our country led by this president – for the moment – who have chosen their whiteness over democracy…That's what this is about."

It's scary to think about how Donald Trump has normalized racism. His platform has reignited the roots of racism that generations have worked to dismantle. On the flip side, this also speaks to the fact that the United States was never as anti-racist and progressive as we thought it to be, and that we have so much more work to do. 

Many thoughts are running through my head right now. Should we move remove Donald Trump? Yes because we need to show the world that no one is above the law. But would it simultaneously divide the country even further? I'm unsure. I'm horrified by what's played out in our country this past week. I'm utterly disgusted. But I'm not surprised. This isn't "un-American" as many people have said because masked behind America's claims to democracy are strong roots in racism.